“The Dark Knight Rises” won’t be in theaters until July 20, but Warner Bros. has helped satisfy our bat-appetites by releasing several hundred trailers. The latest one “dropped” (I think that is the slang term) a couple weeks ago. Here is our second-by-second response!
0:00 – The film is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of violence and action, some sensuality and language.” I’m guessing the language is English (except for Bane), but what’s the sensuality? I hope Alfred’s finally getting a girlfriend.
0:15 – Anne Hathaway says, “There’s a storm coming.” Meanwhile, some guy in a Hannibal Lecter mask is on an airplane. That is probably the storm! The “storm” is metaphorical.
0:22 – Christian Bale: “You sound like you’re looking forward to it [i.e., the metaphorical storm].” Anne Hathaway: “I’m adaptable.” Ah. So she’s actually nothing like a cat.
0:35 – Scared man: “What are you?” Man in Hannibal Lecter mask who we assume is Bane: “I’m Gotham’s reckoning.” So now there is conflict among metaphors! Catwoman thinks Bane is “a storm coming,” whereas Bane believes himself to be “Gotham’s reckoning.” They will probably argue this point in a series of televised debates.
0:35 – By the way, when someone asks what you are, “I’m Gotham’s reckoning” is not a useful answer. He probably means more along the lines of “Why are you wearing that terrifying mask and why are you about to kill me?” not “What do you perceive as being your overall role vis-a-vis this city?”
0:39 – Mayhem on the football field. Oh, great, the Jets have found another way to collapse under pressure.
0:42 – Whatever Joseph Gordon-Levitt on a bridge next to a school bus is looking at, he is not happy about it.
0:47 – Oh. He’s looking at other bridges blowing up. No wonder, then.
0:49 – I’m sorry, but a school bus full of children in mortal peril? Is a damsel going to be tied to a railroad track, too? Maybe Batman will stop a bank robber in a raccoon mask as he dashes out of the bank carrying two large sacks with dollar signs on them?
0:56 – The bad guys have thrown Bruce Wayne down a well. Those fiends! No one can ever escape from a hole in the ground with an opening at the top!
1:03 – They also sent Bane down to taunt him. Coming storm, Gotham’s reckoning, taunter of billionaires: the man can do it all.
1:13 – JGL doesn’t know if Batman is coming back. Probably depends on how this one does at the box office, no?
1:16 – Whoa! Snow on the ground. Maybe the storm was literal after all? Mind = blown.
1:28 – “I won’t bury you. I’ve buried enough members of the Wayne family.” What are you saying, Alfred? If he dies you’ll just let him sit out in the sun? What will that prove? Anyway, YOU don’t have to bury him. There are people for that.
1:36 – “You don’t owe these people any more,” says Catwoman. “So tell Fannie Mae to get off your back!”
1:49 – If Gary Oldman isn’t nominated for best supporting mustache, I don’t know what I’m going to do.
1:51 – The inmates are puttin’ on a show! Five-six-seven-eight!
2:10 – Catwoman: “My mother warned me about getting into cars with strange men.” Batman: “This isn’t a car.” Catwoman: “You’re missing the point of my mother’s warning.”
2:15 – He’s right that it’s not a car, though. It’s some kind of flying thingee! A bat who can fly?? Now I’ve seen everything.
VERDICT: I was going to see this movie anyway, no matter what, and now I am still going to see it anyway, except now I get to complain about too many things being spoiled! Yay!
— Film.com
