Two trailers out:

Some parts of that second trailer give me the geek bumps but other parts (Oh hai Bane!) I'm more clinically thinking, "Hmm, this could be interesting." Still, I'm on board.

The bigger problem is that ever since I saw this, I'm unable to take Michael Caine seriously:

Both quite good, but I gotta give it to the first guy.

Both were very good. I, too, must give it to the first guy, though.

First guy for sure. But that video is great.


On Batman: I'm stoked. Nolan hasn't let me down yet. Anyone seen the prologue?

I'm a sucker for anything Nolan, but the football field scene did very little for me..kind of stupid actually. Let's just hope within the context of the movie the scene works.

New trailer. I came.




A buddy of mine said that they might kill Batman. I'm starting to think he may be right.

heh, I got that vibe from the trailer as well. It certainly has that ominous feel to it.

Seems like they toned down the gruffivoice which is good.

I don't think they're going to kill him. It's more likely that Bane breaks his back which is why he seems like he's hobbling in that scene with the goatee, and would explain the earlier scenes with the cane from other trailers. But then again, maybe it won't be a broken back. Probably something a little less severe. Something more realistic to come back form.

I think it's also important to note that Bane is actually super smart in the comics. Earlier versions of him just had him as a brute, which really hurt the character. Very similar to Sabertooth in the X-Men movie.

I'm with AresOnasis on Batman's injury and Bane...been scrounging around for the link to the interview in which Nolan or his right-hand guy was talking about depicting Bane accurately...will post if/when I find it, but it seems that Hardy's Bane will easily be the most accurate depiction of the character yet...i'm gonna guess a knee injury for Batman based on the trailers.

That was Hines Wards' last touchdown too

Yes. Bane is a bad mother fucker. Sharp. Not as sharp as Nigma, but clever enough to use Nigma to his advantage. And the Joker too, for that matter. Bane's motivation in the comic book is to rule. He's a conqueror and treats Gotham that way.
/batman nerd rant

And I think you guys are just as right about it only being a severe injury but....I dunno. Something in my gut tells me they might take it much further. I thought it was ridiculous too but the more I think about it...The more it kind of make sense.

I think the film is going to be more of a rebirth of sorts for the character. I mean, the film is called The Dark Knight Rises, after all.

We saw the fall, or death, of Batman as the hero of the people as he was thrust into the role of the antihero that is vilified by the people of Gotham. This film will see him restored as the hero of the people of Gotham, but as The Dark Knight as opposed to Batman. He'll undergo a serious, traumatic trial by fire that sees him shedding the black and white, naive nature he displayed in the previous two flicks as he takes on a more realistic, gray area persona. Bane will break him physically, emotionally, and mentally. He might even "kill" Batman. The injury, perhaps a broken back (I sort of hope), will kill Batman, but we will see him recover as The Dark Knight. In this, despite he and his schemes ultimately being defeated, Bane will ultimately win because he will have fundamentally changed the very nature of the Batman.

Which might sound counterintuitive to the "Batman's gonna die" vibe of the trailer, or maybe not. The vibe might be a red herring, or maybe Batman actually will "die". Not physically, but mentally and emotionally as the Batman we've come to know him as in the previous two films gives way to the more gray-thinking The Dark Knight.

I could see him going through any combo of these three symbolic deaths at the hands of Bane that leads to him being reborn embracing the Dark Knight persona.

Physical death: Broken back, or some other traumatic injury
Mental death: destruction of Wayne Tower
Emotional death: Alfred's death

I have these comics (the Bane saga) and wasn't there a replacement Batman? The olympic athlete who kills Bane?

Jean-Paul Valley, aka Azrael the avenging angel. Poor kid was brainwashed by some ancient religious order which turned him into a ruthless killer over in Europe (I think). Batman rescued him and brought him to Gotham. Bane happens. Jean-Paul Valley takes up the mantle of the Bat. The rest is history.

He didn't kill Bane, but did beat the shit out of him.

165 minutes. Way way too long with lots of corny dialogue plus some cheesy capitalism-critic and 9/11-imagery. I like Nolan a lot but this was a huge letdown.

Sounds like a shortened review of one I already read.

No, I liked it. It plays with the fears of many different scenarios that I've thought or heard about since 9/11 and creates anxiety about the possibilities better than most movies I've seen. It's a joke to call them just superhero movies. It can seem bloated but it all pays off. Would've been nice if the 3-year old behind me could keep up with the fucking plot and stop asking his dad why Batman didn't have his mask. Kids are idiots.

Copied n pasted from El Facebooks:


Dark Knight Rises: Okay as a standalone film, pretty tight as the third act of a trilogy (credit where credit is due to io9, where I first read that opinion). The biggest problem I had? Bringing in the outside world. Chris Nolan keepin' it real, dawg, within one city (with exceptions) was plausible but once the entire US gov't was brought in (with an aged Guy Whitey Corngood as president) the balance of plausibility was lost. Second issue - Bane spends 9/10 of the movie as a master criminal, only at the last minute to reveal himself as... a devoted toady? Meh. Still, I liked it well enough. A lot of thought went into the plot, and I'd rather see the seams of overreach instead of an empty suit lazily made of the usual plot points. It will be a long time until we see another superhero movie with this level of grim)))))

Yeah. I liked it. The Dark Knight Rises is a fun ride. For all of my gripes about Bane (nice for the fans, too expository for the layman, and awkward for the actor), I do like him. Hardys presence physically makes him scary. Unlike the other villains in the trilogy, Bane isn't all that impressed with Batman and that's what lends him charisma. Despite his voice, but that just could've been the crappy "IMAX" theater, because I genuinely had a hard time understanding him.

Hathaway was great. Selina Kyle (never called Catwoman) was the only role that really highlighted Bruce Wayne. Ah, Catwoman. The side kick you always wished Robin would be.

*Spoilers......perhaps*



There was a lot less of Wayne then I wish there would be. At least, at the point of the movie where it splits in two, the things happening to Wayne and the things happening in the city weren't equal in many ways.

Also, Rush clearly didn't see the movie if he thinks anyone is going to connect Mitt Romney to Bane. Not that it needed to be said, but I needed to say it.

There's a sick irony to that shooting happening in this movie. I was at the midnight showing because I'm 12 (could've easily been at that theater as well, blessed indeed) and of the handful of millions who got to experience this movie outside of that bullshit. But the movie does give you a sense of PTSD after you've finished it. People for a while won't help themselves but see the parallels of Nolan's portrayal of Batman villainy and the everyday villainy of realty. That was, after all, the idea of his Batman trilogy.

All in all, I give the movie a B+ to an A-. It's the weakest of the three, but a fine ending to a great era. But I'm going to give it another watch. Because I'm 12.

**I think this post contains spoilers, but I tried to keep it to a minimum**


Saw this last night, not in IMAX. Agreed on more Bruce. Also wanted more Alfred, which I think just means I wanted more character development all around. It was like they put the whole trilogy's worth of character building in the first movie and then introduced a bunch of new characters in the second and third movie without really giving them any consideration.

Fun though. Some pretty groan-worthy dialogue, and a few of the last-minute-type rescues I kind of just had to throw up my hands at. I guess it's hard to balance being a good-time popcorn action movie and being a brooding character piece. This one had the superficial trappings of the latter but actually seemed to lean much more toward the former. The riot scenes looked good. As usual, the mix was awful and I had a few instances of wondering what people were saying, even apart from Bane.

Speaking of, was Bane always British? I wondered after I left the theater if in British movies all the vaguely foreign villains have American accents. I guess it worked, but I always thought of him more as a brute than a political grandstander like that. The shot of him with himself on the screen in the football field was good though, reminiscent of some story I read about the Taliban in a soccer stadium in Afghanistan, which I guess was a case of me hearing the dog whistle there.

Also -- the scene of him putting Batman over his knee was awesome. I still remember that comic cover and was hoping they wouldn't bring in Bane and not have that be part of it. I wish they'd held it longer, kind of had everything stop around it.

And not for nothing, but I spent a goodly portion of this movie totally rooting for Bane. The scene of them with the stockbrokers on the back of the dirtbikes was just whatever the equivalent of foodporn is for left wingers. A little cheap, maybe, but still appreciated. Another dog whistle.

Talking with my sister in law and her boyfriend this morning and we all agreed that Bane's plan to ruin Gotham was, while cathartic for left wingers who write reviews of stoner rock, about as needlessly convoluted and dependent on tenuous coincidences and poorly assumed outcomes as Luke's plan to rescue Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt.

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2008/10/the_5_reasons_luke_skywalker_is_a_complete_idiot.php (see item 3)

I saw the midnight showing and liked it very much indeed. (in the voice of Micheal Cain)

Well if they were 'poorly assumed outcomes,' how come it kind of worked? Huh? Answer that, smarty-pants!


Another note....and major spoilers ahead:






What did y'all think of the whole Blake twist? I didn't mind it. Basically I view it as Nolan giving the finger to the audience; saying "hah, you wish!"

But I've heard it argues that it was Blake who rises and not necessarily Bruce Wayne as 'The Dark Knight.' I yelled at the person who said that though...