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Eh, it was sudden, but I wouldn't call it a bad death. I liked Catwoman's little remark afterward about not sharing Bruce's no guns policy.

The only thing that bugged me about the movie was it seems like JGL's character should've been named Dick Grayson or Tim Drake. I feel like the only reason in the world that Nolan felt the need to make "Robin" his first name was like he thought "The audience will never get he's supposed to be my version of Robin if I don't spell it out as plainly as I possibly can!"

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Nah it was fine the way they played out Robin. He was sort of an amalgam of all the Robins so having him be named after only one of them would seem wrong.

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I just really feel like Robin as a proper name is WAY too on the nose. Like literally the only reason to do that is you think the audience is stupid.

the only way to have a "subtle" wink and nod to the Robin character from the comics in one of the last scenes of the film is to just flat out say Robin is the dude's first name.

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Again, Blake was a combinations of all of the Robins, so Nolan didn't want to name him after any single one. I don't think it was about dumbing things down for the audience.

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My argument would be that Dick is the only Robin the average viewer is familiar with. If you say "Robin" to someone, if they can remember his name, they think Dick Grayson.

In any adaptation, Dick is the first, the best, the only Robin, so all Robins are automatically a take on Dick, unless the show or film is following the comics and already did Dick or has him as Nightwing, and is bringing in Todd or Drake.

So "Robin John Blake" does not come across as "Amalgam-Robin" or "The Ultimate Robin" any moreso than Dick himself actually already is that thing. Like how in the Teen Titans cartoon, they never used their secret IDs, and Robin used a bo staff as his primary weapon like Tim always has in the comics...but everyone knew it was Dick and they'd occasionally give subtle nods to confirm it.

Blake appears to me to be a version of Dick who got some of Jason's origin story because it fits the setting/plot better than circus acrobat would. I don't even see any Tim in him except...what, that he guessed Bruce is Batman? There's also the fact that this guy's whole thing at the end is to be the next Batman and Dick's the only Robin to ever grow up and inherit the cowl.

Though I would've been amused/pleased if Blake's name were Terry McGinnis instead of him being "a Robin". Way, way less people would get the reference though.

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The movie opens up with the first 6 minutes people saw in MI4. The CIA has captured 3 of Bane's men along with a Russian physicist. On board the plane the CIA tries to get the men to talk by threatening to throw them out of the plane when Bane pipes up and his men hijack the plane with some balls tighteningly tense maneuvers. A cadaver swap and a blood transfusion with the Russian doctor later Bane (Tom Hardy) leaves his situation via sky hook while the other plane plummets to the ground.

We find out that 8 years has passed since the end of the Dark Knight. Gotham is relatively at Peace under the Harvey Dent Act and Batman hasn't been seen since the night of Harvey Dent's death having taken the blame. The city's peace has been built on a lie that has been eating Gordon(Gary Oldman) alive. It's cost him his marriage and soon the Mayor plans on retiring Gordon during peace time. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has also become a recluse and hasn't been in the public eye for 8 years.

We get an introduction to Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) who posses as a caterer to sneak into Wayne manor during the commemoration ceremony for Harvey Dent that's being held there. She makes off with the pearls/tracking beacon of Bruce's mom and his finger prints but not before a run in with Wayne. She escapes with the prints and a congressman as hostage. Wayne is able to track her and run an ID on her, finding out who she is while being confronted by Alfred who tells him that he's simply alive but not living.

We're introduced to John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an idealistic cop who still believes in the Batman and doing the right thing, a white knight a lot like Harvey Dent mixed with Commissioner Gordon. He finds the body of a young man by a waterway and goes to tell his younger brother at the local boy's orphanage. (The one in the trailers)

Skiping forward a bit, Selina Kyle sells Bruce Wayne's finger prints to a man working under a corrupt head at Wayne Industries for something called "Clean Slate", a program that can erase a person's entire history from a data base giving them a second chance. There's a shoot out and the GCPD gets involved resulting in Gordon going down into the sewers and running into Bane who's got a whole construction crew down there doing...something.

The altercation with Bane ends with Gordon being shot and washed down into the sewer system where Blake finds him. Blake goes to Wayne Manor to talk with Bruce and we find out that he's figured out that Wayne is indeed Batman.

Bane initiates a hit on the Gotham Stock Exchange and by using Bruce Wayne's fingerprints he bankrupts the company.

After the attack on the Stock exchange Wayne decides to put on the Bat suit again. However because his body is so utterly torn up he has to use a cybernetic knee brace (every body has one, right?) to help him walk without a cain. Alfred (Michael Cain) strongly opposes Wayne in trying to take on Bane because of his speed, power, and general fighting capacity. Batman would be pushed to his limits at his peak against Bane, now he'd surely be killed.

Wayne has no choice but to appoint a new head for the company and chooses Miranda (Marion Cotillard), who is a supporter of the Free Energy plan that Wayne Industries sank half a fortune into and then cancelled. The Free Energy plan turns out to be a Fusion Reactor, capable of supplying limitless clean energy to the city, but is also capable of being turned into a bomb.

After Wayne is declared completely bankrupt, he finds Selina Kyle, seeing as he's tracked down her apartment with the pearl necklace. He asks her to meet up with Batman and in exchange he'll offer what she wants, a second chance. The two meet down in the subway tunnels under Gotham where Selina sells Batman out to Bane and his men for her own life. Bane not only knows who Batman is but is more than a match for him and does what he was originally designed to do in the comics and breaks Batman over his knee.

He takes him to a prison out in the middle east which is built under ground. The only way to escape is to climb out, which nobody has ever done except for Bane himself. Bane tells Bruce that he will torture him instead of killing him as punishment for crossing the League of Shadows. He will make Batman watch as over the next 5 month Bane proceeds to burn Gotham to the ground.

With Batman gone, Bane proceeds with his plan which starts with the destruction of the Football stadium in the trailers. However we find out that the crew that was working with Bane has been pouring concrete laced with explosives all over the city and with a press of a button, Gotham's streets, stadium and bridges all go up in flames. Getting a hold of the reactor core from earlier, Bane uses the Russian doctor to turn it into an atom bomb and wheels it out to the stadium. He kills the doctor ensuring that there is no way to actually stop the bomb from going off and does it in front of everybody at the stadium. With the police force trapped under the collapsed stadium, Bane frees all the convicts at Black Gate prison who were put there under the Harvey Dent Act and builds his own personal army.

Down in the hole Wayne learns of Bane's origins which (for the most part) are accurate to the comic. He was born in the darkness of the prison, but he also had a protector to help raise him after his mother was brutally raped and killed. Another instance of disbelief where Wayne gets a vertebrae punched into place and a hallucination of Ra's Al Ghul combined with a training Montage Wayne makes his way out of the Prison and back to Gotham a day before the bomb is set to go off.

With the help of Blake, Gordon, Fox and Catwoman Batman frees the cops, and clears a way out of the city for the civilians. Batman has his duel with Bane in the middle of the huge brawl on the courthouse steps before being stabbed in the back by Miranda who we find out is actually Talia Al Ghul and was the one who escaped the prison, not Bane. Bane was her protector but was excommunicated from the League of Shadows because he was turned into a monster that Ra's couldn't accept. (I legit felt bad for Bane here).

Bane is about to kill Batman before he is blown away by a shot from the Batpod and Catwoman (really?)

Batman and Catwoman chase down one of the armored transports that's been keeping the bomb in motion for the past 5 months before finding out that reconnecting the bomb to the reactor is impossible. Batman with his Bat plane makes the heroic sacrifice (or does he?) by flying the bomb into open water and having it blow up safely, choosing not to eject because the auto pilot in the Bat doesn't work. (clearly a plot device when it's first mentioned by Fox earlier in the movie).

With Batman's sacrifice the city is safe. The ones who know who Batman is (Fox, Alfred, Blake, Gordon) have a funeral and donate his house to the Boy's Home. Batman gets a statue as a commemoration and is remembered as a hero to Gotham.

The epilog shows Blake leaving the police force and getting some spelunking gear and coordinates left to him by Wayne to the Batcave, essentially inheriting the title of the Batman, as a bonus the GCPD gets a brand new Bat Signal.

Lucious Fox tries to figure out if there was anything that could be done to the auto pilot in the Bat to save Wayne. (Wait, wasn't it blown up in the blast?) He's told that the auto pilot has been working for six months after a software patch was applied by Bruce Wayne.

Alfred is now free of being a man servant and goes to his favorite vacation spot where he has a drink and finds Wayne sitting across the room with Selina Kyle.

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The movie felt like 70% No Man's Land, 20% Knightfall, and 10% Dark Knight Returns. I'm amazed so much was adapted here.

All the nitpicks I'm seeing over this movie are over completely inconsequential shit. For cripes' sake, time passes in leaps and bounds in this movie. Snow comes with winter. How'd Bruce get back to Gotham? He's Batman. Figure it out. People are stupid; I left Inglorious Basterds overhearing a woman saying "That's not how World War II ended, is it?" So, yeah, 'Robin' is fair as a name to help drive the point home.

Whole theatre lost their shit at Dr. Crane showing back up again for that once scene. Death...by Exile!

And yes...the ending proved at last that some days...you can get rid of a bomb.

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Robin's name

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Gary Oldman is Superman, gets shot, thrown around in the waters, then gets thrown around in a truck with a nuclear device in it and comes out of it without a scratch. He. Is. Superman.

Oh and I totally knew that the police officer idolizing Batman was Robin... they didn't hide that too well.

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Talia was good, The Raas al ghul cameo/flashbacks were cool, Blake wasn't as irritating as I thought he'd be..

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Dat Jonathan Crane