This movie was highly anticipated by me, I'd paid for the IMAX trilogy tickets for Aurora Theater night hours after they went on sale with the highest expectations.
Previous to this I'd gone to see the prologue when that was previewed back on December 14th and wrote a long critical review on the CBM boards. I thought Chris Nolan woulda had plenty of time to fix the problems. He did fix the voice issue (badly but at least Bane was audible) but what about the rest of the film? Did he give a f#ck? According to the news I heard the movie came in Ahead of schedule and Under budget. When Iron Man was being made back in 2008 Jon Favreau realized there were a number of scenes in the movie that just didn't work and did a sh#tload of reshoots which helped the movie tremendously. What about this film? Could any of the scenes have been improved? If it were me I woulda reshot parts of the prologue with that wimpy CIA guy that you knew Bane was going to have no problem with and replaced him with some mean looking thug. Then I woulda reshot the first scene in Wayne Manor with Catwoman because it didn't work out that well before moving on to the attack on Gotham City.
To begin with, all of the cops are Not gonna be down in the sewers at once. Maybe abunch but not all. Once they were trapped the story should have included a separate subplot about Joseph Gordon Levitt's character working with some of the good citizens of Gotham city to free the cops from the SWAT teams and Tactical Divisions trapped down below. One aspect of the scheme would be to have them dress in cop uniforms, find openings into the sewers amidst the damage caused by the explosions and replace these cops one by one. These freed policemen then begin to attack and pick off the mercenaries seemingly at random dressed as ordinary ciitizens similar to the partisan campaigns of World War II. Joseph Gordon Levitt's character gets into the habit of leaving a bat symbol chalk mark at the scene of each one he is involved with. When Batman returns he tells Gordon about Bane's fixation on the idea of allowing for hope only so he can crush it in the end. His possession of this device has given him an overriding sense that he can ultimately control the outcome of anything that they can throw at him. They realize that because of this overconfidence he will probably wait until the last minute to use the neutron bomb and set about staging the release of the citizens then launching a massive attack on his stronghold. Batman explains that he has a device that override the signal of Bane's detonator if it's close to the bomb. Gordon suggests that they track the bomb's whereabouts and have people nearby in the sewers after they overcome Bane's mercenaries equipped with these devices to prevent bane from triggering it. Batman and the forces under Gordon launch attacks against the merrcenaries blocking the tunnels and free the remaining cops and people whove taken their place clandestinely. They all are then outfitted in tactical suits with bullet resistant armor similar to what Batman wears (this way the combattants can also distinguish who is on which side) and half the force composed of the cops go to confront Bane and his forces.
Gordon tells Bane that the charade is over and to give up. Bane mokingly apologizes to everyone his actions may have inconvenienced and then orders his forces to advance and attack. With their superior firepower the forces of Bane have the upper hand until they advance to the cross street. Batman flies in and attacks the tumblers who then pursue him in a prolonged scene rather than that 'pop in', 'hop out' bullshit that we saw in the movie. At this point the second wave of forces made up of deputised Gotham citizens (Gordon jokingly tells them that they are deputized so that they aren't just outlaws like The Batman :) dressed in the same outfits as the police and led by Joseph Gordon Levitt's character swarm in from both directions of the cross street and attack Bane's forces. Many of them have slogans and added improvised customizations to their outfits that pay homage to Batman. This setup would complete the story arc for Gotham City itself by literally having a showdown between the good and bad citizens of Gotham in the streets inspired by Batman's actions.
Further changes would include deleting All scenes with Matthew Modine's character including and especially his 'death' which was laughable and I would reshoot the death of Miranda Tate as well which also didn't work. For the scenes where Bane is trying to activate the bomb's detonator I would add the detail of having Gordon's squad turning the tables on Bane and using the sewers to track it's movements and using EM devices that override the detonation signals in close proximity the way Batman does in the movie. They do this also during the big battle.
Finally I would expand Jonathan Crane's part and give him some good lines to read. They didn't give him shit for dialog or anything to work with in this movie and it was a terrible waste. They shoulda had him pull out his Scarecrow mask at least Once even if only as a joke to use it as a prop when he passed sentance on people. They coulda had him go off on people with the nerve toxin like he did in the first movie but no f*cking dice anything that good here. They should have had him commit at least commit one execution in court by putting on his Scarecrow mask, walking up to the convicted, gassing him with a massive dose of toxin, then walking back to his chair and saying something like, "Bailiff, bring in the next defendant.." You honestly Need that cause This Is a Batman Movie We're watching after all.. I guess Jonah Nolan must've been too busy working on Man of Steel to write anything good for him.
I sure hope That movie turns out good..