I loved his voice. I feel Tom Hardy is under-appreciated in reviews of the film, if only because everyone has to compare him to Heath Ledger. His kind of casual attitude towards everything becomes kind of this creepy whimsy thanks to his mask.
I love how articulate he is considering he's (1) huge, (2) damaged, and (3) grew up in a pit.
It's probably the only time that a mask has helped a character rather than hurt.
And it's an interesting followthrough on the "Bruce as mask, Batman as the real person" metaphor. Yeah, he lays it right out there in the very first scene, but it's that kind of movie.
Really, it IS a film where everybody shouts the themes at each other in dialogue but manages to get away with it because they're all so damn good.
Plus the way he talk just adds to the little bits, like him thanking the guy holding his motorcycle helmet (even villains practice proper road safety!)
I love that he wears something that identifies himself to the audience.
That said, this film keeps getting crappier and crappier every time I go over it in my head. The actors nail the performances, but for the first time the film doesn't feel like the final draft of the script.
It doesn't really stand on its own; it's most definitely the conclusion of what's been set up in the first two movies.
And it handwaves that a bit, too; the beginning of this movie absolutely DOES NOT follow logically from the end of the previous. Granted, they couldn't follow through on the Joker's promise that they'd keep doing this forever, but still and all, Batman retiring is totally not the thing that the second movie indicates is going to happen.
Plus, I'd hate Nolan's political opinions in the film if they didn't seem so inept.
I don't think it's ENTIRELY fair to say these are "Nolan's political opinions" -- d'you think he's really a right-winger, or is that just his interpretation of Batman?
Because let's be honest, Batman is a story about a rich guy who beats up the mentally ill.
(I DO find Bane's death to be facile and a violation of the rules, in the same way that those two bits in the first film are. You know the ones I'm talking about.)
Although I also think that there's a key moment of compassion that sets the tone for the whole thing:
It's not Bane that gets Bruce to come out of retirement. It's the realization that the orphanage is in trouble.