Just got back from seeing it. While I think Bob was a little heavy handed with the negative vibe, he mainly nailed it. It's a great movie. Easily the number two of the summer behind Avengers. But it's quite a way behind, and part of the reason stems from the very fact of Avengers existence.
Part of the problem is that as Bob noted, this third movie starts to give long time Batman fans a little bit of service. Some actual comic nods start to creep in. Plus the entire movie is culled by mashing together a few of the BIG 80's and 90's massive Batman crossover tales. No really this movie is The Dark Knight Returns + Knightfall + No Mans Land all mashed together. Really! That's the huge secret script that is so being kept under wraps. They read these three graphic novels and made a movie from them. They actually did a good job of it. Better than most comic to movie "adaptions" (see Fantastic Four 2). But it still leaves a weird taste in the viewers mouth for a few reasons.
If we had not seen Avengers first, this might have been a much better received movie. Like how the X-Men movies were great until we saw Spiderman 1 and 2. Dark Knight Rises is both a joy and a horror because it finally starts to sprinkle some fleeting signs of the Batman mythos into the movies. We start to get little nods to who characters may be. Connected backstories, etc. Just little breadcrumbs. But that's all they are is fleeting breadcrumbs. They are the best moments in the movie but they have no real payout. Then we look at Avengers. They took the comic book world that we comic fans loved, all of it whole hog. Instead of breadcrumbs they gave us the whole loaf, and made a giant sandwich out of it first for us. They dove in with the costumes and the aliens and the gods. All of it. And they shoved it in front of the world, and it was wonderful. Instead over here we get stuff like a one off line from "Officer Blake" at the end. We can feel the classic "Bat family" and overall Batman cast creeping towards familiar places. Really really cool places. But they don't actually bring us there. Two years ago this would have been one of the years best movies. But now? We have seen what can be done when you don't try and "adultify" a comic book property and make it darker and more serious, and instead embrace the actual property full bore. This doesn't do that. It doesn't do that in oh so many little ways.
Part of the weird thing about the movie is the supporting cast is just so much more interesting than either the main hero or the villains. Commissioner Gordon and Third Rock from the Cop boy were by far the best things on screen. Surpassed only by Anne Hathaway. Bane was entertaining but kinda shallow and pointless. I found myself sitting in the theater and thinking how much better this would have been if they had just taken all of his dialogue and used it to do a Lady Shiva story instead. The actual Bruce Wayne story arc is sorta meh. It starts out interesting and goes downhill to the point where at one point you think they accidentally slipped in a real from the first half of Iron Man, the plot and setting was so horribly similar.
Oh and remember how I said the story mashed together all of those 80's and 90's graphics novels? While it made for a decent Batman story for this movie. The story told was in no way greater than the sum of it's parts. And that is a problem. Because this movie has probably poisoned the well for us to ever see a real "Frank Miller Dark Knight Returns" movie to be made. Just as Promethius knocked out any hope of us seeing a movie adaption of "At the Mountains of Madness". In the long run it sort of sucks for that.
Overall go see it. It's the best thing in theaters right now. It is a good Batman story. It's certainly better than Amazing Spiderman or Prometheus. It's just not as good as Dark Knight or Avengers.