But understand this: Bruce. Was. The League's. Best. Student. They are a legion of ninjas who operate in the shadows and are very athletic and have gone through not only great physicality to push themselves but also trained themselves mentally.Blake may be a decent cop but he doesn't have half of Bruce's training down, Bruce was gone for eight years lost in the world, Blake's just a hot young cop who's only gotten lucky a few times. And Bruce didn't train him, where was that in the movie? Blake also isn't likely to understand any of the advanced technology Bruce has at his disposal in the batcave, and dude it's GOTHAM CITY. Crime is always lurking around, and just becuase Talia and Bane are gone doesn't mean crime's going to slow down, there's always going to be crime a foot. Blake will not have all the time in the world to train, he'll be shot dead in a single night and be lucky if nothing harms him.

The thing is the story isn't great, even on it's own merits. The Dark Knight Rises is a very sloppy movie, it misses the mark too many times on believability, character writing, plot and story. The ending is a slap in the face of Bob Kane and Bill Finger's work and the work of so many other great artists and writers. It's also a pretty bad example to children, who the movie is intended for despite trying to fake it's way as being an adult movie. Going by Nolan's logic a hero should be a coward, fake his own death, and leave it into the hands of a phony all so he could be with some chick who betrayed him and stole his Mother's valuables. People always say Batman is up for interpretation...No he is not. The only thing that is really up to interpretation is how his environment looks, the tone of the story, and what his villains look like, he always stays the same even in the most subtle of details. Batman isn't somebody who sits out for eight years because his chick died, he will fight tooth and nail and will loose days and nights of sleep to solve a crime. Nolan didn't understand the character that much, he only took the material seriously, he is not a comic book fan and if he were he would not have done what he did to the character or his universe. Speaking of which I know he likes to keep things realistic and all but if you're universe for Batman cannot have Mr. Freeze, Clayface, Killer Croc or all those big monster baddies he battles with on a regular basis then that's not Batman's universe it's Nolan's universe and that's the root of the problem, Nolan ( most likely) thinks he's above the material.

I hope the new Batman reboot is done by a real fan of the character, one who actually has gotten his hands on almost every comic of the character in his grasps and realizes that Batman doesn't have to save the world or even Gotham itself to be a hero. One who can embrace it's absurdities and all of its characters but not to the point where he has too much of a run with it like Burton and Schumacher.

If you like The Dark Knight Rises feel free to enjoy it, don't let me rain on your parade, but I'll stick to The Avengers and Dredd 3D as far as comic book movies go for 2012, becuase those movies are neither a) pretentious, b) actually have heroic characters, and c) are more smarter beyond the surface level( at least Dredd).