Bane Rises in Dark Knight Prologue

The legend will end. But we’ll have to wait until July for that.

 

For now, we can enjoy one of the biggest teases in the history of movie marketing: the prologue to Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, which will be playing for a short time before IMAX showings of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. It also happens to be playing at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Science Center before Omnimax showings of the documentary Tornado Alley. That seems random, but considering a decent portion of the movie was shot in the steel city, it’s really the filmmakers throwing the Burgh a bone.

 

The seven-minute footage contains many Batman/Nolan staples: Gary Oldman’s mustachioed Commissioner Gordon giving a dramatic speech, quick cuts, badass dialogue, and thrilling action. The big draw here was Tom Hardy’s Bane in full criminal mastermind mode. The majority of the footage is Bane and his men hijacking a plane, with the masked man striking terror into the hearts of anyone standing in the way of his plan, whatever that is.

 

While the footage is suitably awesome for Nolan’s Batman universe, there’s one glaring issue that needs to be ironed out before the film’s July release. I only understood about half of what Bane said. Whether it’s because of the mask, Hardy’s thick English accent or a combination of the two, you can’t have an intimidating villain if he sounds like a parent in a Peanuts cartoon. 

 

The rest of the prologue contained short flashes of scenes that you can see in Rises’ recently released trailer. As excited as I am to see the final product, I’m still not sold on certain elements, mainly Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman. It’s not that I don’t trust Hathaway’s acting chops, and she can certainly fill out the Catsuit well. I’m more nervous about how Nolan is going to use her: will she be fighting with Batman, against him, or as a vigilante only worried about herself?

 

Nolan has done enough at this point to earn our trust, so I’ll have faith that he knows what he’s doing. One small request Chris: find a reason to make Ms. Hathaway rap in Rises. You’re welcome.