The Dark Knight Rises - The Hype Begins

Chrstopher Nolan's long awaited Batman sequel finally got a teaser trailer, which gives a few hints at what is to come from 'The Dark Knight Rises' when it hits cinemas next summer. Of course as per usual Nolan is keeping anything of real note close to his chest, which after the super top secret marketing campaign behind 'Inception', comes as no real surprise.

On the surface there is seemingly very little shown, however it does reveal some potential plot points for the sequel to my personal favourite film of the past decade 'The Dark Knight'. The inclusion of a voiceover from Liam Neeson's Ra's Al Ghul taken from 'Batman Begins' hints at his or at the least the League of Shadows involvement, but Nolan is unlikely to make the character immortal like he is in the comics. What is much more likely is that Tom Hardy's Bane has taken over his mission from the first film to destroy Gotham, causing Christian Bale's Batman to come back in the process.

Bane's claim to fame in the comics was that he was the villian that broke the bat....literally. From the trailer it would seem Commisioner Gordon is the one that will be broken, probably in turn making Bruce Wayne don the cowl once more. As Gordon says "He has to come back". We do also get a quick glimpse of Bane and a battered Batman wheeling back from the oncoming brute. So it seems this interpretation of Bane is a far cry from his portrayal as a lumbering henchman in the unspeakably terrible 'Batman And Robin', which is certainly a good thing.

We don't get see any of Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman or Anne Hathaway's Catwoman. Nor do we see series newcomers Marion Cotillard or Joseph Gordon Levitt, but it is of course just a teaser trailer and less is usually more when it comes to teasing an audience. And as any good teaser trailer does it gets people talking. This is no exception.

The inevitable building of hype begins with the release of poster and teaser trailer, but 'The Dark Knight Rises' seems to have been greatly anticipated as soon people left the theatres this time three years ago. There is a problem with the much hype because there are only two things this can be; either the greatest superhero film ever or the biggest dissapointment ever. If Nolan's third Batman doesn't quite match up to 'The Dark Knight (which will be difficult) then it will immediately be called a failure.

This is what Nolan is up against - huge expectations. And he could find out how thickle fanboys who hailed him as this generation's Alfred Hitchcock can be. This happened to Bryan Singer after 'Superman Returns' didn't match the quality of his two 'X-Men' films the fanboys turned on him and he hasn't returned to the superhero genre. Nolan is an equally if not better film maker than Singer and I ,like many others, have complete faith that he will deliver the perfect ending to his Batman trilogy, hopefully putting it up there with 'Lord of the Rings' and 'Toy Story' in the greatest trilogies of all time.