So Blake is Robin then?

I was a huge fan of the fact that they followed the stories of the comics probably more slavishly than they had done previously, most specifically with Bane breaking Batman's back and Cotillard as Talia. I also really liked the JGL as Robin nod, I'm sure as a little 'fuck you' to those fans who said they didn't want Robin in a Batman franchise - but hey, he can just be another Batman, the legend and such. Batman of the future or woteva. I'm sure they've probably provisionally locked JGL down JUST IN CASE.

I did find the politicking of the Wayne business a bit tiresome this time - it worked well in The Dark Knight as it had a nice Chaotic foil to play off, but didn't find it worked as well here. Highlights of the film for me were the opening plane bit (AIDEN GILLEN YO) the Stock Market rammie, and the subsequent car chase, and Bane and Batman's first fight - the former just seeming like an absolute fucking tank, particularly on any occasion he put the boot through Bats.

I suppose with the plot the whole 'would this happen like that?' in the modern day is there - would they really let a whole city go under siege. I know they did macguffin it away with the bomb, but hey, at the end of the day, it's still a comic book movie, and I thought that was an interesting idea.

Also CILLIAN MURPHY AND LIAM NEEESON

Bane's death seemed a blink and you'll miss it triviality after all that'd gone before it.

The Taila reveal was blindingly obvious.

If they had to have the scene at the end with Alfred in the restaurant (and they really fucking didn't), would've been better to show Hathaway's face and the back of Bateman's head.

Also, Liam Neeson is shite in everything, ever.

Agreed.  Chiefly because it didn't make sense to me that it was Bane who escaped the pit.  Surely the world's greatest detective should have twigged that Bane couldn't have escaped from the prison as a child AND had his mask attached by the prison doctor as an adult?  He's either out or he's not. Perhaps I wasn't paying enough attention, in which case I'll blame the Remy Martin filled hipflask.  

My girlfriend clocked the Bane escape / mask fitting anomaly before the reveal but wrote it of as plot hole. Passed me by but thanks to internets rumorz, I knew about the the Talia Al Ghoul connection (plus why else would the character be there?).  

Yeah, it certainly wasn't bad, but I'm a bit disappointed. It was quite bloated, I wasn't very impressed by most of the character actor ensemble cast(some of the new plot movement characters were corny as hell). At least Bane and Catwoman were quite well realised for the first half of the movie but after the brilliant and crucial moment where Bane breaks Bat's back in the tunnels, I felt the movie falls off a cliff to top that moment. The film slows to a crawl at this point, while watching Bruce ascend the pit is interesting enough it's filled with segments from the other characters that are just tedious and seemingly superfluous. The twist of Talia being involved just annoyed the hell out of me, so Shyamalan and pointless. It serves as nothing but a connection to the first film, leaving behind Bane, who the movie was actually building the character of the entire time, for little reason. I don't know, I think all these movies have serious issues with cliche that stand out, but neutering an interesting villain like that for the oldest scenario in the book, a bomb is going off and we have to defuse it. Boring. I would see it again, as there is some great little ideas here and there but it just did not grab me in anywhere near the same way as Heath Ledger's deranged agent of chaos.