What We Expected: A thrilling finale to the Batman saga that would in Tom Hardy's Bane create a villain even more imposing than Heath Ledger's The Joker, while closing off Christopher Nolan's stunning interpretation of Batman. Will Batman die? Will he retire? Will he continue to fight crime? These were the answers everyone wanted to know, and they made it easily the most-hyped film of 2012. What We Got: A hugely entertaining closing chapter that nevertheless left plenty dissatisfied because of the finer details, rather than considering the overall dramatic heft of the narrative. Was it as amazing as The Dark Knight? Perhaps not quite - Bane is simply not as iconic or celebrated as The Joker - but it traded blows admirably, and brought the whole franchise to a rousing, thunderous close. It was a thankless task for Nolan, and frankly neither he nor anyone involved with it really had a fighting chance against the wave of hype. They simply had to roll with it and do the best that they could.