I FINALLY saw Batman: The Dark Knight Rises on HBO with my mom. We had caught some of it last night, but wanted to see it from the beginning since the story was really intriguing and we'd never seen it in theaters (though we did see the first two in theaters.) I enjoyed it a lot. It had plenty of action and plenty of comic book plot convolutions. The only thing I didn't like, as with everyone else, was that Bane was difficult to understand. Sure people will say "the mask, blah blah blah" but Darth Vader had an even more obtrusive mask and he was comprehensible. Then again, I'm often hard to understand whenever I wear my pseudo gas mask while gigging with my band, but for the sake of the movie, better clarity or subtitles would have helped.
Also, like everyone else, I was hesitant about Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. She's a breezy rom-com cutie whom I thought would crumble under Christian Bale's intensity. I envisioned someone like Christina Ricci as Catwoman. But Hathaway didn't just kick ass in her role, she f'n kicked balls! She totally brought the smoldering intensity.
Yeah, this is one trilogy I want on Blu-Ray.
I also like the subtle nods to not only the Knightfall comic (the way they recreated the scene where Bane breaks Batman's back was really well done
) but also to The Dark Knight Returns comic (what with the aging Batman coming out of retirement. Oh, and how he fought that one street thug ganglord trying to match his brutality and getting his arm broken. Then when he came back to fight the ganglord again in a mudpit, he was more calculating and strategic subtly cutting a hole above his eyes to blind him with blood and mud. In Rises, he subtly sliced one of the tubes on Bane's mask to disable him.)
Sure, the interpretations and backstories of the characters aren't 100% accurate to the comic, but it doesn't matter. What Christopher Nolan did here was really f'n good.