The (pre)history of The Dark Knight Rises

The first reviews, from professional outlets, of The Dark Knight Rises have been coming in these last couple of days. Generally positive reviews, although everyone seems to agree that The Dark Knight was the highlight in Christopher Nolan’s Bat-trilogy. I am seeing TDKR tomorrow evening, and will report back on Saturday. In the meantime, here are a few tidbits to wetten your appetite.

Batman was of course, incredibly camp, until he was reinvented, in the 1980s, by Tim Burton on-screen and by Frank Miller in the comics. The 1960s television series was Saturday morning kids fare. But alltogether quite enjoyable:

Tim Burton was not an obvious choice to direct Batman in the late 1980s. He had made a number of small, quirky but succesfull little fantasy movies, and had no experience in action films. But Warner Bros. choice worked out well. Burton built a Gothic Gotham, Danny Elfman delivered a fantastic musical score, Michael Keaton was a reliable Batman and Jack Nicholson stole the show (and a considerable part of the film’s box office take) as The Joker.

But after Burton came Joel Schumacher. And his Batman & Robin, featuring for the first time the villain Bane (seen in the clip below), is the reason why it does not matter if The Dark Knight Rises is a three or four or five star film. Christopher Nolan delivered us from evil. A small reminder of where we came from:

Christopher Nolan, much like Tim Burton, was a left-field choice for rebooting Batman. Nolan was known for small-scale puzzle films, like Memento and Insomnia. You’d think he is way too smart to direct a Batman film, which has to make two hundred million dollar world wide just to break even. But Nolan did. it. He ditched all the bagage of the Burton and Schumacher films and started over again, with Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One as an inspiration. Batman Begins came in under the radar but surprised everyone.

I was appalled when I heard that Heath Ledger would succeed Jack Nicholson as The Joker, in Nolan’s Bat-sequel The Dark Knight. But this was after I had seen Ledger in A Knight’s Tale, and before I saw Brokeback Mountain. Ledger locked himself into a hotel room, read The Killing Joke and came out of the room as the most maniacal movie-villain of the new century. The catalyser in a plot about terror and the costs of justice and freedom, Ledger turned The Dark Knight from a really good film into an unforgettable one.

In Nolan we trust. Bane and Catwoman as villains? That many new characters? A title that does not seem terribly inspired? We do not care. We’ve learned that we can trust Nolan. And if the trailers are anything close to the real deal, then The Dark Knight Rises will be one of the movie highlights of the year.

Suffering from the Joel Schumacher curse – the Trespass review

How is it possible that almost everything Joel Schumacher touches ends up rubbish these days? This was a guy who made decent movies, like The Client and Batman Forever. A long time ago, at least. Look at the last ten years and we find only Phone Booth on the list of good films. On the list of bad films: Bad Company, The Number 23 and Twelve. Oh, and he screwed up The Phantom of the Opera. Why does this man still get to make films?

Trespass is another example of a film that just should not have been made. Or it should have been made by someone else. The premise is interesting enough. Rich diamond trader Kyle Miller (Nicholas Cage, who now has weird hair and weird glasses) and his wife (Nicole Kidman) and daughter (Liana Liberato) are taken hostage by four masked criminals in their home. The criminals want the diamonds in Kyle’s safe, but Kyle has good reasons not to open the safe for them. What follows could have been a tense psychological thriller.

What it becomes is a silly little thing that is neither an action movie, despite a number of chases and shootings, nor a thriller, for lack of tension. Cage, Kidman and the other actors work their way around the unnecessarily complicated script as good as they can, but no-one can prevent the film from derailing somewhere past the one hour mark.

On the plus side: the location and set design are really neat. But then that was never a problem with Schumacher.

I figured the mystery out though: Joel Schumacher’s not making decent movies is the result from a curse placed upon him by a thousand angry Batman fans after Batman & Robin.

Villains for The Dark Knight Rises revealed?

The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan’s third and last Batman film, is currently in production on set in Pittsburgh. On-set photographers took the following pictures of Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy and Marion Cotillard, in the costumes of their respective characters (and expected villains): Selina Kyle (who may or may not become catwoman), Bane and Miranda Tate. Nolan is very secretive about the plot for the film, so the character descriptions are based on the graphic novels, and may or may not correspond to the role Nolan sees for these characters in his film

Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle:

Selina Kyle is the alter ego of Catwoman, as Bruce Wayne is that of Batman. She has previously been played by Michelle Pfeiffer (in Batman Returns) and Halle Berry (Catwoman). These incarnations saw Kyle having a close relations to cats, but in her first appearance in a graphic novel (Batman #1, 1940) Selina Kyle is simply a very talented, lean burglar with the nickname ‘The Cat’ . The costume in this picture, and the fact that she drives Bruce Wayne’s ‘ bat-bike’  suggest that Nolan has opted for this early incarnation of Selina Kyle.

Tom Hardy as Bane:

In the graphic novels, Bane is a genetically and chemically enhanced super soldier, both physically strong and very intelligent. A version of the character appeared in the dreadfull Batman & Robin, but there he was an animalistic bulk of muscles employed by Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman), and not very intelligent. He was played by Jeep Swenson. In the comics Bane was mostly a villain, although he was at some times an ally of Batman. Ominous omen: in the ‘ Knightfall’  series Bane beats Batman and breaks his back…

Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate

Marion Cotillard is playing Miranda Tate, who – official communications – Warner Bros. describe as a businesswoman helping Bruce Wayne with his philantropic work. But this costume, and one other photo in which Cotillard is seen climbing out of the Batmobile, suggest that there may be more to her character. Miranda Tate is rumoured to be an alias for Talia Al-Ghul, the daughter of Ra’s A-Ghul, Batman’s opponent in Batman Begins. The character Talia Al-Ghul has a rich history in the Batman comics, at one point being engaged to Bane, then giving birth to Bruce Wayne’s son, and also crossing over into the Superman universe when working for Lex Luthor. So yes, given that Nolan is involved in producing and writing Zach Snyder’s new Superman film Man of Steel, we might expect anything from Miranda Tate.

The Dark Knight Rises is set for a July 19, 2012 release in The Netherlands. Man of Steel for June 14, 2013 (USA).