The Dark Knight Fails

Saw The Dark Knight Rises last night.  Huge disappointment, utter rubbish. Takes near 3 hours to mash up tired story of evil baddy out to destroy whole of Gotham forcing Batman out of retirement so he can save the day and fake his death so he can retire again (and presumably rinse and repeat next time the studio needs to make some money)

Typical rubbish scene - Hundreds of police armed with batons charge building filled with defenders all carrying automatic weapons.  And win??  

Most memorable moment. Bomb is going to go off, so ofc has a hackneyed timer. It shows 15 minutes to go. I will forever recall my heart sinking at the realisation there is so much time left.

With benefit of hindsight its pretty obvious now that this series failed to learn from previous ones (most notably Tim Burton but also recent Spiderman).

Third/final part is always going to be the hardest to pull off so it makes sense to save the best villain for it.  For Batman this is, by a country mile, The Joker. 

So previous film should not have featured Joker, his role could equally well have been done by, say the Riddler.

Final film may then have been worth watching. 

Something else it could have done would be borrow from the The Dark Knight Returns. Another hackneyed old plot from the "Rises" film is how rookie cop turns into Robin. Way more interesting would have been if Batmans absence had been filled with vigilantes who differ from Batman in being more willing to use violence. (alluded to in Rise when Cat kills Bane). So Batman fights 2 foes, evil Joker creates and evil he has created himself.

Then his death at end becomes way more interesting. Its not just so he can go and drink martinis in the sun. Its acceptance that people need to look after themselves not rely on some super being to make everything right.  Fine sentiment, but leaves hanging the question of whether people really can live up to and desire this???