[t951]

So Batman is a street artist now? - After months away, being mentally tortured and physically broken, Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham. He spends the first few hours of what could be the final day in Gotham history getting purposely caught by Bane’s cronies, a huge risk, and then escapes and saves Commissioner Gordon and John Blake with mere seconds to spare. Yet somehow, with this impossibly frightening ticking clock, he finds the time to use gasoline to make a huge Bat symbol on the top of a bridge with the knowledge Gordon will be there, pick up the flare, and light it up. Theatrically is part of Batman’s persona, yes, but it seems like there might have been a better use of his time.

Bruce Wayne Forgets to Do Proper Background Checks – You would think that after Ra’s al Ghul and members of the League of Shadows crashed Wayne’s birthday party and burnt down the Wayne mansion that a stricter security policy would have been implemented for Wayne Manor events. First he hires a maid who’s actually a notorious cat burglar, then he hires a woman to head his board who’s actually the daughter of one of the most villainous individuals out there. Shouldn’t he have done a little more digging before surrounding himself with these individuals? Speaking of which, if Anne Hathaway’s Selina is easily able to adopt fake identities and hack super encrypted passwords (like the one on Wayne’s expensive safe) why does she need the Clean Slate program so badly? I mean, its probably the worst MacGuffin in the Nolan Batman trilogy.

Why Does Bane Take a Break from His Master Plan to Ship Bruce Wayne Off to the Desert? - I don’t believe the prison’s location is ever named, but it sure seems like it’s way the hell far away from Gotham. The sequence was suposed to be Jodhpur-Rajasthan, India. Would Bane really just hop a flight with Wayne at this crucial juncture in his grand master plan, just to make sure Bruce has a front row seat to the world’s destruction?

How Does Bruce Wayne Get Back to Gotham? – How does Bruce Wayne travel back to Gotham in a matter of days with absolutely no resources what-so-ever? No only is he bankrupt, but Alfred has disappeared, he has no identification of any kind which includes the necessary passports to get back into the United States. Even if he somehow gets through customs with no delay, all the entrances to Gotham City are being guarded by Bane’s thugs. The Bat is stuck on a roof of the building where Wayne left it, so he doesn’t have access to his new flying machine. And speaking of which, somehow The Bat has not been discovered in the months Wayne has been exciled in the prison. Are we supposed to believe that no one checked up there during Bane’s occupation? Or maybe that the sheet of camouflage has kept the secrecy? And when Bruce Wayne gets back, how does he know exactly how much time is left on the bomb and where Selina Kyle will be?

Why Does a Prison Exist Where People Can Possibly Climb To Freedom, And By Doing So, Free All The Other Prisoners? - Seems like pretty poor design to me.
Also, what the hell is the deal with this prison? Who runs it? Are there guards? Did Bane just put him in the prison without the warden and guards knowing? Do they just accept anyone who gets thrown into the pit? As with many elements of Nolan’s film, the prison is more of an idea than an actual place that makes sense.

The Post-Bane Gotham Feels Totally Fake - Sure, it’s cinematic to have Scarecrow hosting weird trials and sending people off into icy exile. But after that initial, effective sequence of watching rich people ripped out of their homes on 5th avenue, nothing about this Gotham feels real anymore. The streets are barren, but nearly pristine. We see only rare glimpses of the occasional Tumbler patrol. Emergency relief trucks pull up with ease. There seems to be no disorder on the streets, but hell breaks loose indoors on a regular basis. This never felt like a fully-realized place, only a series of gorgeous tableaus.

Are the Gotham City Police Department and CIA Really THAT Dumb? – Why would they send every member of the Gotham City Police Department, including the SWAT Team, into the sewers? Seems like a stupid move that wouldn’t be made by any reputable agency of law enforcement. But to make matters worse, in The Dark Knight Rises, the GCPD aren’t the only stupid government agency. In the opening prologue, the CIA agent allows hooded thugs on board a CIA plane without even finding out who the men are. Then, minutes later, the CIA airplane is unable to detect the huge non-stealth plane flying towards them.

Most of the Hand-To-Hand Combat Is Terrible – Do you remember how in those old Asian martial arts movies, a group of baddies would attack the protagonist one at a time? Do you remember how unintentionally comical that looked? That’s how I feel whenever Batman fights anyone in this film (exception: his fights with Bane, which I thought were appropriately raw and intense). For the most part, all the bad guys have guns and none of them use them. Each one just waits there turn to get their ass-kicked by Batman. Now I know why Nolan shoots all the action up-close and nearly indecipherable: because if you had a wide angle shot, seeing armed thugs stand idly by would look absolutely ridiculous.
Thing is, Nolan’s not incapable of staging good Batman action well. The truck chase scene in The Dark Knight was fantastic, as was the first time Batman takes out Falcone’s men in Batman Begins. Unfortunately, this film was short on those sorts of transcendent moments. Maybe if there were more than one Batman scene per hour, we could have seen more than this.

Multiple Ending Syndrome - At least at the end of Return of the King, each ending got room to breathe. Here, within the span of five minutes, we’re supposed to process the following: 1) Batman dies in a blaze of glory, 2) Bruce Wayne donates all of his remaining assets to the betterment of children, tying up Blake’s storyline, 3) Bruce Wayne apparently figured out how to program the autopilot on The Bat? 4) Bruce Wayne survived the crash and is now enjoying a beautiful life in lord-knows-where with Selina Kyle, 5) Alfred is totally cool with all this, and does not lose his **** at all when he finds this out. 6) John Blake takes up the mantle as Batman, with no training, no resources or mentor. Also, no one notices that Bruce Wayne and Batman disappeared at the same time. WHAT?!