The trailer for director Christopher Nolan’s next — and allegedly final — Batman movie previews an installment that looks certain to rival the previous two for darkness. Released on Tuesday, the trailer has spread like Internet wildfire, with online message boards already devoted to dissecting its clues and national liberals identifying with the … villains?
The trailer opens with a young boy singing a haunting rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” to a crowded football stadium; Bruce Wayne’s (played by Christian Bale) butler, Alfred (played by Michael Caine), lamenting that he has failed to protect Wayne; and a class war warning from Catwoman (played by Anne Hathaway): “You think this can last,” she sexily whispers in Wayne’s ear. “There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches because when it hits, you’re all going to wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.”
As Catwoman utters her warning, the trailer shows footage of a well-dressed man being thrown from a mansion balcony, and a frenzied mob tearing another terrified victim from his hiding place.
The trailer gains pace as armed ex-cons march through the streets chanting what sounds eerily like “This is Arkham! Arkham!” — a reference to the infamous Gotham insane asylum that imprisons the caped crusader’s most dangerous foes.
The new movie pits Batman against Catwoman and Bane (played by Tom Hardy) — a brilliant, brutal and incredibly strong villain set to shatter the post-Joker, Gotham peace with a reign of terror and an army of lunatics. The film’s homepage features the image of a rain-soaked Bane walking away from Batman’s shattered mask. The tagline reads, “The Legend Ends.”
Reports that surfaced in October indicate that Nolan may have incorporated Occupy Wall Street into the film. Catwoman’s warning and the lunatic army of dispossessed ex-cons in the upcoming movie has been seized upon by newspapers and liberals across the country as a possible allusion to the cause of the 99%. Of course, a lot of these folks see a connection between the Arab Spring and NYC’s homeless hippy problem too, so don’t get all crazy yet. (RELATED: Time’s ‘Person of the Year’ selection about as annoying as you’d expect)
Regardless, Bane’s ultimate plan doesn’t involve the releasing of anti-turtle balloons or the marginal disruption of traffic, nor will a little pepper spray be enough to make him go home. Detonating a trigger to implode the aforementioned football game mid-play, Bane growls, “When Gotham is ashes, you have my permission to die.”
Hey, if you want to project an Occupier’s face onto every bad guy whose ass Batman is sure to kick, go for it. But it does make you wonder: Could Bruce Wayne indeed be the hero America has been waiting for? The one who will save us from America’s most dangerous villain yet?
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“The Dark Knight Rises,” which will be released in 2012, begins eight years after the end of “The Dark Knight,” when Batman took the blame for Gotham District Attorney Harvey Dent’s (Two-Face) murderous crime spree.
If this is, in fact, the final installment, Bane is the right character for the job: In the 1993 “Knightfall” comic story arc, he entered villainy’s Hall of Fame after he broke Batman’s back over his knee. (But we all know Batman will never die.)
Oh, and as for that epic cop-versus-mob-verus-Batman-versus-Bane fist fight a leaked bootleg showed a few months ago? That’s totally in there.
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