Last week, the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises “leaked” but I never got a chance to see it before it was pulled. So, I have no idea if what leaked was this official, Christopher Nolan-sanctioned teaser trailer which just dropped. It’s only a minute and a half, and most of the imagery in here is from the first two Batmans, with new footage of Gary Oldman’s character laying in a hospital bed, speaking to (presumably) Bruce Wayne, not in his Batman costume (spoiler?). We also get a split-second glimpse of Tom Hardy as Bane. Hardy looks… GIANT. Here’s a question? Why is Batman doing hand-to-hand combat with Bane?
So, let’s see: we still don’t have any idea what Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle/Catwoman costume looks like, and I still don’t have a clear idea exactly what Marion Cotillard is doing in this film. This is a consistent problem with Nolan’s films – I think he’s a wonderfully talented director, but he has a tin ear when it comes to female characters and casting the right actress for the part. Katie Holmes? Maggie Gyllenhaal? Hilary Swank (in Insomnia)? Nolan only cares about dong. And giving the dongs good storylines.
Last: Poor Gary Oldman! I didn’t realize his character was going to be at death’s door in this film. It makes me wonder what they’re going to do with Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman’s characters. Everybody’s gonna die, methinks.
Photos courtesy of WENN, plus promotional images.
Hand-to-hand combat for Batman is fine. The thing that’s so great about the Batman character is his lack of super powers and his cool gadgets, but never lose sight of the fact that he’s a goddamned ninja. Literally.
I’m hesitant to call Nolan out for his choices in females. Not because I think he’s good at casting women or developing female characters, he’s not, but because his lack of expertise in that area doesn’t lend itself to the Michael Bay School of Casting Leading Ladies, where the main philosophy is who gives a shit about the woman, she’s to be seen and not heard. His female characters aren’t insulting (with the exception of Katie Holmes because there’s no way I would buy her as a fierce district attorney), they’re just underdeveloped.
I hope Tom Hardy’s next few roles are of thin characters! He needs to slim back down to his good ole nasty sexy self.
Zzzzz. 🙁
Kaiser, as much as ilove you, PLEASE don’t ever post that disgusting wannabe Vin Diesel picture again. It always kills my quiver! Smh got to erase this picture asap.
To redeem yourself as the true queen of the dongs, can you friday-me some Jeffrey Dean Morgan? plueese?
XoXo, Ahot. :*
Give Tom Hardy his hair back! I can’t deal with so much hot gone gone gone.
I am a big Batman fan and have been since I was 7, and I LOVED The Dark Knight, but I just don’t have high hopes for this one. Partly because I really agree with the assessment on Nolan’s female casting issues, which I think also extends to him not writing any really compelling female characters ever. I hope I will be surprised though.
@NancyMan I agree wholeheartedly.
I usually laugh at my friend who anticipates Harry Potter films; but the hair on my arms stood up after watching that teaser. I have officially turned into one of those people. sigh
Ewwww, whoever that guy is, he looks short and stubby and his face and neck are disgusting.
you ladies can have this one, wooow gone are the days of the sexy tall superheroes, with penetrating eyes. (maybe he is the director)
I don’t know what part this guy plays but I hope he is not the lead.
to each his own, -I’m sure mils of women love him, smdh!
I’ll pass on this one.
@Truthful He doesn’t really look like that. It’s for the role.
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTM0MzI1NTg2M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNDcyODU2Mw@@._V1._SX313_SY400_.jpg
I have to disagree Kaiser. I loved Maggie Gyllenhaal in The Dark Knight. I also loved Ellen Page in Inception.
Christopher Nolan may not write the best female characters, but he has had a few standouts.
This trailer is not peaking my interest in the film. It’s boring as hell. I mean, I love Gary Oldman (who doesn’t?!) but this is a snoozefest wrapped in Ambien.
Kaiser, from what I read, that leaked trailer was not the “official” one, but I didn’t see it. Hopefully it was better than this!
I really liked this trailer… when it was “Inception.”
TECHNICALLY Nolan AND his brother AND David Goyer (they are his co-screenwriters) apparently spend very little time developing their female characters to be as interesting and the males that surround them. Unfortunately, he’s far from being the only one guilty of that crime in the industry. Nolan is 50/50 on his CASTING of female roles, IMHO.
Tell Hardy to stop puffing his lips up. Gross. Unless he intends to join the Real Housewives.
“This is a consistent problem with Nolan’s films – I think he’s a wonderfully talented director, but he has a tin ear when it comes to female characters and casting the right actress for the part. Katie Holmes? Maggie Gyllenhaal? Hilary Swank (in Insomnia)? Nolan only cares about dong. And giving the dongs good storylines.”
This. This, to infinity.
I’m no expert on Nolan’s films but the women in them often hit me like one bum note in the orchestra. Either the actresses selected, or their function in the film, seem to be of a significantly lower caliber than the men.
Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, heavyweights all… then throw Katie Holmes and it’s like some five-year-old let loose on the tympani at the Philharmonic.
Replacing her with Maggie Gyllenhaal – good move. Giving Maggie even less to do in the same role, except get fridged – bad.
Now Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle? I like Anne, but in this company, as THAT character, she’s just such a coltish, lightweight little thing. She can act, but when your men are THAT good, shouldn’t you be going for – I don’t know – Cate Blanchett? Jodie Foster? Sigourney Weaver? Juliette Binoche? Someone who has a pedigree the equal of the men? (And then hopefully not kill them off instantly or tie them to a chair, or have them exist solely as a malevolent dream harpy.)
Same for Hilary Swank – I don’t care how many Oscars she’s got, she is just not the equal of Al Pacino. Nor is Scarlett Johansson the equivalent of Bale, Caine or Hugh Jackman.
Is it a touch of svengali-syndrome optimism, maybe? Does Nolan cast them with a sort of Pygmalionish affection, so he can be the one to make their career – the one to elevate them from simply being pretty young stars, into being ACTRESSES?
Cause if that’s true…it’s not working. All it does is expose that he can’t write a significant woman’s role to match the men, or that they can’t act to match them.
Nolan loves brunette actresses with clear eyes but he doesn’t know how the women are
but he has good taste about his actors(handsome guy in suit).
About the teaser, i dislike the old footage but i like the part with Oldman(it’s moving) and Bane
PS:Why has i a pix of Vin Diesel to illustrate TDKR?
“malevolent dream harpy”
LOVE that. Thanks Lenore. 🙂
Well it is a TEASER trailer, so it’s not going to give much away. The teaser for The Dark Knight was just a voiceover.
I liked the trailer, but I’m pretty excited for the movie anyway. Still not completely sold on Anne Hathaway but we’ll see. Maybe she’ll up her game surrounded by all those fabulous actors.
@Wildchild THANKS, BIG difference!
Hardy lost the hot!! I blame Lindsay Lohan!!
I am NOT a Christopher Nolan fan. He has become completely overrated. His “cerebral” style of filming is not that unique. He just knows how to make movie studios lots of money and so they all hype him up. I thought Inception was an awful movie. He tried to use the twists and turns to hide the fact he had no real story going on. I HATED Batman Begins, it was slow and boring. I did like the Dark Knight but only because Heath Ledger as the Joker blew my mind. I feel that he turned the character into his own. I may see this movie but only as a fan of Batman. He turned something that was light hearted action into something overly dramatized and in his normal style too cerebral (although Batman would be the one to do that to, he took it too far). I will take Tim Burton’s campy Batman movies any day of the week.
If I am going to do a movie like that I will take David Lynch ANY day.
I agree with Kaiser. All of his female roles are so “blah” the females never stand out and they are always more damsel in distress. In a way his female characters almost reflect a certain amount of sexist thinking on his part, like in his mind, females are not capable of being the hero or constantly need to be rescued.
Being that this movie is supposed to tell us how Batman got his beginnings, I think that Alfred and Gordon will stay alive but I agree with everyone else that Morgan Freeman will bite the dust.
COMPLETELY agree with the female character assessment. I realized it after watching Inception (which has to be one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, and yes, I did understand it), and then re-realized it when I pondered his female charactes in The Prestige and the batman films. Nolan’s male characters in Nolan films are so compelling. The female characters are as deep as a mud puddle. Even accomplished Maggie G. couldn’t make Rachel Dawes interesting. Nolan’s females only service as a siphon for the male lead’s angst, or desire. Or else they serve as the sounding board for the male’s thoughts, or the victim in need of rescuing. And Ellen Page’s character in Inception doesn’t count to me because 1. we didn’t really see her ‘do’ anything other than listen to the male lead tell her how to be an architect and 2. Her character did not talk like a woman. It was the only girl in a boys club and the character might as well have been called ‘Jim’ and written as a male, for all the feminine traits she possessed (which is not a reflection on Ellen Page, it’s just the way Nolan wrote her). Needless to say, I’m worried about how the third batman movie will hold up.
Tom Hardy’s lips went from hot to totally weird and ugly. How does that happen?
In movies like this, it’s important to attract feml viewers by having female characters you can identify with.
It’s one reason the new Batmans never gripped me and felt very distant to me.
Geez thats a bad pic of Tom Hardy, and I dont even like the guy! He looks like a white man’s version of Vin Diesel.
My problem with Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle is that Catwoman, by definition, is sexy. And Anne Hathaway, by definition, is not.
Are you sure this isn’t fan made? Lots of old clips.
And why did you put a question mark to m
Maggie Gyllenhaal? Are you insulting her? I think she is quite adorable, and very talented.
I agree with the above. Anne Hathaway can act, but she is not sexy. The actress who plays cat woman should have both qualities. That was my problem with Maggie too. She can act, but she is not attractive. The Dark Knight was only good because of Health Ledger. He was amazing. Christian Bale was terrible! Every time I heard his “batman voice” I laughed out loud.
I counter your Katie Holmes with Ellen Page in Inception, and raise you a fabulous Marion Cotillard as well. 😀
I agree there could be better female roles in the Batman franchise, but to be fair, it really is a male story, there’s not a huge amount of female character source material for him to work with. But it is a shame that the added character of Rachel turned out to be such a dud, though I generally do like Maggie G.
Can’t wait for this one.
Whoa whoa whoa. I can’t believe y’all are shittin on Lanky Swanky. Insomnia was great, and she was great in it.
Kaiser, stop serving these people hate-or-ade!
I was never able to understand the appeal of DC Comics superheroes. They’re all extremely boring to me. Especially Bruce Wayne/Batman — he’s like the emo version of Tony Stark to me.
And what’s with all those capes? I have the feeling those things are counterproductive.
It’s very telling that the villains are usually the most interesting characters when it comes to DC heroes.
@ GossipOwl (comment # 21):
Finally! I was starting to think I was the only one who didn’t think he (Nolan) was all that. By the way, I didn’t think Iception was that original (Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind was done before — and much better — and it has the same premise: entering one’s mind and altering her thoughts).
I saw the Batman trailer last night at Harry Potter…thought it was a big snooze.
Poor Gary Oldman. I think he dies in his movies nearly as often as Sean Bean does.
Having said that, I´m much more interested in Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy.
Hey EVE chika, I think you forgot how Eternal Sunshine was supposed to go, it wasn’t altering a person’s mind, but rather paying for someone to erase specific memories you didn’t want anymore. And it was for the Jim Carey character. Not Winslet’s part.
And for real, the women are harping on here because the Batman franchise dosent appeal to women?! It never did! Batman, even in the very early days, always appealed to men!
Just because its popular now dosent meant you change the whole premise of the movie to please the wide masses.
Nolan is overrated you should hear the fan boy’s speculate on the dam thing, it’s fuckin amusing seeing them be act like valley girls.
Oops , I was thinking of the black knight…!
@ Hatsumomo:
No, I didn’t forget it. It’s one of my favourite movies and I own the DVD.
I didn’t say they had the exact same plot. I said they had the same premise as “entering a person’s mind and altering it”. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind they erase their memories, in Inception, they “plant” an original thought/idea.
And it was for the Jim Carey character. Not Winslet’s part.
Now you’re awfully wrong. Or you haven’t seen or have forgotten the film yourself. Because the reason why he (Carrey’s character) decides to erase his memory in the first place is because he finds out SHE had successfully erased their romance from her memory before — he goes where she works, tries to talk to her but she looks at him as if she didn’t know him.