Oh! The software patch was for the auto-pilot! I hadn't realized it wasn't working. But no, Batman and Lucius even had the conversation that the auto-pilot wasn't working. Durrrr.

But yeah, that would be one hell of a 5-second bailout. But he's the goddamn Batman.

I would have paid extra money to have a post-credit scene of Batman and Catwoman eating shawarma.

And Bane is looking at them all disgruntled because he can't eat anything through his damn mask.

Oh shit, I really would have paid big money for that.

Or Nick Fury, saying, "I'd like to talk to you about the Justice League."

Bane's voice was not at all Boomhauer-like, thank god. In fact, at times I thought it was a little too loud and sportscaster-like, if that makes sense. But erring on the side of making him intelligible was the best option.

Nope, I agree. Although I still only understood about 75% of what he said.

Or Nick Fury, saying, "I'd like to talk to you about the Justice League."

Except Nick Fury is played by Liam Neeson: "I'd like to talk to you about the Justice League of Shadows."

Preliminary box office estimates:

1. The Dark Knight Rises (Legendary/Warner Bros) NEW [4,404 Theaters]
Friday $80M, Weekend $180M

2. Ice Age 4 (Blue Sky/Fox) Week 2 [3,886 Theaters]
Friday $7.5M, Weekend $25M

So, no, not going to beat The Avengers, but still going to make loads of money.

I know it's taking it too personally, but I'm expecting to have back injury-related nightmares. It's what I do. When Bruce was screaming in pain in prison, I thought, "Huh. I have made that same sound." But not when I was in prison. I was pretty stoic in prison. Until they made me climb out. t /dork

I saw it with Calli, like she said. And I loved it, loved it. I'm seeing it again today with another friend, and I can't wait.

I thought the pacing was better than TDK. It didn't feel like almost three hours to me at all.

The final shot of the movie rocked SO HARD I can't even tell you.

I actually spontaneously shouted, "YAY!" after the last shot.

I feel like Dark Knight Rises was really John Blake's story.

Yesssss. JGL: so good. They NEED to make a JGL Nightwing movie now. For me, and for great justice.

As for how Batman got out, he may have had more than five seconds. The camera was focused on the clock, but we don't know Batman was in there at that point. So...maybe he had twenty seconds to engage the autopilot and get out?

At any rate, BADASS ESCAPE!

I saw what Debet and P-C saw, too.

And Bane is looking at them all disgruntled because he can't eat anything through his damn mask.

Ha!

Bane's voice was not at all Boomhauer-like, thank god. In fact, at times I thought it was a little too loud and sportscaster-like, if that makes sense. But erring on the side of making him intelligible was the best option.

Yes, it totally makes sense. At first I was like, "The mask comes with a microphone?" But I'm glad I could understand him.

Whoa, that was Owen from Torchwood?

Everybody was great. Tom Hardy did some impressive eye-acting. Especially with Talia.

I, of course, want everyone to like this movie, but I am tickled especially pink (no mean feat when you're high yellow) that Steph is so explosively joyous about it. Now, I have to get off the tablet and get onto a computer so I can do the white font justice.

Okay, keyboard and highlighting.

Owen from Torchwood is a really...particular kind of ugly (I know that sounds mean, but the fucker was just in a rocking Batman movie--he can look like whatever. The public aspects of his life ROCK) so I never don't recognise him. I did wonder if I should recognise Daggett though--the actor, or the character from the comic. Turns out, I guess not.

As for motherfucking Talia D'oh. Because I was where P-C was. Everyone had said that's who she was going to be, and even though I thought--why do all those people in the prison have their faces covered just like Bane? Maybe one of them is Bane? But then who would the kid be? Makes no sense--I was completely startled by the reveal.

And I did love how pleasing it was to be surprised by some things, and how pleasing it was for some other things to be perfectly predictable (nay, comfortingly so). Both together, within minutes, make a story fun. I wonder if there are decent tickets for today's matinee?

The science at the end, with the nuclear explosion not that far out to sea, and however clear Batman was to have gotten from it-- I don't know the details, but I'm assuming it completely fails to work. But I'm gonna leave it be, because it's not like the first movie was particularly solid on that front (I'm blanking on where the second failed spectacularly, but I'm assuming it did--maybe the phones? Oh, the anything!), and this one did start off with grabbing a plane and ripping the wings off, towing it, with your own flight undisturbed.

Earth 1's physics has a wee bit of magic in it. No problemo, moving on. But I am seeing people who are stuck on the science at the beginning and shrugging it off at the end. I don't get why one matters and one doesn't.

I've seen some people saying "See! Told you Bane would be unintelligible!" He was so crystal clear in the version I saw that I thought he might have been sitting with a mike in the back of the theatre. It didn't feel like he was in the same sound landscape as the other characters, and it was especially weird when he had his head covered --what was that supposed to sound like to the people around him? But, yeah, not a single problem understanding him, and Charlie Jane said the same about her screening. So it seems to be a theatre to theatre thing, and I'm glad I got what I got.

I would like to make clappy hands and run around in circles for Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, JGL, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway (I was fine with her casting, but I outright enjoyed her performance--especially because it wasn't slinky and purry--that's clumsy in the 21st century, at least for most women, when you're in an action role), JGL again (I mean, SERIOUSLY), and then Tom Hardy's eyes--especially the moment you call out, amyth, and then I'd like to call out his body, because he moved with such grace and assurance and menace and like he could be the guy that broke the Bat for reals.

And then, on top of all that, I realise Christian Bale held the movie together. For some reason, I didn't come out of the movie feeling as excitable about him, but it doesn't take much looking back to realise he did a magnificent job if everyone else was that good, and he was the unifying factor, in and out of the mask. He did all that, totally.

And I think the bat-voice seemed to be less growly? It never bothered me much, but was it less ridiculous for people who found it ridiculous?

I keep flashing back to the football stadium scene and the leadup to it. That really gave me chills, because I knew what was going to happen, but now there was context--I couldn't work out precisely what or why before, and this made it all so horrible.

Yikes.

Oh, and I couldn't help but wonder--how badly must those policemen have smelt when they finally got topside? And their whole "storm a narrow corridor" plan-- well, it did bring tears to my eyes, but maybe not for the reasons they'd have liked.

I found that it was pretty simple to keep track of who was who as they were introduced, even if it took a few seconds to get the bad guys straight (I really liked the one played by JJ's husband--I've seen him on Criminal Minds, and as a sleazy husband on Dirt, primarily, so seeing him as a henchman in a comic book movie is an interesting move, and I like how he played it), but I wasn't sure precisely what Matthew Modine's character's job was, and I'm looking that up right now. Aha Deputy Commissioner. He sure acted big for his britches--I wasn't sure if he was going to find true grit in the heat of the moment, or pay for his disdain with his life. But this is Gotham, after all.