Critics were shown a six-minute prologue and another minute of assorted scenes from the summer 2012 blockbuster.
The teaser poster for "The Dark Knight Returns," due in theaters next summer.“The Dark Knight Rises” is a huge, action-packed movie with epic cinematography, a pounding score and a musclebound menace who just might be Batman’s biggest challenge.
At least, that’s what it looks like it’s going to be, based on about seven minutes of footage.
That’s all that Warner Bros., IMAX and director Christopher Nolan were willing to show film writers at Monday night’s heavily locked-down Manhattan screening at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square. And yet film writers were more than willing to trudge in just to get a glimpse at what’s already one of 2012’s most anticipated films.
“It’s an introduction to the antagonist,” Nolan announced before the screening. But, he insisted, “it’s really about the large-scale film format” – a 65mm system he used for about 50 minutes of the film that “gets me as a filmmaker to where I want to be.”
True enough, perhaps.
But for many of the journalists who showed up, the real draw was the chance to see Tom Hardy as the villainous Bane -- a chance that other Batman fans will get when the “prologue” debuts Friday, piggybacked onto “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” at select IMAX theaters.
And – without any spoilers – just what will they see?
Well, after a quick shot of Commissioner Gordon eulogizing dead Harvey Dent, the preview cuts to an unnamed Third World country, where a CIA team is doing some sort of personnel extraction and trying to get information on a mercenary named Bane.
Except they end up getting more than they bargained for, when Bane himself shows up – and suddenly turns the tables.
Just as the choice of Bane as a villain was an interesting one – he’s a relatively new character to the veteran series, and a far more brutal (and less campy) nemesis than, say, the Riddler or the Penguin – Tom Hardy is a thoughtful, unusual choice to play him.
Of course Hardy already worked with Nolan on “Inception,” and as a director Nolan tends to work with a solid core of trusted collaborators. And Hardy’s certainly a complicated actor, able to suggest both psychological pain and physical power, as he proved in “Warrior” and Nicolas Winding Refn’s truly twisted “Bronson.”
But I can’t say I was an immediate fan of the appliance he wears in “The Dark Knight Rises” – a network of drug-pumping cables that crouches over his mouth like a black crab. And the vocal tone he’s chosen is a little odd, too – a bit formal and oracular, like John Huston. (In the comics, for what it’s worth, Bane is the self-educated product of a Caribbean prison.)
How will this performance play out over the entire film? How does Bane fit in with a roster of bad guys that – if the IMDB cast list isn’t an elaborate bait-and-switch – will also include Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow and (presumably in flashback) Liam Neeson’s Ra’s Al Ghul? And what’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt really up to here, besides playing a Gotham City cop?
That’s something we’ll have to wait until next summer to see.
Although after the six-minute prologue there were some hints, as Nolan had tacked on about a minute of assorted footage. So there were shots of Anne Hathaway, looking like a particularly claws-out Catwoman, and of protesters and police meeting in a Wall Street melee. There was the Batpod roaring down a Gotham City road and Bane, in what looked like an armored breastplate, about to lead his men into action.
And there was a brief – tantalizingly, sadistically brief – shot of Batman and Bane finally going at it, mano a mano.
After the don’t-blink screening, the writers left the theatre for the lobby, where one mob immediately formed around the reclaim-your-cell-phone station, and two more surrounded the open bars. I pushed past both and found Nolan – nicely dressed as ever – quietly standing in a far corner munching on a few appetizers.
Soft-spoken, and always secretive about his projects, he was nonetheless happy to talk about the “truly immersive” IMAX process, which he said reminded him of the wide-screen movies of his youth. “It’s an interesting format to work in, because of that tall screen, the 4-by-3 ratio – really, it’s also like the old Academy (1.375: 1) ratio you used to have,” he said.
He had some good things to say about the film’s propulsive Hans Zimmer score, too, as well as about Newark, which hadn’t made it into this night’s preview. “We shot quite a bit there,” he said. “Did a lot at City Hall, at lot at the Light Rail.”
But mostly, Nolan was just thrilled that the night had come off.
“I’m so glad that everyone came to see our little six minutes,” he said. “If I had it my way, we’d do the entire picture this way. Show six minutes, then you have to come back the next week to see the next six minutes… Serialize it, like Dickens used to do. And then finally put the whole thing out as a single film.”
He was laughing as he said it. But the really funny thing is that – judging by the buzz tonight? It just might work.