***Warning: Spoilers ahead***
The Dark Knight's prologue leaves you with a sense of upscaling Christopher Nolan's trilogy. We establish the ruthlessness of Bane (though, as you may have heard, his vocal is somewhat difficult to decipher) and witness a phenomenally crafted high-wiring aerial sequence. Here's what we saw.
We start with a series of shots of shattering glass that eventually reveal the bat logo, subtly suggesting the breaking of the bat. Cut to a shot of Gary Oldman’s commissioner Gordon giving a mournful speech at what appears to be Harvey Dent’s funeral. “I believed in Harvey Dent,” he says. Clearly, Dent has remained a good public figure right up to his death, suggesting that Batman will have remained in the shadows for the eight years following The Dark Knight.
We then go to an airstrip and the sense of a gigantic opening sequence becomes apparent. The sinister ‘Dr Pavel’ is being picked up by the CIA, who are led by Aidan Gillen (Tommy Carcetti from The Wire) in what appears to be a deal. They also collect two hostages with black bags on their heads. Their plane takes off and the CIA’s black-ops military personnel are in control.
Gillen’s agent starts grilling the two prisoners for information about the war criminal Bane. A strange voice emerges from one of the black bags and we know immediately. The agent lifts it to reveal Bane himself, looking stone-cold terrifying. He's clearly been captured intentionally.
As this goes on, a much larger plane appears above the CIA’s plane. Militia rappel down from it and fix lines to the side of the smaller CIA plane. Actually, the CIA are Bane's prisoners. He breaks his bonds easily, making the superhuman strength of the comic book character apparent in Hardy's version. The larger plane lifts up, flipping the smaller plane upside down and breaking its tail-gear. It all looks remarkably real and expensive in Imax.
You'll also have noted by this point that the superhuman intelligence in the Bane character is there. The surgical accuracy of Hardy's movements and the brightness in the eyes is subtle. But it's definitely creepy. Less attention should be paid to the vocal problem, which will be easily fixed, and more should be paid to the sheer threat of the character.
Inside the plane, only Bane is ready and chaos erupts as everyone falls into the nose. He grabs the terrified hostage Dr Pavel (Alon Aboutboul) and sticks him with a needle. Pavel’s blood is transfused into a corpse brought down from the larger plane in a body bag. Clearly, they want the evidence to show Pavel’s death.
When it's time to go, the second hostage is without a rope. “Have we started the fire?” he asks Bane. “The fire rages,” replies Hardy. The henchman then willingly sacrifices himself. It's a key interraction, revealing the power of Bane over his subjects. The plane is broken loose, leaving Bane, Pavel and his militia dangling. It was an extraordinary aerial sequence, establishing an awful lot very quickly.
As you may have heard following the equivalent screening in the US, it is VERY difficult to make out what Bane is saying. It's like listening to someone speaking into a dodgy loudspeaker at a school sports day. There are several lines I didn’t catch. Fortunately, he wears a mask so the audio will undoubtedly be remastered seamlessly before general release.
We then see a sequence of shots from the following action. We see Batman and Bane in combat. We see an airborne ship (batship?) firing machine guns. We also see two shots of Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman, one behind bars and one in which she’s held captive in an orange jumpsuit in the back of a car. We also see the batmobile being blown up by Bane. Finally, we see Batman’s mask in Bane’s hand. He drops it and we fade to black. Ooooohhh… sinister!
We all know that Bane breaks Batman’s back and defeats him in the Knightfall comic book. The question on everyone’s lips is this: Will Christopher Nolan kill off Batman? It’s impossible to take a suggestion from this prologue. But, with the new poster also foreshadowing the end, we're undoubtedly supposed to be contemplating a bat-death
