‘The Dark Knight Rises’ – 10 Things We Know For Sure

Another day, another raft of pre-publicity about The Dark Knight Rises. It’s at least more seemly than a year ago, when the internet was working itself into orgasms over tid bits of information about a film that wasn’t even finished. But now we’re just two months away, we can allow ourselves to get a bit excited about Christoper Nolan’s final visit to Gotham. Here are ten things we definitely know to be true…

1It really is The End
Christopher Nolan has been at pains to point out that this is the end of his Batman trilogy, and we will get closure. “Without getting into specifics, the key thing that makes the third film a great possibility for us is that we want to finish our story,” he said recently. “And in viewing it as the finishing of a story rather than infinitely blowing up the balloon and expanding the story… unlike the comics, these things don’t go on forever in film and viewing it as a story with an end is useful.”

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2It’s a bit political
There were dark murmurings that Nolan had been shooting at the Occupy Wall Street camp, which were mysteriously not-quite-denied. Yet the second trailer featured a pre-Catwoman Selina Kyle purr into the billionaire Bruce Wayne’s ear: “There’s a storm coming, Mr Wayne, you and your friends better batten down the hatches. Because when it hits, you and your friends will wonder how you ever thought you could live so large, and leave so little for the rest of us.” Which sounds fairly 99% vs 1% to us. Joseph Gordon-Levitt confirms: “You saw it, man. The trailer isn’t misleading and Nolan’s not the type of guy to create a trailer that will sell you something other than what the movie is.”

3The Batmobile flies!

So that’s pretty cool isn’t it?

4Time has elapsed

TDKR picks up eight years after the events of the last movie saw Batman exiled in blame for the crimes of Harvey ‘Two-Face’ Dent. Presumably Bruce Wayne has spent that time emoting and counting his money.

5Bruce Wayne may not survive
The teaser poster of Bane standing on top of a ruined Batman would suggest that this might not end well. In fact, the source for that image is the 1993 storyline Knightfall, in which the chemically-enhanced bruiser snapped Batman’s spine, leading to no end of bother.

6We may get a good old-fashioned cat fight

Marion Cotillard’s Miranda Tate has been touted as a potential love interest for Bruce Wayne, except we all know that him and Selina Kyle would be together if she could just quit with that darned Catburglary. Her line in the new trailer, “You don’t owe these people any more. You’ve given them everything” would suggest some kind of alliance. And they didn’t kill off Rachel Dawes last time for nothing…

7People are not likely to speak clearly
The only real criticism you could level at The Dark Knight was Christian Bale himself and the ridiculous gravelly voice he put on to be Batman. Ergo this time, in the IMAX preview sequence that dropped with Bane on the plane, lots of people complained that they couldn’t understand a word Tom Hardy was saying.

8Everything comes full circle
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Gary Oldman has suggested that the threequel “brings things back round to Batman Begins” and although they tried to keep it secret, we know that Liam Neeson will be back in some form as Ra’s al Ghul, villainous leader of The League Of Shadows, who you will remember trained Bruce Wayne in the first place. He died in Batman Begins, but in the comics achieved immortality through something called a Lazarus Pit. Surely that’s not Nolan’s style?

9Joseph Gordon-Levitt is definitely not playing Robin
So that is a blessed relief. He plays Gotham cop John Blake instead.

10It’s never really The End

Christopher Nolan’s realist noir incarnation of the Caped Crusader might be coming to an end, but there’s no way Warners and DC are going to let their biggest cash cow rest for long. And we’d expect it sooner rather than later. Following the Hulk-smash success of The Avengers for Marvel, we’d expect an all-new Batman to pop up alongside Henry Cavill’s Superman and Wonder Woman in a Justice League blockbuster, leading into an all-new series of movies.

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