Saturday 31 December 2011

The Watcher - The Dark Knight Rises IMAX Preview

Right from the moment I heard there was another Batman movie from Christopher Nolan coming, I’ve been hungrily hunting all possible tidbits of information around it like a ravenous zombie. So as you can imagine I may have been a tad excited to see some footage from the movie and I may or may not have already tracked down said footage and watched it online. But hey, I like spoilers and I wasn’t going to turn down the chance to see it on IMAX!

The six minute preview begins with a van ripping through a field at some speed, this looks very impressive on the IMAX screen. I feel it allows you to become a lot more immersed into the film. The van is carrying hooded hostages - who they are or why they are there, we do not know. It arrives at a small plane where a slimy CIA agent is awaiting their arrival. He is surprised to find the van has more than one prisoner, but as the carrier mentions possible information on the mysterious mercenary Bane he takes them on board.


As the plane is flying through the sky you can appreciate the scale of the shot and how impressive it looks on the IMAX screen. On board the CIA AGENT is trying to interrogate the hooded prisoners with no avail until...

CIA AGENT: A lot of loyalty for a hired gun
HOODED MAN: Well perhaps he’s wondering why someone would shoot a man, before throwing him out of a plane
CIA AGENT: At least you can talk, who are you?
HOODED MAN: It doesn’t matter who we are, all that matters is our plan. No one cared who I was until I put on the mask.

The CIA AGENT pulls off the hood and the man is revealed as BANE!

CIA AGENT: (gesturing to BANE'S mask) If I pull that off will you die?
BANE: It would be extremely painful…
CIA AGENT: You're a big guy
BANE: …for you.


I would like to highlight Bane's voice at this point, a lot of people have complained about the coherence of it. I actually found his voice to be perfectly clear with an added eerie elocution to it.

Bane's plan is to extract the prisoner and leave no survivors. The extraction itself is brilliantly done - they hijack the plane by hooking it to a larger plane; ripping its tail end off so a group of mercenaries can drop in. During this they seem to perform a blood transfusion on the prisoner and a guy in a body bag. At first I couldn’t understand why they may want to do this but I came to the realisation that it could be to make people think that the prisoner was still on board.

As they escaping, Bane tells a henchman to stay behind. This is the only line which I did not understand:

BANE (to HENCHMAN strapping in): No! They expect one of us in the wreckage brother.
HENCHMAN: Have we started the fire?
BANE: The fire rises.
The DOCTOR starts to freak out.
BANE: Calm down Doctor, now isn’t the time for fear. That comes later.


As the wreckage of the smaller plane hits the ground we’re left with a parting shot of Bane and his hostage being hoisted away by the larger plane. Then finally a quick succession of teaser shots are shown. Multiple tumblers being chased by a new Batwing; Bane and Batman fighting on the steps of Wall Street; Anne Hathaway as Catwoman; Joseph Gordon-Levitt; rioting; explosions and a broken Bat Cowl...

Stefan Harkins keeps chanting over and over again.

1 comment:

  1. Stefan, where did you see this? Always wanted to see something in IMAX but unsure where the nearest one is!

    Nice blog by the way :)

    ReplyDelete