It aint easy being brilliant...

There isn’t that much I can tell you without teetering on the border of “Spoiler alerts.”

This movie picks up 8 years after the death of Harvey Dent, Batman hasn’t been seen since that night, and Bruce Wayne has all but officially exiled himself from Gotham City life.

That is more than enough to get you started.

I would like to toss out a few random opinions, though:

• Anne Hathaway was spot on in her performance as Selina Kyle/Cat woman. Many people, mainly those that couldn’t get the image of Michelle Phifer as Cat woman in Tim Burton’s 1992 film “Batman Returns” out of their minds, questioned the casting of Hathaway. Truth is, the people questioning the Hathaway casting were also those initially questioning the casting of Heath Ledger as “The Joker.” Nobody could EVER top Jack Nicholson’s performance as “The Joker,” they said. Oh boy were they WRONG.
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s addition to the cast was both welcome and necessary. There is a reason Christopher Nolan cast the same actors in more than one of his movies. He knows how to get the best out of his actors, and he knows which ones are willing to give their best.
• Marion Cotillard simply lights up any screen that is ever blessed enough to have her on it, and her role as Miranda Tate in this film is no exception.
• It is WAY to easy to compare Tom Hardy’s performance as Bane to that of Ledger’s immortal perfomance as “The Joker.” While that is fare, seeing as how both contribute to the same series, I would urge you to try your best not to do it. Tom Hardy’s Bane is terrifying, physically imposing, and unbelievably demented. Both his mask, and his haunting voice are spot on. The truth is, other than their desire to destroy Gotham, The Joker and Bane are two completely different characters that wish destruction upon Gotham for two completely different reasons. Where they are undeniably similar, is that they were both absolutely brilliant.
• This movie showed off Christian Bale’s absolute best performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman, and set the bar incredibly high for anyone who will ever dare to rock the black bat suit again. Think about this for a second; in ALL of the Batman movies before Nolan’s trilogy, what did we ever REALLY know about Bruce Wayne? We knew that his parents died when he was a child, and that he inherited his father’s empire. That was it. As the final credits role on “The Dark Knight Rises,” and you reflect upon the ending of a trilogy that marks one of the truly great cinematic accomplishments of all time. You feel as if you know everything about Bruce Wayne. You feel his pain. You sympathize with him. You love him for his flaws and his strengths and you are always on his side. No other actor ever brought that out of Bruce Wayne/Batman before Bale, and no lesser director could’ve given him the reigns to do it.

Bottom line, you can make an argument for each of the movies in the Nolan Batman trilogy as one of the top 5 superhero/comic book based movies of all time.

They are all unbelievably brilliant and “The Dark Knight Rises” is not just a fitting conclusion to this worldwide phenomenon of a trilogy, it is a brilliant 2 hours 45 minutes of cinema in it’s OWN right.’

I feel sorry for the next director that attempts to make a Batman movie. He is almost destined to fail in his quest to upstage the great Christopher Nolan.

“Let’s see the new Batman movie then you come over and watch my “Dark Knight” rise!”

your cool, i cant wait to see the new one :)

Why thank you very such, darlin!

You’re not so bad yourself!

Unfortunately, I’ve got to wait until Sunday afternoon, but I’ve already waited 4 years. So a few more days shouldn’t kill me! Let’s just hope I don’t get drilled by a Greyhound before this Sunday….. 

“Batman Begins” was 2 hrs. 20 mins.

“The Dark Knight” was 2 hrs. 32 mins.

Don’t even ACT like you didn’t love BOTH of them!

So hush, and sit back and enjoy the fucking movie!