Now that I've had a day to think about this film I'm going to post my review on it.
This will be a spoiler filled review.
The Dark Knight Rises, of the three films that Nolan has made, I will start by saying this is my least favorite of the three. That's not saying to much considering they are all good - excellent. Where Begins is a great film, TDK an excellent film, TDKR is just a good film. Sort of like the star wars return of the jedi of the three films.
First the Cons then the Pros
TDKR is in itself a film of two halves. One half thrives on everything Nolan likes to bring to the table, character, dialog and story telling. The introductions to the new characters are all great, especially Catwomens, her turn from maid to thief was excellent. Bane also rocked in the first half of the film. It's to bad he only has one truly great moment in this film, his first fight with batman. It's the only time Bane gives a speech and sounded convincing doing it. Bane was none badder than when delivering the line "Darkness? you use it as a weapon, you should know, I was born in it!". It's when bane decides to blow up the stadium when everything turned.
It's these back to back scenes of Bane taking down the stadium and then releasing the prisoners that the character does a free fall, his speeches are not convincing nor does he sound cool giving them. He was at his best with the less he said, Bane did not need to talk alot to convince me he was bad, his actions proved that to me, the more he spoke, the more I was lost on the character. It was also very weird that they would try to take Gordons Character down a few notches with the Dent speech, there was no reason to have Blake make Gordon look like a lesser character for his actions with Dent.
The second half of the movie where Gotham is "on it's own" was goofy to me, it didn't seem plausible, even in this batman world. If it was something that had happened over a course of a day or two I can buy that, but not the amount of time that spanned over the second half of the movie. I'll also say I didn't really like the Bat to much, it was neat in it's reveal but then it didn't look right flying around the city, just really out of place, I really missed the tumbler in this film and felt it was a much better vehicle to The Bat. It seemed to me the bigger Nolan tried to go, the more he lost his touch on the film.
The one thing that didn't disappoint though was everything outside of the villain camp. Batman/Bruce Wayne shine and this is easily Christen Bales best acted version of the three films. Selena also brought the goods from start to finish. Selena was sexy and powerful, never flinching and always doing what was right for her until the time came to make a choice of self or selflessness. John Blake was also a treat and I loved his arc in the story. The only thing I didn't like what how he randomly confronts Bruce in the beginning, it seemed like it came out of no where. I also loved Fox and Albert in this, they were great as usual. I know alot of people really hate the idea of the very last shot of the film, no one can be Batman but Bruce Wayne but I loved it and thought it was the perfect way to end the film. Batman is not a person but an idea, a legend and anyone can be him. The film literally ended with A Dark Knight Rising and was a great touch on the title.
My final thoughts are, Nolan is at his best when he makes small ideas seem large, but he stumbles when he tries to make big ideas even bigger.