Outside the Beltway

Dark Knight Rises Trailer

The trailer for the next Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises,” is out.

James Joyner
14

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The trailer for the next Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises,” is out:


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It looks quite good. Despite being older and further removed from my comic book days, I’ve enjoyed superhero films much more the last few years than I did those of the 1970s and 1980s. They’re simply much more complex than their cartoonish antecedents.

Then again, that’s generally true of movies–especially action movies–period. The Daniel Craig James Bond films have been far superior to their predecessors, even those starring the iconic Sean Connery. (Heresy, I know, but the early movies, save “Thunderball,” are almost unwatchable now.) The Christian Bale Batman is far superior to the Michael Keaton–much less Adam West–version. And the recent X-Men and Iron Man films have been truly excellent standalone movies, perfectly good even to those not familiar with the comics.

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14 responses to “Dark Knight Rises Trailer”

  1. Hey Norm Avatar
    Hey Norm

    Not to be shallow…but anything with Anne Hathaway in it.

  2. mantis Avatar
    mantis

    The Daniel Craig James Bond films have been far superior to their predecessors, even those starring the iconic Sean Connery. (Heresy, I know, but the early movies, save “Thunderball,” are almost unwatchable now.)

    Come on. What about Goldfinger? From Russia with Love?

    The Christian Bale Batman is far superior to the Michael Keaton–much less Adam Ward–version.

    Agreed, but it’s Adam West.

  3. Brett Avatar
    Brett

    I watched the long trailer that was showing before IMAX “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol”, and it definitely made me more enthusiastic about seeing “The Dark Knight Rises”. I was a bit lukewarm about it before, mostly because I loved “The Dark Knight”, and was iffy on Bane (former wrestler with weird mask?).

    It’s interesting how the Nolanverse Batman films have a different type of villain in each movie. The League of Shadows were saboteurs and “for the greater good” extremists. The Joker was more like a cancer, a living manifestation of chaos and anarchy within Gotham (I liked how “The Dark Knight” played up the whole “Man from Nowhere” idea with him). Bane seems to be more of a revolutionary, whom Batman can’t beat in single combat.

  4. James Joyner Avatar
    James Joyner

    @mantis: Yup. I was somehow conflating “Adam West” and “Burt Ward” (Robin).

    My late wife and I rewatched, in release order, all the Bond films a couple years back. While the acting was generally good, we found the scripting dull. There were, for example, long sequences where Connery was just driving somewhere. The tension levels were just much lower than in the post-reboot films.

  5. Brett Avatar
    Brett

    The effects were definitely a lot cheesier. I remember a scene early in From Russia with Love* where Connery-Bond is about to shoot a grappling hook up something to climb. We see him pull the trigger on the grappling gun, then cut to a rope that was very, very obviously tossed up.

    * By the way, you should always say From Russia with Love with a Sean Connery accent. It’s much more fun.

  6. Graham Avatar
    Graham

    My favorite was always You Only Live Twice.

    Granted, it approaches the level of parody, and provides for about half the jokes in the Austin Powers movies, but that was always part of its charm for me.

  7. mantis Avatar
    mantis

    There were, for example, long sequences where Connery was just driving somewhere. The tension levels were just much lower than in the post-reboot films.

    You make a good point. They do tend to plod along rather slowly compared to today’s films, but then so did most movies back then. IMO, Connery still makes them very watchable.

  8. Kit Smith Avatar
    Kit Smith

    After the remake of Ocean’s 11 came out, I tried watching the original. By an hour in the movie, they were still recruiting guy number 3 who was doing a song and dance number… I turned it off about then, because I was just so bored of waiting for some kind of tension to start building

    My experience in watching movies from the 30’s through the 60’s is just that they didn’t ratchet up drama and conflict like they do now. Flight of the Phoenix was another good example – high-drama remake in the mid aughts of a movie from the 60’s (based off of a book, I know), but the remake was drama and conflict from the get-go, while the original seemed primarily focused on the fight for survival.

  9. Linton Avatar
    Linton

    On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is one of the great Bond flicks, great action scenes, and probably the only truly downbeat ending of the series. Diana Rigg was brought more substance to the role than most Bond girl actresses.

  10. Linton Avatar
    Linton

    To the Bond girl role that is.

  11. Doug Mataconis Avatar
    Doug Mataconis

    @Kit Smith:

    Frank, Dean, and Sammy will always be better than George, Brad, and Matt in my book.

  12. Doug Mataconis Avatar
    Doug Mataconis

    One thought about the Bond flicks.

    The Connery films may be a bit dated, but they have aged better (IMO of course) than the Roger Moore series. Dalton was mostly forgettable. And Pierce Brosnan just seemed to be trying too hard to be perfect.

    So far the Daniel Craig movies are managing to stay up-to-date while still remaining faithful to the character elements that Ian Fleming created.

  13. Brett Avatar
    Brett

    The Roger Moore movies were pretty cheesy (especially Moonraker, which made it all the more weird to read the much more serious Fleming novel). Bond has always been a spectrum between “hot girls, cool gadgets, and cool one-liners” and “Assassin”, but Moore really sat over on the “silly” side of that (Craig-Bond, on the other hand, is basically pure Assassin).

  14. Kit Smith Avatar
    Kit Smith

    @Doug Mataconis: In mine too… it will be nigh on impossible for another group of actors to be as impressive as they were. But it should be taken as a testament to how far cinema has changed as an art form/entertainment media when you compare those old movies versus their newer counterparts. I imagine budgets also have something to do with that, too.

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