TDKR is a pale comparison of its predecessor. As a matter of fact TDKR does not even surpass Batman Begins. Bane was a very boring villain; albeit far better than the camp of Batman & Robin. Bane's origin was ridiculous. Joker, Ra's and Scarecrow were all better villains. The story itself meandered about without any clear purpose. The film was too long and the action sequences were left with much to be desired. The lone bright spot was Selina Kyle. The ending was cliched but somewhat satisfactory. Between the two, Avengers is the better film.

Alright. First off, the themes.

Batman Begins was a movie about such topics as Fear, Corruption, and Redemption. Fear was the weapon of choice for both the good and bad guys, Gotham was corrupt, and the reason the conflict existed was because Batman and the bad guys disagreed over whether the city could be redeemed. The Dark Knight, meanwhile, was more about whether people are intrisically good or bad entities and how far people are willing to go to stop a villain. Hence, the amazing boat scene that was a clever twist on the prisoners' dilemna and the entire subplot about hacking into all of the cell phones respectively.

The Dark Knight Rises themes', in contrast, are less obvious. What exactly is the chief moral philosophy at play? If we listen to what Bane says, it's something about "the people of Gotham" and how the police are oppressors and such. And we're supposed to feel sorry for the rich people getting their houses looted and for the people brought to the kangeroo court, so I guess this film is trying to say "populist revolutions are bad." The problem is, we really don't see that much in the way of the people of Gotham. The people fighting the police and looting and such are the mercenaries/Bane's fanatics. And these guys don't exactly look like the 99%. They're obviously Middle-Eastern, from whatever country that prison is in.

So the moral of the story seems to be "populist uprisings suck and are only caused by damn evil foreigners." Oh, and it's all for nothing cause they're going to blow up the city anyway for dramatic reasons. I seriously hope I'm misunderstanding something obvious.

But even if that's not the moral of the story, or what it's about, why is it so hard to decipher? The other two movies had depth, but their basic premises of "Is Redemption Possible?" and "Do People Suck?" were blatant. Why does TDKR go to such lengths to hide what it's about?

Next up, believeability. I'm going to point out a few things that bothered me, and I feel like weren't sufficently adressed.

How did Blake know that Bruce Wayne was Batman? He just saw him once and went "yep, seems batish." That's... cheesy. What is cheesy doing in my sequel to The Dark Knight?

What exactly so so intimidating about the prison? At first, it was like "nobody has ever escaped!" But by the end, it was "this place is totally unguarded and is incapable of holding onto a traumatised 12 year old girl." Jesus, it's like a villanious counterpart to Arkham! How did nobody ever escape?

How did Bruce Wayne get from that prison to Gotham? As in, how did he go to the other side of the planet, penetrate military barriers, and cross the heavily guarded river that nobody was supposed to be able to get across? 30 seconds of footage showing him stowing away on a plane or something could have made this believable, but for Pete's sake, it's practically implied that the prison is in downtown Gotham considering how easy it is to travel to and from! Oh, and he somehow found the person he's looking for in a city of 12 million.

Anyhow a few other things that bothered me.

After Catwoman kicks a cripple, how are we supposed to root for her in later scenes?

Why did Batman keep on leaving his mouth open after he talked? It was like he was saying "derp!"

Bruce Wayne just let everyone think he and Batman are dead? Including the audience? That is shirking his duties. You know, the exact opposite of what a superhero does.

How did Bruce Wayne know to go to that particular cafe on that particular day?

Holy cow I forgot that! I totally didn't get it too...

The ending was great. Because everybody thought Bruce Wayne would die. It was a happy ending a fantastic happy ending.

And how was Bane a boring villain? This version of Bane is the best version by far.

I would actually argue that The Dark Knight Rises's themes are a combination of the first two movies, and the reason it may seem less clear is because it is resolving the themes and not introducing something new. Fear, Corruption, Redemption and the question of whether man is implicity good or evil were all still present in The Dark Knight Rises ...

This type of situation has been covered in most versions of Batman, and the general argument is that there (realistically) are only a few people who could be Batman. Most people don't consider Bruce Wayne because he is a spoiled rich kid and believe he is far too shallow of a man to be Batman; in a similar fashion to how everyone ignores Clark Kent as Superman because he is far too meek of a person to be Superman.

If you saw his true character it is reasonable to assume that it would suddenly become obvious that he was Batman; after all, who has the money and free time to be Batman and is actually young enough and fit enough to pull it off?

Or to put it another way, murderers get caught because few people have the motive and opportunity to murder a particular person. In a similar fashion, someone could figure out that Bruce Wayne was Batman by realizing that he had the motive and opportunity to be Batman.

I don't think this was supposed to be a "villanious counterpart to Arkham", I think the whole point was that it was designed to be a cruel prison that taunted people with the possibility of escape ... A place you throw the trash of the world that no one would want to rescue.

Think of the tunnel as something only an expert climber in the peak of fitness could climb, and think of most of the prisoners as out of shape malnourished middle aged men. While the climb could be made by some people, it is impossible for most of the prisoners to escape; and without rescue they're stuck down there.

How both of them escaped could be argued as motivation or physics ... Having the rope attached to the typical person trying to escape meant that they had a "back-up" plan and didn't give the leap of faith 100%; at the same time, the rope could have also prevented a jumper from getting 100% of the distance they could have on the leap of faith preventing their escape.

This is the one clear plot hole I have heard argued, but it could also be ignored to a certain extent by "He's Batman" ...

Catwoman is a morally ambiguous character ...

I found that scene kind of funny, and the person I watched the movie with (who was worried about her portrayal of Catwoman) said to me that "Ok, she makes a great catwoman" with that. In other words it fits her character.

Didn't actually notice that myself

I have to disagree ...

"People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy and I can't do that as Bruce Wayne, as a man I'm flesh and blood I can be ignored I can be destroyed but as a symbol, as a symbol I can be incorruptible, I can be everlasting."

Batman had to die to become the symbol Gothem needed it to be, and Bruce Wayne needed to die to destroy his ties to Gothem in order to move on with his life.

Who says he was only there once?

Alfred said that he went on vacation to that Cafe and dreamed of seeing Bruce Wayne there, Bruce Wayne hinted that he was still alive at the end of the movie and Alfred went on vacation and visited that Cafe, Bruce Wayne could have easily been going to that cafe daily waiting to see Alfred as a way of letting him know he was still alive (and making Alfred's dream come true).

I just gotta agree with this! Michael Caine rocked this movie! I had tears in my eyes at the end when he said "I've failed you" - that was some hard shit right there. That scene alone made it better than the Avengers (which I really liked as well)

DUDE!!  I hated Transformers 2 and I just watched Transformers 3 yesterday on Netflix for the first time.  If anything, The Avengers IS Transformers!!  Look at the last hour of each.  Crazy similar! 

The movie was splendid and is my second-favortite movie of all-time. Really loved Bane and there could not be anyone more fitting than him. The ending was also very good and I have to say that I did have some tears at the end of the movie, especially when Alfred made his speech at the funeral scene. I can't believe that there are so many people that places Avengers over TDKR and I can't also believe why there is a thread where Avegers and TDKR are compared, why the hell not compare TDKR to something that it has in common with, like for example TASM.

I'm gonna try to turn "They know.....THEY JUST DON'T CARE!!" Into a meme.

Just a great conclusion to a terrific trilogy. Clearly those looking for problems in this movie suffer from looking for problems in anything they see. This movie was awesome.