Thursday, December 15, 2011

SPOILER ALERT: Review - Dark Knight Rises Prologue


Tell someone they’re smart enough for long enough and sooner or later they start to believe it.

Contrary to popular, and surely his personal belief, Christopher Nolan isn’t as smart as everyone thinks he is, himself included.

This is not to say Nolan isn’t an intelligent auteur with the rare gift of vision in an era where mainstream cinema is bewilderingly bereft of directors with a unique voice. It does, however, mean that his approach to storytelling can be rather sterile—which isn’t news to the mildly observant—and less dynamic than the throngs of Nolanites might suggest.

SPOILER ALERT

Two nights ago, I had the fortune of catching the 6-minute prologue to next summer’s The Dark Knight Rises. The clip, and make no mistake that’s all it is, opens with Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon delivering a eulogy at Harvey Dent’s funeral. It is a quick scene punctuated by Gordon’s dignified remark, “I remember Harvey Dent.” From there, the clip jumps to what appears to be South America (a subtitle might help, just for the sake of geography and those who don’t know that big bad Bane is from the Caribbean).

On a desolate airstrip, Mayor Carcetti (Aiden Gillen, genre film and TV’s fastest rising go-to slimeball) is double dipping as a smarmy—shocking—CIA agent who is awaiting the delivery of three poor unfortunate souls (read: hooded prisoners) who are clearly on their way to the Nolanverse version of Abu Grahib. The requisite heavily armed paramilitary pseudo-spies flank Carcetti and exchange tales of the man called "Bane". “Why does he wear the mask?” they ask. Isn’t it obvious or do that not realize that eight years prior some damaged rich boy in a Kevlar gimp outfit “escalated” the war on crime to a point where a jacked mercenary from the South American Alcatraz has decided the best way to intimidate innocents is to wear a third of Darth Vader’s mask and talk through a vocoder?

The three prisoners are soon delivered along with a Dr. Exotic Name (Pavel, actually, and thanks to IMDB for that info because the sound was for crap.). Apparently, Dr. Pavel has some kind of MacGuffin, but since cryptic is the order of the day, it is not really clear if it’s a formula like the well-known Venom that turned comic book Bane into a supersized luchador or something more sinister. Carcetti is surprised to see the three prisoners, having only expected two, and begrudgingly brings them on the plane in hopes of learning about "Bane".

Once on the plane, Carcetti tries to pull some of that bull-in-a-china-shop shit that never flew in Baltimore and threatens to shoot the prisoners or throw them off the plane. Of course, no one talks after the first two threats. After the third threat, one of the prisoners speaks. In a voice that is virtually indistinguishable from a cashier speaking through a drive-thru microphone, the hooded prisoner says something. Whatever he says forces Carcetti to rip off the hood and….dun dun dun…reveal Bane, complete with a Darth Vader muzzle that covers his mouth with what look like metal teeth. From here, Bane (Tom Hardy, still sporting the muscles he earned on the MMA Rocky movie, Warrior) rambles some completely incomprehensible rhetoric that is enough to rattle Carcetti and spur Carcetti’s bodyguards to train their guns on Bane’s head.

While Carcetti and his crew are distracted, another plane, a longer black plane, flies above Carcetti’s plane. A squad of paratroopers drops from the rear of the black plane and attaches to Carcetti’s plane with suction cups. Through a ridiculously complicated process, the squad strings up the wings and tail of Carcetti’s plane, attaching it to the black plane, then shoots out the windows of Carcetti’s plane. The black plane pulls up just enough to rip the wings and tail of the plane off, turn the plane vertical, and throw it into freefall. Bane, Carcetti, the bodyguards, Dr. Exotic Name and the other prisoners flop around the plane like Joseph Gordon Levitt and Dream Soldier #695 did in level 2 of Fischer’s dream in Inception. With the tail nothing more than a gaping hole, the paratroopers drop in and, through another complicated series of actions, place harnesses on the doctor and Bane, while lowering a fresh corpse into the cabin. Bane administer a funky blood transfusion between the doctor and the fresh corpse in what appears to be a poorly planned attempt to convince the world that the doctor will die in the impending crash. As Bane, the doctor and the paratroopers prepare to be ejected from the falling plane, in a manner much like Batman and his ‘skyhook’ escape from Hong Kong in Dark Knight, one of the formerly masked prisoners asks Bane for a harness. Bane grumbles indecipherably again and the prisoner nods and slides into the seat that will carry him to his grave. The black plane then releases Carcetti’s plane, which nosedives into oblivion and a disgusting wreckage that will likely kill at least five unsuspecting innocent people, all while Bane and doctor are safely lifted into the black plane.

The scene cuts and a far more fascinating sizzle reel plays, showing in quick succession: Bane arriving in Gotham with a boss chinchilla down coat, an collision between two tumblers, Batman arriving in Batman-style, a collision between the tumbler and a dump truck, Anne Hathaway dressed up as a cat and sneaking around, Bane punching Batman, Batman punching Bane, the 99% finally fighting the 1%, Anne Hathaway frowning (because that’s what Catwoman would do), Bane dropping Batman’s broken mask, and—the coup de grace—a Tumbler-fied Batwing flying over a camo tumbler!

Without question, the sizzle reel was far more engaging than the prologue. Finally, Nolan and crew are showing something more than stills and, so far, it seems as impressive and morose as expected.

There’s no sense of the overarching theme, but, knowing Nolan, it will be stated early and often. The prologue itself truly pales compared to the Joker prologue from a few years ago. It’s not news that the Joker is a hard act to follow, and this prologue proves it. Bane is an average villain at best, despite being nudged into two Bat-films, and this prologue didn’t go a long way to making him any more memorable than KGBeast. The heist itself is needlessly convoluted, as movie heists often are, and lacks the slight innovation and personality of Joker’s heist. Also, the widely reported problems with understanding Bane prevent the audience getting any sense of his personality or purpose beyond being a plane-jacker with a muzzle.

Bane can be an interesting villain—think reverse Captain America. He was born in a South American Prison that is compared to hell and subjected to a super steroid treatment. He demonstrates gray morality yet orchestrated a plan that lead to Batman taking a year off to recover. He could be something. The fact that he was born in a prison, alone, presents an opportunity for a great short origin. In fact, I’d like to offer this idea as a better prologue:

Bane, wearing a simple black balaclava and a prison jumper, is restrained and being prepared to receive his treatment. For months, he has heard his doctors discuss “The Batman” from Gotham city. For months, someone has been planning Bane’s escape. Before receiving his first shot, Bane finds his restraints are looser than normal. He gets his first shot. His muscles bulge. He breaks the restraint. The doctors notice much too late. He advances on them. They sound the alarm. Five guards rush in. Bane lays waste to them in a manner reminiscent of the beatdowns from the Arkham game series, complete with swift counters, reversals and punishing finishing blows. He escapes the treatment room and makes his way from the bottom of the jail to the top, using his memory to beat the locks and his physical prowess to punish wave after wave of guards. He reaches the outside. He breathes in the fresh air for a moment then looks to the sky. A black plane flies above. He ponders for a moment then runs about five yards from the prison gate and starts digging. He retrieves a harness, a grappling gun, and a newspaper clipping that reads “Batman: Scourge or Savior?” He pockets the clipping, steps into the harness, and points the grapple gun to the sky. The black plane circles while opening its hatch. It closes in on Bane. Bane fires the grapple, shooting off a skyhook like Batman’s, and is lifted by the plane. He is reeled into the hatch as the plane changes trajectory, flying north towards Gotham city.

That’s for free, Nolan.

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