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The movie's been out for a few days now (instead of a few hours), so I am actually gonna talk about the movie!
At this point I have seen it four times. Yes, I like the movie. It's also three blocks from my house and tickets are $6 before 6pm so, it's sort of a win-win-win.
Any time Jim Gordon has to get up in front of people to talk about how wonderful Harvey Dent is, it kills me a little. Especially the end of the speech. "I believed in Harvey Dent." Because they argued but he probably did, a bit, up until Harv kidnapped his family and held a gun to his son's head. And how close he came to outing the whole thing on Havey Dent day? Not to mention: Harvey Dent Day. No wonder his family up and left for Cleveland. Glad they actually confirmed that, though that's been the general assumption, especially considering that he and Barbara divorced in the comics too. I like to think that his now-teenage daughter is a computer wiz and taught him how to Skype so they can keep in touch.
Bane's prologue is great. It really sets up what you need to know about the character, just from the way the pretty mook instantly and unquestioningly agrees when Bane tells him to go down with the plane, just looking at him with adoration and asking if they've started the fire. Bane has belief and that makes him dangerous, but part of what makes him terrifying is that his minions have just as much belief in him, which means that there is nothing that they won't do. ...a large portion of the rest of what makes him terrifying is Tom Hardy's back and shoulders. Holy shit. I don't know whether to be turned on or run away very fast.
And Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle! She's a fantastic Catwoman and my god is she sexy. Her first scene, with those skyscraper heels and the stockings with the seams and her neck? I'm straight and I'm still into it. I love her fondness for the necklace too, since it's not even what she was after. Bruce probably would never have noticed if she hadn't taken the necklace, so he wouldn't have gone looking for jewel thieves or known her face. I wasn't sure what to think about her when she was cast and I was somewhat less than thrilled about Catwoman's presence in general, but she really made it work. I especially love that her cat ears (outside of the masquerade ball) were really just her night-vision visor flipped up. A much more realistic way to do it than something literal like Bruce. Much as I love Batman, in a realistic 'verse like this it's sometimes harder to divorce myself from the knowledge of just how ridiculous it really is.
I got a huge kick out of how in love with her the Senator was, even after she kidnapped him. And got him shot. "Call me?" Dude, and you joke about Gordon being popular with his wife. ...Though I suppose Gordon has cheated in most comic verses. Can't remember if he had in B:TAS. Probably not as it's a cartoon. But I'm getting off topic.
Heh. Topic. Sure.
Lucius Fox is great as always, but what else would you expect from God? XD He's so proud of all his toys. I do like the Bat, but I think it looks more like a giant cicada than a bat. The real star though...
Michael Caine. Oh my god. Tear my heart out why don't you. He hasn't approved of Bruce acting as Batman from the beginning, but he really fights it in this one, and then that fight...that was harsh. Watching him tell Bruce the truth about the letter from Rachel (especially considering the whole voiceover speech that played while he burned it in TDK, about having your faith rewarded?), and Bruce's reaction, and sending him away? It hurt so good. And it was so perfect because he apparently left the city (back to Florence?), which put him well out of range of Bane and the trials, and helped bring Bruce that much lower because I remember hearing that Nolan wanted to really bring him to rock bottom before he could Rise.
Police officer/detective John Blake is definitely my favorite new character, though. All fire and drive but without the cynicism that Gordon had even in Batman Begins. Maybe it's because of his belief in Batman, knowing who he really is under the mask. He tells Bruce that story about meeting him once at the boy's home (which is an excellent speech and scene, kudos to JGL), but I like to think that he's also the little boy in Batman Begins, the one Batman meets in the narrows and tosses him the night vision scope and then saves with Rachel when the Scarecrow's fear toxin is released. The little kid who, scared out of his mind, separated from anyone he knows and with only an unfamiliar woman to cling to, has total faith that Batman would save them. He's about what, ten? Twelve? The timeline's right: it's firmly established that eight years have passed between the end of the second movie and the beginning of the third, and at least a couple years had to have passed between the first and second. Sometimes people assume that it follows hard on because of the sequel hook at the end of Begins with the Joker card, but it has to have been longer than that for Batman and Gordon to have gotten as far as they did in stamping out the mob and for Harvey to have gotten elected DA and established the reputation he did.
He's young, apparently not on the force long enough to really start chafing under the system (or for Gordon to know his name even though he was evidently in MCU) until Bane and Gordon calls him Rookie. Granted it would be highly unusual for someone that new to be made Detective I'm sure, but Gordon was jumped straight from Lieutenant to Commissioner so we can probably assume that this sort of thing is more common in Gotham. A relic of the days where the city was a wreched hive of scum and villany. So this orphan kid meets Batman while living in an abusive foster home (it's a fair assumption from the background in the scene in Begins), Batman gives him one of his own tools as a gift when he says that no one will believe him, and then lives up to the child's expectations and saves him on what is probably the most traumatic night of his life. Kid gets older, put in a boy's home because he can't control the angerl, where he meets Bruce Wayne who was also orphaned and displays the same coping methods that he uses, maybe from their recognizes him from their previous encounters when Bruce was in the Cowl and through all that develops the determination to protect people, especially the boys from his home, and becomes a cop. Only being a cop's not quite the right fit, Deputy Commissioner Foley doesn't like 'hotheads' like him, he struggles within the structure of the force at times and is frustrated that he can't do more. So when Commissioner Gordon says he saw something in the tunnels and Foley doesn't believe him, he goes outside the system and goes to Batman.
Because going to a man known for beating up violent criminals with his bare hands and who has been a recluse for the past three years (because three years ago is when he shut down the fusion reactor project and Miranda Tate implies that this is when he withdrew from the world), basically threatening your way into his house and telling him that you know his secret always a good idea. I guess he just believes that strongly that Batman won't hurt the good guys. And he did have the right hook, Gordon being in the hospital certainly got Bruce's attention.
And of course Bruce's cane has a rapelling line in it. Of course it does. And the scene in Gordon's hospital room...Bruce barely disgusing his voice and holding on tight to Gordon's hand, while Gordon was too weak to move and drifted away while he was still talking. I liked that they didn't have Gordon recover too quickly either. And when Bane started up his plan and the men came to kill Gordon in his hotel room? "Clear your corners, rookie." And that is why Commissioner Jim Gordon is a badass when when he's still wearing a hospital robe. Not that Blake isn't rather badass himself, recovering from his car flipping so fast, commandeering another and charging through the hospital alone with no way of knowing how many men they might've sent after his boss. He was great as Gordon's feet on the ground while he was in the hospital and Batman was gone, too.
But I'm getting out of order, because Bane kidnaps the Goddamn Batman and that happens before the stadium blows. That fight is brutal and Selina is watching the entire time, knowing that she led him into this trap. And then he lifts Batman up over his head and brings him down on his knee and Bruce is out so long he wakes up in a prison in another country. Though they likely gave him some sort of sedative to get him there. Watching him try to recover was painful and the misdirection on the identity of the child is good, but there's holes if you think about it. Bane says that he was born in the dark, and didn't see light until he was already a man. The child in the prison would've grown up seeing the light from the opening. Plus, if you know to look at Miranda Tate...when she first talks to Bruce she says that "You have to make an investment if you wish to restore balance to the world." Restoring and maintaining balance to the world is the League of Shadow's stated goal.
And Bane's plan? The explosive concrete? THE FOOTBALL STADIUM? I mean, trapping the bulk of the Gotham police force underground was genius, but...I was thisclose to actually being in the stadium for that. I have been in the stadium in the past, for games when I was in college. That's my team. That scene was so totally wicked.
It's also the reason I've taken to telling people that at the end, Hines Ward beats up Bane with the help of Brett Kiesel's beard and Troy Polamalu's hair. ...It's probably only amusing if you're a Steelers fan.
Also, Miranda Tate is played by Marion Cotillard. She's called "lovely," twice. She also played Mal in Inception, who is called "lovely." Your preferences are showing, Mr. Nolan. ;)
I loved Cillian Murphy's cameo too, Cane sentencing the rich and powerful to either death or exile. "...Exile!" "Sold! *gavel* To the man in the cold sweat!" and then they're forced out onto the thinning ice of Gotham's river.
And Selina's reactions to the whole thing. She's so pleased that "A storm is coming," but I don't think Bane was what she bargained for. And then her 'what have I done?' reaction to the beating Bruce takes...I loved her scene with Blake, especially when he clicks off the recorder. "Did they kill him?" "I'm not sure." And no one ever says Batman but they both know who they're talking about. And when she picks up the picture of the family who used to live in that apartment... It makes it really satisfying the moment when she met Bruce again after he returned to Gotham. Which took him quite a while because when he finally crawled his way out of the Pit there were something like 21 days left before the bomb went off and when he finally did there was one.
And the whole time the bomb is being driven around Gotham on a big truck. A big truck that was filmed in Pittsburgh and I got to see it driving around and it is surreal and creepy to think that I watched this truck drive around for days and days and it was supposed to have this steadily decaying nuclear bomb on it the entire time.
Batman got back just in time too, to rescue first Gordon and his men who got captured putting a tracker on the truck and got forced out on the ice, but Blake too who was on the ground about to get shot in the head by the mercenaries and I'm still not sure how he managed to get to Blake in time from the river because he was cutting it really freaking close. I loved watching the block of freed policemen led by Foley march on Bane's men at City Hall. Which was also in Pittsburgh by the way, but at CMU in Oakland not Downtown. And then Batman swoops in with the Bat and fires on one of the Tumblers, and they go from a slow, stoic approach to cheering and running at the bad guys and it's awesome except for how the cops are really under armed. And the fight between Batman and Bane is at least as brutal as the first, especially once Batman damages Bane's mask and there's a bit where Bane just flips on him and I can't decide whether or not the footage there is sped up or not because he's just hitting him so fast.
I actually wasn't expecting the surprise when Miranda Tate revealed that she was actually Talia al Ghul, I'd forgotten the speculation there was about it early on and I'm not as familiar with her as a character as I am with other Batman characters. It was such a nice twist though, along with the literal twist of the knife. And the way Bane watched her as she reattached the tubes in his mask. I liked Bane's genre-savvyness in decided to Just Shoot Him, too bad that Catwoman got there first.
And then there's the big chase sceen. Ooooh, the big chase scene. I was around for the filming of this, too. And it was all in the same few blocks so I could actually lead you around downtown pointing out where they filmed...if not the exact route the chase followed. Because there isn't a route. It was kind of bugging me. I work down there. Those read awnings? That's my job and I was probably inside at the time. They go past at least five times, plus the shot where they CG'd the awnings black. Plus they mirrored the shot at least once, you can tell by where the clock is. It's a bit of a landmark, though we still call it the Kaufmann's clock. They got bought out a few years ago. Actually, you can see Saks Fifth Avenue and Joseph A. Banks stores clearly in there too, neither of which are there anymore. I think Banks relocated, but Saks pulled out entirely. Kinda sad, that. You can see the McDonalds where I eat sometimes too, it's the nicest one in downtown (there are three). Bonus points if you can pick out Weiner World, it's hard because their sign is off. The Bat actually hit their sign once during filming.
One of my favorite bits in that chase is when Catwoman starts to spin out on Smithfield street and recovers on Cherry Way. When she goes under the One Oxford Center bridge, that's not the street she was on before the camera angle changed. It's nuts. XD
And then they do finally run down the truck, but it's crashed and she floods the reactor and nearly takes Morgan Freeman with it, and Selina grabs Batman and lays that kiss on him, and Gordon asks who he is without really asking and Bruce references the first time they met when Bruce was just a kid and Gordon wrapped him in his father's coat, and Gordon remembers....while Blake's on the bridge trying desperately to get his busload of boys out and screaming at the cops who blow the bridge...
And then Bruce carries the bomb out over the bay and it looks like he explodes and the kids are cheering because Batman saved them but you can tell from Blake's face that he knows what it means... And then there's Gordon reading the speech from A Tale of Two Cities at Bruce's graveside and Alfred sobbing as he apologizes to the tombstones of Thomas and Martha.
The ending though...I adore the ending. Gordon's back on top of his MCU building and he finds the batsignal there, looking like new. The look on his face as he reaches out to touch it and looks up toward the sky like he expects to see a cape up there...is that the first time he's smiled all movie? And Fox finding that the autopilot works fine after all. And the kids all happy moving into Wayne Manor. And Alfred on holiday again in Florence, and this time when he looks across the tables he does see Bruce Wayne sitting there with Selina wearing his mother's pearl necklace that she likes so much. And John Blake, whose legal first name is Robin, recieving a duffle bag with climbing equipment, a GPS and handwritten coordinates that lead him to the Batcave, and the pedestal in the floor rises up under his feet....I WANTED THAT SO MUCH. And it was lovely payoff for him knowing Bruce's secret, and struggling within the system, and Bruce's comments about how Batman could be anyone because it's the symbol that's important, and Batman telling him that if he's going to fight alone he should wear a mask...it just makes me so happy. And he really is a nice mix of the first three Robins, Jason Todd's childhood, Dick Greyson's adult job, figures out Batman's identity like Tim Drake, and inherited the cowl like Dick.
I think I got everything I wanted from this movie, that never happens. It gave me all of it, including Bruce living, John inheriting the cloak...right down to getting a glimpse of Tom Hardy's actual face, albeit in flashback form. This movie made me very happy. Which is why I've got to see it four times so far. Wearing a different Batman tshirt each time. with little Batsignals painted on my nails. Yes I do have a problem.
I want to collect all of the action figures and assemble the projecting Batsignal, but the artifical scarcity of some of the figures and the resulting aftermarket prices are driving me insane. I want my little plastic Joseph Gordon-Levitt, dammit! So far I've only got Batman, Bane and Gordon, and Gordon was off Ebay. If I can get my hands on Alfred, I'll at least be able to attach all the signal bits I've got, I think. I just don't want to spend forty bucks plus shipping for an action figure, however much I want the Blake figure.
I really like this movie. But it is very late now and this has gotten very long. So I am going to stop now.
At this point I have seen it four times. Yes, I like the movie. It's also three blocks from my house and tickets are $6 before 6pm so, it's sort of a win-win-win.
Any time Jim Gordon has to get up in front of people to talk about how wonderful Harvey Dent is, it kills me a little. Especially the end of the speech. "I believed in Harvey Dent." Because they argued but he probably did, a bit, up until Harv kidnapped his family and held a gun to his son's head. And how close he came to outing the whole thing on Havey Dent day? Not to mention: Harvey Dent Day. No wonder his family up and left for Cleveland. Glad they actually confirmed that, though that's been the general assumption, especially considering that he and Barbara divorced in the comics too. I like to think that his now-teenage daughter is a computer wiz and taught him how to Skype so they can keep in touch.
Bane's prologue is great. It really sets up what you need to know about the character, just from the way the pretty mook instantly and unquestioningly agrees when Bane tells him to go down with the plane, just looking at him with adoration and asking if they've started the fire. Bane has belief and that makes him dangerous, but part of what makes him terrifying is that his minions have just as much belief in him, which means that there is nothing that they won't do. ...a large portion of the rest of what makes him terrifying is Tom Hardy's back and shoulders. Holy shit. I don't know whether to be turned on or run away very fast.
And Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle! She's a fantastic Catwoman and my god is she sexy. Her first scene, with those skyscraper heels and the stockings with the seams and her neck? I'm straight and I'm still into it. I love her fondness for the necklace too, since it's not even what she was after. Bruce probably would never have noticed if she hadn't taken the necklace, so he wouldn't have gone looking for jewel thieves or known her face. I wasn't sure what to think about her when she was cast and I was somewhat less than thrilled about Catwoman's presence in general, but she really made it work. I especially love that her cat ears (outside of the masquerade ball) were really just her night-vision visor flipped up. A much more realistic way to do it than something literal like Bruce. Much as I love Batman, in a realistic 'verse like this it's sometimes harder to divorce myself from the knowledge of just how ridiculous it really is.
I got a huge kick out of how in love with her the Senator was, even after she kidnapped him. And got him shot. "Call me?" Dude, and you joke about Gordon being popular with his wife. ...Though I suppose Gordon has cheated in most comic verses. Can't remember if he had in B:TAS. Probably not as it's a cartoon. But I'm getting off topic.
Heh. Topic. Sure.
Lucius Fox is great as always, but what else would you expect from God? XD He's so proud of all his toys. I do like the Bat, but I think it looks more like a giant cicada than a bat. The real star though...
Michael Caine. Oh my god. Tear my heart out why don't you. He hasn't approved of Bruce acting as Batman from the beginning, but he really fights it in this one, and then that fight...that was harsh. Watching him tell Bruce the truth about the letter from Rachel (especially considering the whole voiceover speech that played while he burned it in TDK, about having your faith rewarded?), and Bruce's reaction, and sending him away? It hurt so good. And it was so perfect because he apparently left the city (back to Florence?), which put him well out of range of Bane and the trials, and helped bring Bruce that much lower because I remember hearing that Nolan wanted to really bring him to rock bottom before he could Rise.
Police officer/detective John Blake is definitely my favorite new character, though. All fire and drive but without the cynicism that Gordon had even in Batman Begins. Maybe it's because of his belief in Batman, knowing who he really is under the mask. He tells Bruce that story about meeting him once at the boy's home (which is an excellent speech and scene, kudos to JGL), but I like to think that he's also the little boy in Batman Begins, the one Batman meets in the narrows and tosses him the night vision scope and then saves with Rachel when the Scarecrow's fear toxin is released. The little kid who, scared out of his mind, separated from anyone he knows and with only an unfamiliar woman to cling to, has total faith that Batman would save them. He's about what, ten? Twelve? The timeline's right: it's firmly established that eight years have passed between the end of the second movie and the beginning of the third, and at least a couple years had to have passed between the first and second. Sometimes people assume that it follows hard on because of the sequel hook at the end of Begins with the Joker card, but it has to have been longer than that for Batman and Gordon to have gotten as far as they did in stamping out the mob and for Harvey to have gotten elected DA and established the reputation he did.
He's young, apparently not on the force long enough to really start chafing under the system (or for Gordon to know his name even though he was evidently in MCU) until Bane and Gordon calls him Rookie. Granted it would be highly unusual for someone that new to be made Detective I'm sure, but Gordon was jumped straight from Lieutenant to Commissioner so we can probably assume that this sort of thing is more common in Gotham. A relic of the days where the city was a wreched hive of scum and villany. So this orphan kid meets Batman while living in an abusive foster home (it's a fair assumption from the background in the scene in Begins), Batman gives him one of his own tools as a gift when he says that no one will believe him, and then lives up to the child's expectations and saves him on what is probably the most traumatic night of his life. Kid gets older, put in a boy's home because he can't control the angerl, where he meets Bruce Wayne who was also orphaned and displays the same coping methods that he uses, maybe from their recognizes him from their previous encounters when Bruce was in the Cowl and through all that develops the determination to protect people, especially the boys from his home, and becomes a cop. Only being a cop's not quite the right fit, Deputy Commissioner Foley doesn't like 'hotheads' like him, he struggles within the structure of the force at times and is frustrated that he can't do more. So when Commissioner Gordon says he saw something in the tunnels and Foley doesn't believe him, he goes outside the system and goes to Batman.
Because going to a man known for beating up violent criminals with his bare hands and who has been a recluse for the past three years (because three years ago is when he shut down the fusion reactor project and Miranda Tate implies that this is when he withdrew from the world), basically threatening your way into his house and telling him that you know his secret always a good idea. I guess he just believes that strongly that Batman won't hurt the good guys. And he did have the right hook, Gordon being in the hospital certainly got Bruce's attention.
And of course Bruce's cane has a rapelling line in it. Of course it does. And the scene in Gordon's hospital room...Bruce barely disgusing his voice and holding on tight to Gordon's hand, while Gordon was too weak to move and drifted away while he was still talking. I liked that they didn't have Gordon recover too quickly either. And when Bane started up his plan and the men came to kill Gordon in his hotel room? "Clear your corners, rookie." And that is why Commissioner Jim Gordon is a badass when when he's still wearing a hospital robe. Not that Blake isn't rather badass himself, recovering from his car flipping so fast, commandeering another and charging through the hospital alone with no way of knowing how many men they might've sent after his boss. He was great as Gordon's feet on the ground while he was in the hospital and Batman was gone, too.
But I'm getting out of order, because Bane kidnaps the Goddamn Batman and that happens before the stadium blows. That fight is brutal and Selina is watching the entire time, knowing that she led him into this trap. And then he lifts Batman up over his head and brings him down on his knee and Bruce is out so long he wakes up in a prison in another country. Though they likely gave him some sort of sedative to get him there. Watching him try to recover was painful and the misdirection on the identity of the child is good, but there's holes if you think about it. Bane says that he was born in the dark, and didn't see light until he was already a man. The child in the prison would've grown up seeing the light from the opening. Plus, if you know to look at Miranda Tate...when she first talks to Bruce she says that "You have to make an investment if you wish to restore balance to the world." Restoring and maintaining balance to the world is the League of Shadow's stated goal.
And Bane's plan? The explosive concrete? THE FOOTBALL STADIUM? I mean, trapping the bulk of the Gotham police force underground was genius, but...I was thisclose to actually being in the stadium for that. I have been in the stadium in the past, for games when I was in college. That's my team. That scene was so totally wicked.
It's also the reason I've taken to telling people that at the end, Hines Ward beats up Bane with the help of Brett Kiesel's beard and Troy Polamalu's hair. ...It's probably only amusing if you're a Steelers fan.
Also, Miranda Tate is played by Marion Cotillard. She's called "lovely," twice. She also played Mal in Inception, who is called "lovely." Your preferences are showing, Mr. Nolan. ;)
I loved Cillian Murphy's cameo too, Cane sentencing the rich and powerful to either death or exile. "...Exile!" "Sold! *gavel* To the man in the cold sweat!" and then they're forced out onto the thinning ice of Gotham's river.
And Selina's reactions to the whole thing. She's so pleased that "A storm is coming," but I don't think Bane was what she bargained for. And then her 'what have I done?' reaction to the beating Bruce takes...I loved her scene with Blake, especially when he clicks off the recorder. "Did they kill him?" "I'm not sure." And no one ever says Batman but they both know who they're talking about. And when she picks up the picture of the family who used to live in that apartment... It makes it really satisfying the moment when she met Bruce again after he returned to Gotham. Which took him quite a while because when he finally crawled his way out of the Pit there were something like 21 days left before the bomb went off and when he finally did there was one.
And the whole time the bomb is being driven around Gotham on a big truck. A big truck that was filmed in Pittsburgh and I got to see it driving around and it is surreal and creepy to think that I watched this truck drive around for days and days and it was supposed to have this steadily decaying nuclear bomb on it the entire time.
Batman got back just in time too, to rescue first Gordon and his men who got captured putting a tracker on the truck and got forced out on the ice, but Blake too who was on the ground about to get shot in the head by the mercenaries and I'm still not sure how he managed to get to Blake in time from the river because he was cutting it really freaking close. I loved watching the block of freed policemen led by Foley march on Bane's men at City Hall. Which was also in Pittsburgh by the way, but at CMU in Oakland not Downtown. And then Batman swoops in with the Bat and fires on one of the Tumblers, and they go from a slow, stoic approach to cheering and running at the bad guys and it's awesome except for how the cops are really under armed. And the fight between Batman and Bane is at least as brutal as the first, especially once Batman damages Bane's mask and there's a bit where Bane just flips on him and I can't decide whether or not the footage there is sped up or not because he's just hitting him so fast.
I actually wasn't expecting the surprise when Miranda Tate revealed that she was actually Talia al Ghul, I'd forgotten the speculation there was about it early on and I'm not as familiar with her as a character as I am with other Batman characters. It was such a nice twist though, along with the literal twist of the knife. And the way Bane watched her as she reattached the tubes in his mask. I liked Bane's genre-savvyness in decided to Just Shoot Him, too bad that Catwoman got there first.
And then there's the big chase sceen. Ooooh, the big chase scene. I was around for the filming of this, too. And it was all in the same few blocks so I could actually lead you around downtown pointing out where they filmed...if not the exact route the chase followed. Because there isn't a route. It was kind of bugging me. I work down there. Those read awnings? That's my job and I was probably inside at the time. They go past at least five times, plus the shot where they CG'd the awnings black. Plus they mirrored the shot at least once, you can tell by where the clock is. It's a bit of a landmark, though we still call it the Kaufmann's clock. They got bought out a few years ago. Actually, you can see Saks Fifth Avenue and Joseph A. Banks stores clearly in there too, neither of which are there anymore. I think Banks relocated, but Saks pulled out entirely. Kinda sad, that. You can see the McDonalds where I eat sometimes too, it's the nicest one in downtown (there are three). Bonus points if you can pick out Weiner World, it's hard because their sign is off. The Bat actually hit their sign once during filming.
One of my favorite bits in that chase is when Catwoman starts to spin out on Smithfield street and recovers on Cherry Way. When she goes under the One Oxford Center bridge, that's not the street she was on before the camera angle changed. It's nuts. XD
And then they do finally run down the truck, but it's crashed and she floods the reactor and nearly takes Morgan Freeman with it, and Selina grabs Batman and lays that kiss on him, and Gordon asks who he is without really asking and Bruce references the first time they met when Bruce was just a kid and Gordon wrapped him in his father's coat, and Gordon remembers....while Blake's on the bridge trying desperately to get his busload of boys out and screaming at the cops who blow the bridge...
And then Bruce carries the bomb out over the bay and it looks like he explodes and the kids are cheering because Batman saved them but you can tell from Blake's face that he knows what it means... And then there's Gordon reading the speech from A Tale of Two Cities at Bruce's graveside and Alfred sobbing as he apologizes to the tombstones of Thomas and Martha.
The ending though...I adore the ending. Gordon's back on top of his MCU building and he finds the batsignal there, looking like new. The look on his face as he reaches out to touch it and looks up toward the sky like he expects to see a cape up there...is that the first time he's smiled all movie? And Fox finding that the autopilot works fine after all. And the kids all happy moving into Wayne Manor. And Alfred on holiday again in Florence, and this time when he looks across the tables he does see Bruce Wayne sitting there with Selina wearing his mother's pearl necklace that she likes so much. And John Blake, whose legal first name is Robin, recieving a duffle bag with climbing equipment, a GPS and handwritten coordinates that lead him to the Batcave, and the pedestal in the floor rises up under his feet....I WANTED THAT SO MUCH. And it was lovely payoff for him knowing Bruce's secret, and struggling within the system, and Bruce's comments about how Batman could be anyone because it's the symbol that's important, and Batman telling him that if he's going to fight alone he should wear a mask...it just makes me so happy. And he really is a nice mix of the first three Robins, Jason Todd's childhood, Dick Greyson's adult job, figures out Batman's identity like Tim Drake, and inherited the cowl like Dick.
I think I got everything I wanted from this movie, that never happens. It gave me all of it, including Bruce living, John inheriting the cloak...right down to getting a glimpse of Tom Hardy's actual face, albeit in flashback form. This movie made me very happy. Which is why I've got to see it four times so far. Wearing a different Batman tshirt each time. with little Batsignals painted on my nails. Yes I do have a problem.
I want to collect all of the action figures and assemble the projecting Batsignal, but the artifical scarcity of some of the figures and the resulting aftermarket prices are driving me insane. I want my little plastic Joseph Gordon-Levitt, dammit! So far I've only got Batman, Bane and Gordon, and Gordon was off Ebay. If I can get my hands on Alfred, I'll at least be able to attach all the signal bits I've got, I think. I just don't want to spend forty bucks plus shipping for an action figure, however much I want the Blake figure.
I really like this movie. But it is very late now and this has gotten very long. So I am going to stop now.