The Dark Knight Rises (Prologue)

I got the chance to catch the first six minutes at an exclusive IMAX screening of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, of which I'll say more tomorrow (along with my look back at 2011, both cinematic and personal). For now, let me just say that this film has the potential to be excellent or hideous, i.e. just like I thought before I saw the prologue, so you're not missing much.

Unless, of course, you want to see a plane get devoured by a bigger plane. In that case, go right to one of these theaters and see it. More details: the big plane belongs to Bane (Tom Hardy), the evil terrorist leader who wears a mask that makes his voice very hard to understand. Upon being captured by the CIA, he kidnaps a scientist, for reasons I don't know and hopefully will not know until next summer.

You could make some very reasonable arguments, but personally I think he kidnapped the guy to show off. I mean, you could just knock him out while he's walking home, but destroying his plane with your plane and hauling him into the sky is so much cooler. Plus, you get to kill some meddlesome government agents.

Already I see problems developing. On the one hand, the plane heist is pretty awe-inspiring. This is a big, confident work by a brilliant director who has all the resources he could possibly want and has already made two excellent movies. The brief sneak peeks from the set show absolutely incredible effects. In IMAX, it'll be amazing.

On the other hand, you'd have to be pretty dumb to bring two hooded guys you don't know without bothering to check their identities or at least ask some useful questions. I fear for when Batman and Bane are in the same scene. We'll need subtitles, hopefully misleading and humorous. Also: while the action choreography is getting better, will it overwhelm the story? Will Bane and Catwoman really be that menacing? How could you ever follow an act like The Dark Knight?

We'll have to wait and see.