I'll admit, from the trailers, I thought this was going to just be another Christopher Nolan film that made me leave the theater depressed. Boy I was more than wrong. It was a fantastic film, and hit all the right notes, at the right times from beginning to end.
I'm not going to get too deep into the plot, except that after 8 years in hiding, Bruce Wayne has good reason to return to fight crime in Gotham. The villain Bain, played superbly by Tom Hardy, who has a connection to the League of Shadows from the first film in this series, Batman Begins, emerges with plenty of men to carry out plan to leave Gotham City in ashes. Annie Hathaway, dazzles as Catwoman/Selina Kyle and manages to have great screen presence in every scene she's in. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a Gotham City cop named Blake, and also creates a very believable character from beginning to end. Overall, the acting is top notch from everyone involved, and this film has many surprises that will make fans of this series smile from ear to ear.
There's one particular scene that pretty much cemented the greatness of this film for me and paid a true homage to the old TV series. I'm not sure if anyone else saw it this way, but I know I did. Towards the climax of the movie, when you see Bain going toe to toe with Batman, in the city streets, amidst hundreds of other cops and Bain's men fighting, it truly captured what Batman and previous incarnations meant to me: Fun "zop, bam, pow" action. Seeing Bain and Batman exchange blow after blow could only make me think of the 60's TV show, as campy as it was, when Batman and Robin would go hand to hand against villain after villain. It just worked, along with everything else that worked so effortlessly in the film.
This review is not giving this film due justice. There's too many layers to absorb to be able to lay out and truly explain to you why this movie is LITERALLY bat-crap crazy good! I had more reservations about this film than probably any film I've ever waited to see in my lifetime, and everyone of them was eroded from the opening sequence. The vibe that Christopher Nolan created as a director stayed consistent throughout the entire movie. It was 2 hours and 45 minutes long and yet it felt like it was no more than 2 hours long. You will not check your watch in this movie.
Lastly, I think it's safe to say, this entry finally ended the curse of "3rd" films in comic book franchise films being really bad. However, my personal favorite out of this series is still the first one, Batman Begins. There was just something about that journey, seeing Bruce Wayne become Batman that not only worked but had replay value to it. Nuff said.
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