My thoughts on the three films, slight spoilers will be present but I'm assuming everyone already have seen these so it shouldn't matter . . .
Batman Begins ~ The first act of the movie was downright awful. In pretty much every other iteration of Batman, Batman's inner strength is shown and he more or less decides on his own to fight injustice and the no-kill thing. In Batman: The Brave And The Bold's episode Chill Of The Night (which I'd recommend to any Batman fan, fantastic episode, almost like a lost episode of TAS) it's shown that. So even when he had his weak, angst moments, if he even had those, you'd still have that strength and determination. In this film, up until Rachel gave that speech he was just, weak minded and all that stuff with nothing to really get me to click or connect, or admire in the character. In trust me, this isn't a case of just "not my Batman", the first act or so was just unbearable for me. I wanted to kick Bruce's ass. The next two thirds of the movie however, were epic. Honestly if it wasn't for the first act and Rachel, who to me felt nothing more than a shoehorned in love interest (and Bale and whatshername had no chemistry), this would probably be my favorite. Also I have to ask, was Liam Neeson being Ra's Al Ghul suppose to be a surprise? Like, I heard it was twist but honestly I thought it was bloody obvious.
The Dark Knight ~ My personal favorite though it does have some problems. For one Rachel is also in it (though it's rectified), it's a long movie and it really shows in some scenes, and Two-Face was giving way too little screen time. Speaking of Aaron Eckhart, this guy absolutely stole the movie in my opinion. His performance as Harvey Dent is without a doubt the best version of him (though that's admittedly not saying much). I think he definitely would've gotten more recognize had Ledger not unfortunately died. Speaking of which, yes Ledger does a great job here too. Best Joker? Don't make me laugh, that will always be Mark Hamill and it's not even close. However, unlike with the origin story, this is a good example of changing something up and still being good. Not much more to say, great flick.
The Dark Knight Rises ~ I had extremely low expectations for this film since I've never cared for Bane or Catwoman. However, Tom Hardy as Bane blew me away, as did Anne Hathaway just to a lesser extent. Minus the "twist" at the end kind of took a hit on the character, this has to be my favorite Bane. Not so much with Catwoman, but still a very good portrayal. I really liked how this was much more of a Bruce Wayne film than a Batman one, took me off guard but I enjoyed it. The Batman/Bane sewer was downright epic. Now for the negatives. Firstly, it definitely dragged more than the TDKR. Secondly, and I'm not faulting them for this, it was a shame not to have some kind of conclusive on Joker. I just wanted a throwaway line, but no mention at all felt weird from a narrative stand point. Again, not faulting them, but still. Thirdly, while Rachel wasn't present, her presence was still featured so to speak, and anything reminding me of that awful character is bad. But time for the the biggest knock, talk about predictable. Every twist, every reveal, I saw coming like twenty minutes prior. Like the villain twist, at the end, I saw that coming like ten minutes in during the villains very first conversation with Bruce. Blake's whole role in the movie was very predictable. And the very ending the last scene, the dinner scene was terrible. Not only was it predictable, but they really dragged out the "Reveal". It took five minutes from the time that scene starts to the "Reveal" that if you didn't see coming an hour or so ago, you saw coming when they started. Altogether though, I still really enjoyed these movies.
Time for just a few comments on the movie in general. I hate Bale's Batman voice. Cillian Murphy is awesome. The movies certainly aren't realistic, not sure where people were getting that. A lot of the casting, purely from an aesthetic point of view, was as close to perfection as they were going to get. Gary Oldman looks actually like Gordon would live-action.
Anyway, to wrap this up, do I love these movies? With the exception of TDK, no but I like the other two a lot. When I want to watch Batman, I stick to The Animated Series thank you very much.
