Legend ends. Toast !

It has ended. People may now get on with their personal and professional lives.

The cape-donning, high-flying, ass-kicking, but ultimately mortal vigilante has been laid to rest (so the rest of Gotham thinks) - only after being immortalized on screen - by the amazing Christopher Nolan. With great ability came an assumed responsibility. To blow up the roots (Chinese?) of the League of Shadows. To solemnize a joker who likes his jokes rather practical. To overcome a militant version of the Tea Party movement despite not being a black President. Which he lived up to, despite an obvious mid-life crisis !
(Read: "You can't deny he's got style, Minister.")

Applause !

Before Nolan, we may agree, the enterprise had the face of P.A. Sangma  (pronounced as 'loser'). I mean it was hopeless, left, right and centre. Until it was rescued from parodic depths by Heath Ledger, who later sadly went down an old American lane.  (Just another ledger that failed to remain intact in the context of the financial crisis, said an expert.)

Before the release of the final part, understandably, I had several invalid questions. Will Commissioner Gordon finally smile ? Was Harvey Dent really Agent Smith with a bad hairdo ? (If so, then did the avada kedavra actually work on Rachel Dawes ?) Most had their heads ostrich-ed into the ground to keep from spoilers. Which meant staying off the internet for good.

In response to almost none of the aforementioned, the movie began by showing a Wayne who had been badly out of action. And had taken too many things too seriously. Such as the expanse of his Wayne fortunes and his connection with a dead woman (And somehow, the phrase 'break a leg'). And no, Gordon was extremely sullen. Critics may also note that this is the first Batman film where both the Batman and the villain are thoroughly unclear in speech. Particularly when they talk to each other. However, the impressive script more than makes up for this irritating drawback, so much so that the director can smugly get away by saying the choice of guttural voices was intentional.

Now there are people who think the Mayan calendar would end soon since Nolan let them down, but let's face it : Individually, The Dark Knight Rises is a superb film. Naturally, it had its share of flaws but the only thing many found particularly wrong with was that it had a mind-blowing prequel and one simply can't hold this up against the sequel. Here's what I think of it :

First, the creative effort behind Bane really stole the show. When one starts off with the Joker as a precedent, one learns that one can't get far enough to cross the Bridge of Expectations, but I was quite surprised by how well they pulled it off. I agree the mask covered most of the face, but it left out a famously potent asset of a villain : the eyes. Agreed, there was mostly the task of muscle-display to be done, but they also sculpted a distinct body-language for him. His lines were hardly clichéd and mostly tough. He too, like Batman, is self-made, burned with purpose and lives out of shadows. So far so good, but here's the shocker : he isn't the mastermind, silly. (Read: "It was you, Charlie.") Had it not been for this quixotic power-shift in the end, which knocked the wind off his screen presence, he would have had a much exalted status. (Batman doesn't kill his enemies, or something like that.)

Second, what was the Miranda Tate doing in the film ? Please don't get me wrong here; I have a massive crush on Marion Cotillard. But apart from trivialising Bane and somehow remotely representing Ras Al Ghul's legacy (in a manner that hasn't been established) by just being his daughter, she doesn't measure up to much at all. Bane himself could have well taken up the latter. And leave the reactor-work to Mr. Fox, I say !

(Food for thought : If Tate escaped the Pit when she was a little kid and when Bane was already an adult, Bane should have been a bit old in the film's story since Tate was an adult !)

Third, the supporting cast did a terrific job. Mostly because it consisted Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine and Joseph Gordon Levitt. (Read: "And yes, Mr. Wayne, it comes in black.")

Fourth: Don't kill me, but I think Nolan ended up selling The Dark Knight a bit too much to himself. Hence the strings were typically tied to end the series with a touch of legend, following The Dark Knight. (As seen in the heightened drama, the firing of Alfred, and some apocalyptic lines, which need not necessarily have been there.) He rises alright, but he didn't have to be immersed in such deep shit in the first place, because it's a bit uncharacteristic and a bit unrealistic. Just saying.

Hey, I'm a fan. I may have winced at odd instances - such as Bane talking like James Stewart on crack and Batman travelling half the planet (on foot?) to reach Gotham from Jodhpur in a few hours - but the film's not a let-down. After all, the insane road rages are, if anything, better this time. And, the passing of the torch to Robin (?) was stylishly done. However, it certainly is a could-have-been-better.