The Dark Knight Rises: Prologue and Nokia Lumia 800 Batphone

Today I attended the press screening of the first six minutes of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises at BFI IMAX in Waterloo, London. The theater is full with what appears to be proper film reviewers, as they (and I qualified this past Jay Montano, who was sitting next to me) look better than us.

After a brief scene where we see Police Commissioner James Gordon (Gary Oldman) speaking during the funeral of Harvey Dent, we were immediately thrusted into an airplane actions sequence somewhere over Europe. The next minutes scene involves hostages being interrogated by a bunch of military looking goons, followed by a bat-shit insane action sequence.

Here we were introduced to the new villain, (within the Nolan's Batman film franchise anyway) Bane (played by Tom Hardy) where he and his bands of mercenaries hijack the airplane in a daring airplane to airplane action sequence of what I can only describe as Inception-like. The sequence was played out to great effects, and thanks to the vertically larger IMAX format, offers viewers a more vertigo experience of the entire hijacking.

My only issue is with Bane's voice. I, and my fellow audiences, did not understand a squat of whatever he was spouting, no thanks to his breathing mask. I can only hope that the final film will fix this flaw in dialogue. Despite this, it did nothing to hamper my enthusiasm for the film.

The final minute of the film was a teaser trailer where we see Anne Hathaway brief appearance as Catwoman, what appears to be an exploding Batmobile flipping over etc.

Nokia and Warner Bros has produced 40 limited edition The Dark Knight Rises Lumia 800 phones to tie in with the film. These phones are strictly promo only and will never go on sale, so any moanings about Nokia making yet another edition of the same phone to sell are already invalid. I collected the Batphone at the Nokia Lumia Experience House in Soho, a neat pop up office that any mobile tech journalist in London should attempt to visit once.

Still, the laser etching of the Batman emblem on the back of the phone is tastefully done. While it won't make the phone better, seriously, who gives a shit when you have Batman laser etched to your fickin phone?