We've said it here on this site a lot the last few weeks, that The Dark Knight Rises has a lot of ground to make up in the summer blockbuster marketing war. Certainly, little viral touches like this morning's latest photos are cool to some, but lack any real punch. Combine that with the secrecy surrounding the film and basically what you have is a situation where it starts to look more likely that Christopher Nolan's wrap up of his Bat-trilogy would be a massive disappointment.
Well screw all that nonsense.
The final trailer for the film has been released, mere days before it was due to premier ahead of Marvel's The Avengers, and it's pretty epic stuff. Striking a completely different tone as the Commissioner Gordon(Gary Oldman) centered one from earlier, this trailer is totally powered by Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, who know is a Gotham City cop named John Blake. We suspected that he would be more than the simple description led on, and this trailer makes that readily apparent. Is he just the everyman character from which the story will be framed? Or is he more integral to the survival of Gotham City, and perhaps....maybe, a future ally of Batman's? A sidekick, possibly?
What Nolan does is create the very real sense that Batman is over matched for the first time, and including the voice-over of Anne Hathaway's Catwoman revealing her fear of Bane(Tom Hardy) is effective. Also, they did a good job of recapturing some of Bane's lost mystique. On the other hand, Christian Bale's voice is still a major distraction, and we saw practically nothing of Marion Cotillard and Juno Temple. It makes sense, though, considering they are arguably the two characters with the most questions swirling around them. I like how Nolan also went a more subtle route with the tone, excluding the loud "Booms" he helped make famous with Inception. Ok, time to start getting excited again. Enough. Check out the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises below, then mark your calendar for July 20th...
