'The Dark Knight Rises' - Thoughts and Bitchin' Alternate Ending Proposal.

Just back from seeing The Dark Knight Rises for a second time. Here are some things:

• What's up with people being in a load of pain when Bane touches them? I know nothing of the comics or of Bane's powers, so somebody please enlighten me.
• Every time Gary Oldman goes off on a bit of dialogue it always reminds me of his deadly appearance in the Chandler and Monica wedding episode of Friends.
• What were those things that Catwoman kept pulling down over her eyes? Just sunglasses or what?
• Is Bane supposed to sound like a really, really old English gentleman?
• Some of the dialogue was awful - Bane: "Have you come back to die with your people?", Batman: "No, I've come back to stop you".
• In the end the plot was basically the ending of season two of 24. (R.I.P. George)
• Pretty much everyone from Prison Break was in this movie.

The first time I saw the movie I was disappointed. I couldn't really put my finger on it, but it just didn't quite do it all for me. It felt a wee bit that Catwoman and especially what-do-you-call-him? Robin, that they were just shoe-horned in. Not quite Spiderman 3 levels of shoe-horning, but still. I enjoyed all the time we spent with Bane though, because he's just interesting as fuck and Tom Hardy looked hard as a motherfucker as well. There wasn't enough Batman for my liking, but that made any time he did appear feel extra special. Again, some of the dialogue was a bit ropey and I really did find it difficult to understand Bane at times. (and even Gordon the odd time too...[it may just be my hearing]). I was bored by the two guys who were initially conspiring to take over Wayne Industries. I don't even know the guy's name, but he was boring as shit and I didn't care for their characters at all. 

I enjoyed it much more today, however. I think I was able to let some of my admittedly nit-picky feelings be taken over by the sheer spectacle of the film. It goes through a TONNE of stuff, really takes you on a journey and all that. The score is of course sensational and I had goosebumps multiple times whenever one of the key themes would emerge. And of course it's hard to fault any of the acting ensemble; Bale, Freeman, Hardy, Oldman, Levitt and Caine all deliver and it's a pleasure to see them all together doing their thing. Generally I just felt this time that it was just awesome to be seeing a Batman movie, and that 90% of it was deadly, and that I'd miss looking forward to the latest Nolan Batman. 

This leads me to my idea of a superior ending to the film though. Now, that first time I saw it, I actually thought this WAS the ending, and was even about to leave my seat. However the film continued for another few moments, which actually disappointed me. 

Please beware of The Dark Knight Rises MAJOR SPOILERS below.

First, we have to dismiss the short scene where Lucius Fox is talking to the maintenance dudes of The Bat, where they reveal that Bruce Wayne had fixed the autopilot six months earlier. Just throw that scene out. Now, everything else goes as normal. We think Batman is dead, everyone's sad etc. Then we see Alfred sitting down to his drink on the coast of Spain or wherever it was. He's looking down at his paper, and then he looks up, sort of just looks for a minute, and then smiles just the smallest smile. This is where it should have ended. With Michael Caine looking straight into the camera and just the hint of a smile on his face. How amazing would that have been? I was smiling to myself when I thought this was the ending in the cinema, even the second time. Unfortunately, in reality, we then cut to Wayne and Selina looking back and I think it's sort of ruined. And then the whole Robin thing on top of that. But if it just ends with Alfred looking up, then we have to draw from his and Wayne's conversation from earlier in the film, about his dream of seeing a happily married Wayne. We know nothing of his fixing the autopilot, and so still believe him to be dead. And then we're left with this possible revelation that he's alive, but we're not sure. This ambiguous (albeit very Inceptionesque, I admit) ending would have had me leaving that cinema with such a different feeling. 

I dunno if I'm making any sense, but I've talked to Steve about this and he agreed it's MUCH better. 

Anyway, yeah, Batman was cool. Thanks guys.