A bit of a mess but mostly great - they've pulled back on the Hans Zimmer, which I found I missed, and there's some very poor casting of the smaller roles - like the guy who plays the CIA agent at the beginning, the unmemorable mayor, the chubby cop, and Bane's soldiers, who all seem like chubby dudes who've strolled in from the pub.
Stuff you think they'd easily ace is poor - Michael Caine overacts in his emotional scenes (is Chris Nolan too intimidated/tired to give him direction?), the continuity is poor, there are big gaps in logic (e.g. unarmed policeman rushing and overpowering men with semi automatics, people are hostages one minute walking free the next) and really lazy screenwriting (an incredibly convenient speech left in a jacket, a foreshadowing-the-ending-scene that would have been laughed at by the writers of Point Break). This is one of the few movies where you feel it might have been better if it ran ten or twenty minutes longer
But it's a great spectacle: plenty of terrific stunts and action sequences; the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman is actually a good one here (this and Batman Begins are the only films in his series you can really say that about). It's ambition is very endearing: a whole city is shut down, parallels are drawn with the French and Russian revolutions, there is an intriguing political subtext. There's some very satisfying emotion - the drive of Bane, comeback of Batman, redemption of Selina Kyle.
Anne Hathaway, who I thought would be lame as Catwoman, is terrific - lithe, sexy, complex. Marion Cotillard is good too, ditto Bale and Freeman, with Thomas Hardy making an excellent villain. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is okay - I don't know if I want to see him as an action hero in anything. The audience applauded spontaneously at the end and for all the movie's faults, it deserved it.
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