Mini-Movie Review: 'The Dark Knight Rises' Prologue

Note: It's a little difficult to discuss a six-minute scene without getting specific in some way, so those who want to go into either the prologue or the full movie completely in the dark should probably skip this.

I think I can sum up my basic impressions of the prologue by saying this: My immediate reaction to it was to seriously consider whether it was worth it to spend nearly $20 on another IMAX ticket just to watch it again.  It overshadowed Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, and as you'll see in my review, I loved Mission Impossible.

The best thing about the way Christopher Nolan films his action scenes is how simple they are.  The scene in The Dark Knight when the semi flipped over may have been the most thrilling movie moment of that year, but not for the usual reasons.  It isn't particularly flashy, it isn't a very complicated shot, and there weren't any explosions to be found.  But it was so original and effective in and of itself that it didn't need extra flash to be awesome.  With what we've seen of The Dark Knight Rises, we get something very similar.

In this prologue, we get to see a plane torn apart in mid-air, stripped down piece by piece, in what might be the most mind-blowing heist scene ever.  And with the way it's shot, it takes you a moment to realize just how incredible it is.  Nolan doesn't use cheap gimmicks, because he knows that what's happening is amazing enough to stand on its own.  I'll say it now: if the rest of the action in this film is anywhere near as good as this was, this will be a better action movie than The Dark Knight, bar none.

But this also acts as our first introduction to the films main villain, Bane, played by Tom Hardy.  How does he fair, especially in comparison to the Oscar-winning performance we got from Heath Ledger's Joker?  Bane, to put it simply, is scary as hell.  Not like the Joker, exactly, who was frightening because of how unpredictable he was.  Watching Bane work is a bit more like watching an armed mugger descend on you in a dark alley.  He has a goal in mind and you know that he will succeed any way he can because he's just that powerful.  He may not have the Joker's laugh, but he'll rip the wings clean off of a jet to get what he wants. 

After the basic prologue, we got a few clips of other parts of the movie, some of which we've seen on set, and some that we haven't.  Highlights include more shots of Anne Hathaway, both as Catwoman and just regular Selina Kyle.  What actually pumped me up me the most, though, was one particular shot of Bane holding a familiar object.  I'll put it this way: That recent poster they released wasn't just being thematic.  Bane will break Batman in this film, one way or another.

One last note on what everyone's been discussing: Bane's voice.  Like most others, I was only able to understand about half of Bane's dialogue, and if that's something that persists throughout the entire movie, it'll be a significant problem.  Having said that, I love the voice, and mechanical edge it gives to the character.  It reminds me of Mr. Freeze's eerie murmurs back in the 90's Batman animated series, and it even gave me Darth Vader flashbacks.  Assuming Chris Nolan is able to make the words sound a bit clearer, I'm stoked to hear the rest of what Bane has to say, though I can only imagine the fan parodies that will pop up on youtube now.

Comments

[Ru]

Great review! I am a Staff writer for DJBooth.net and RefinedHype.com of The Complex Media Network. Would it be possible for me to write for your site?

[Get The Big Picture]

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