I liked the new characters, the story had plenty of buildup, suspense, twists, etc. All of that was great. But then there was Batman. I mean, Dark Knight "rises?" Please. This was, "Dark Knight tries to be relevant one last time before fading into meaningless obscurity, and doesn't manage it." I mean really, what did he do? He did some detective work, then got beat up and thrown in a pit. He escaped, came back and played errand-boy for the resistance, beat up on Bane a little bit before being put totally out of commission by a small knife, chased a truck in a helicopter and then flew a helicopter out over the bay.

Oh, and what was the point of faking the death of his Bruce Wayne identity? Especially since he just went and hung out in a very public cafe. We're supposed to believe he's just going to fade into the crowd and no one's going to recognize a man of his wealth and notoriety, and MAYBE complain about the falsified death?

Anyway, I digress. Back to the Batman identity, I guess I just felt like this was the first movie of the trilogy to make Batman just another guy in a cape, and I found that very disappointing. Say what you will about realism, but Batman is supposed to be awesome, not a merely human also-ran.