The Dark Knight Rises is THE best superhero movie thus far *SPOILERS*

[thekitchensink]

I'm still going to give the slight edge to The Dark Knight. Joker was just so menacing that you felt his presence even when he wasn't onscreen. Even when he was in jail and Batman was beating the piss out of him, you still felt like Joker had the upper hand. Heath gave a once-in-a-lifetime performance. By making Batman choose between Rachel and Harvey, he effectively made him decide 'Do I want to be Batman or Bruce Wayne?' Only he even cheated him out of THAT after he made his decision. It was just incredible.

Also, almost every line spoken by a main character in TDK was gold. 'Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. Some men just want to watch the world burn.' 'You wanna know how I got these scars?' 'I think you and I are destined to do this forever!' 'How about a magic trick?' 'I believe that whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you... stranger.' I could go on for quite a while. There was a lot of great dialogue in TDKR, too, but I don't feel it was nearly as consistent in this way.

Also, in TDKR, I know that there's nothing they could do about this, but I couldn't help but feel the absence of the Joker. Obviously it would be disrespectful to Heath Ledger to have someone else play him, but come on. They reference every little thing from the previous movies. Ra's al Ghul is in flashbacks and the hallucination (not to mention his daughter and his league of assassins), Scarecrow puts in an appearance, and the impact of Harvey and Rachel's deaths on Bruce and Gotham is made crystal clear. Even the necklace that Bruce's dad gave to his mom in the first movie is an important plot point. With that in mind, it just seemed silly that they wouldn't even mentionthe guy that ripped Batman apart psychologically. Done properly, it could have been even more respectful of Heath Ledger to acknowledge the impact that 'he' had on the series. As it is, the lack of any sort of acknowledgement felt very strange.

That said, Rises did have several things that it did better. The fight scenes were spectacular. God, the scene where Bane just absolutely humiliates Batman when they first meet was utterly fantastic. Then when Batman knocked out all the lights and you think he might escape, but Bane's like 'LOLno.' You absolutely felt like Batman could have died there. It was the only fight scene in the whole trilogy where I felt Batman was truly in danger of being physically beaten.

The climax was brilliant, too. In his final act, Batman was able to simultaneously save the city and convince the residents that he is a hero. I involuntary cupped my hands to my mouth and gasped when the Bat exploded and we thought he died. That funeral scene was absolutely heartrending. And then we get that beautiful little ending scene where he's in Italy with Catwoman living out Alfred's dream. For the first time since that day when he was a small child in that alleyway, he is truly happy.

All in all, while I still prefer Dark Knight, TDKR is probably my second-favourite superhero film, and was an excellent way to close out the trilogy.

For what it's worth, this is also the first movie I've ever been to where the audience broke out into thiunderous applause when the credits rolled :)