Batman Begins was a thrill and The Dark Knight mostly carried the same feeling, making all the fans hope for a strong trilogy. What The Dark Knight lacked in power compared to part 1 was made up for in spade by Ledger's performance as the Joker.

But the Dark Knight Rises throws all that potential away. With a star-studded cast, it is at times boring with its lazy writing, endlessly milked gimmicks (yes, yes, the wheels of the motorcycle roll sideways, wow), tensionless drawn-out action scenes (someone seemed to think that missiles chasing a helicopter for over a minute makes sense) and horribly flat acting at times. Sound design is all over the place and enough has been said about Bane's silly voice effects.

There's a few good things. The score isn't bad, the environment is good in places, but Nolan's heart clearly wasn't in it anymore. What most surprised me is how bad the direction was. I'd love to believe that Nolan somehow got a bad deal, was forced to work with bad writers, had the misfortune of being saddled with bad actors, anything. But Nolan made something derivative of his previous work and extremely lazy - the whole thing feels phoned in.

I love Nolan's work and the first two Batman movies he directed are easily the best two ever made, but the final to the trilogy cheapens and diminishes the whole. Still worth a watch and after watching part 1 and 2 you'll want more - but this isn't it.