I never read the original dark knight batman, though I heard the tale from my Batman fan friend on the drive through Iowa. The comic book story motivation for Bane sounded dumb then, and the movie's version is only slightly better.
First, off, kudos to Sean Connery for playing Bane and being so buff. For an old guy, he can sure move. Funny how a guy raised in a South American prison gets a scottish accent.
Next off, how does somebody raised in a prison to serve their father's sentence not cause you some daddy issues. I'm sorry, but my evil plan would involve shanking daddy for not rescuing me, rather than taking it out on some stupid city in the US.
Now this movie had a lot of character building for people like Blake the hothead cop, and the stupid bossy cop, and the leader cop who let somebody take the blame. It also had a cameo by Batman. I hope you didn't miss the scene where he showed up for a moment. It was pretty cool.
I think the surprise ending was a little inconsistent. Yes, the auto-pilot doesn't work. he even says so as he climbs in. Why would he lie about something so important to people who are obviously concerned about his safety during this last ditch effort to save the city. He even pilots it out of the city, because we saw him pilot it out of the city.
Somehow, in between cut-scenes, he manages to eject while still being out of range of the NUCLEAR explosion. Pretty impressive. I can see a world where Bruce Wayne sees a chance to let the Batman die/end heroically, so he'll lie now to setup his exit. But there's some serious logistical problems in pulling this trick off on a spur of the moment.
Perhaps Michael Kane helped him with it, after all, he did once work for an Illusionist.