After the credits rolled, I wondered aloud if The Dark Knight Rises was even better than The Dark Knight. I walked into this movie expecting to be entertained but also mildly disappointed. The Dark Knight was probably the pinnacle of comic book movies. I don’t even like to call it a comic book movie. I prefer “crime thriller using characters originated in a comic book.” It really deserves it’s own category. To prepare for the final part of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy, I re-watched the first two Batman films. I realized I may have thought too highly of The Dark Knight (TDK) and not highly enough of Batman Begins. As amazing as Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker was and as intense an experience watching that film was, there were some things that bothered me that I may have ignored in my previous viewings. The movie went a little downhill after the Joker was defeated (truth be told, it should have ended there). While The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR) definitely had it’s flaws, I think it was a more consistent film from start to finish.
