The review: The Dark Knight Rises movie wasn’t bad. It was more like your B-plus child standing next to your other two children (Batman Begins) and (The Dark Knight) who got A’s. The B-plus film just looks worse by comparison.

Couple pleasant surprises in The Dark Knight Rises.

1. The performances that stole the show.

Anne Hathaway. She made the Catwoman character work (and I’m not crazy about Anne Hathaway). She gave the Catwoman character a good combination of sexy, deadly, funny, powerful and sympathetic at the same time. She nailed the Catwoman persona, but still made it her own.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I liked him in Inception and 50/50 but this is the first movie that he really seemed to break away the stigma of looking like a teenager and started building character gravitas.

Michael Caine. Has always been good in the series. Even in his short scenes, he squeezes so much truth and Yoda-blow-your-mind sage wisdom into those moments, you’re thinking about it after the movie is over. Even this time where he takes more of a fatherly role.

And the villain twist. Which as a reader of Batman and the story of Ra’s al Ghul and his sibling as a kid, I should have saw coming. Head-slapping myself for that.

My problems with The Dark Knight Rises.

First of all let me say I was wrong. I predicted The Dark Night Rises movie would be horrible because I thought it was following the previous movie’s tendency to load the movie up with villains to the point the move could be called “Villains, (with special appearance by Batman). Nolan kept a lean story and didn’t overdo the characters. I bet, the lack of camp helped too.

But where I think the movie was flawed:

The story pulled me along. But unlike the other two films. The emotion of the film didn’t. The previous two movies have you rubbernecking the twisted, hurt minds of villains and heroes. None of that here. Action told the story. Not emotion.

Didn’t really feel Batman’s reason for putting back on the suit at first.

I understand Blake’s hard, childhood, but didn’t buy that as the reason he automatically knew Bruce Wayne’s identity.

Bane has more bluster than criminal genius for a standard Batman villain (you learn why) but until a plot twist is revealed, it kept making me feel like they picked the wrong villain.

Also I couldn’t figure out if Bane was a bigger threat as a villain or a character that forced me to snap out of the trance of the film to figure out what he was saying. Also that stentorian voice tone that sounded like Frazier about to sing, didn’t feel quite right for me. It’d be like the Joker talking like Sylvester the Cat.

Don’t get me wrong. The Dark Knight Rises was good. But “good” in the way, Return of the Jedi is good-only as part of a Trilogy. The other two movies before it help power me through the significant flaws in the third movie.

One other note. With the Aurora shooting as a frame. You can tell where the Colorado shooter came in and started shooting (the Wall Street scene). Very easily to see how movie patrons could mistake real gunshots for the on-screen gun battle.