Movie tip: "The Dark Knight Rises"

My random thoughts: Why does Bane sound like Darrell Hammond doing Sean Connery on "Saturday Night Live"? Gary Oldman has surprisingly lustrous hair (which I noticed in the innumerable shots where the camera follows behind him). The fight scenes between Tom Hardy's Bane and Christian Bale's Batman are bare-knuckle brawls, which made me wonder: what do these actors think this is, "Warrior" or "The Fighter"? OK, down to business: "Rises" is a much better film than "The Dark Knight" - it moves better, it pops with better plot developments - but it lacks a villain as crazily compelling as Heath Ledger's Joker. That aside, it's dark and emotional and thoughtful (timely, too, with its average-person-versus-the-rich conflict). "Rises" is a fitting end for Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy.

- KRISTINA DORSEY