Five months is a decent amount of time for a back to heal, and I like your take on the plot points. I hate the term "twist", and I hate people who 1) go into movies and books trying to anticipate every direction the plot will head, and 2) get angry when they "saw it coming." Of course you freaking saw it coming, you twit - you ran through every possible scenario in your pin head instead of enjoying the story.

The big "twist" wasn't a twist or surprise to anyone vaguely familiar with Batman's story or the casting news. It was a natural progression for the story to take, and it was an understandable surprise for Bruce, who had no reason to believe Bane wasn't the child who had climbed out of the pit and who in his close association with Ra's Al-Ghul had reason to believe the latter had no surviving family.

I went to the triple feature on Thursday, and I finally realized something after my fifth or sixth viewing of The Dark Knight. Batman's voice at the end of the movie is perfectly understandable. He had to have broken or at least severely bruised his ribs when the Joker pinned him under that gate in anticipation of the ferry explosion(s), and Bale played the rest of the scenes as if he had a significant rib injury. I defy anyone to disguise their voice with such an injury and avoid sounding the way he did.