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just saw the Joker.
Tonight, at the Loews IMAX theater on the upper west side of Manhattan, director Chris Nolan debuted the first six minutes of the upcoming “The Dark Knight” movie, a sequel to the Christian Bale-starring, multi-million-dollar-earning “Batman Begins,” to a crowd of about 60 people. Set to swing into theaters July 18, 2008, “Dark Knight” has been hyped for its inclusion of not just one, but two new villains—Two-Face (played by Aaron Eckhart) and the already mentioned, much discussed Joker (played controversially by Heath Ledger).
“I don’t want to bore you,” Nolan joked as he introduced the clip, which will play in select IMAX theaters prior to “I AM Legend” next weekend and was lifted directly from the film. Nolan went on to explain that “Dark Knight” marks the first time a major motion picture utilized the IMAX filming technique.
“I wanted to make the Joker’s introduction a mini film,” added the director. “That’s what this footage is. So we shot it in this higher-quality, more intense format to get across that feeling.” Then, the footage began.
Kicking off with a sweeping shot of downtown Gotham, the camera zooms in above a few buildings before focusing in on a single, traditional skyscraper covered in windows. Suddenly, one window in the skyscraper explodes outward, exposing two criminals inside. Donning clown masks and standing with a rifle, the two criminals shoot a grappling hook across a busy street below to the next building—the Gotham National Bank. The two then slide across using a zip line.
On the street below, a man stands, his face unseen as the shot creeps up from behind, a clown mask slung in his grip. A van suddenly screeches up before he climbs inside and the van hauls off again. Inside, there are now three men, all wearing clown masks. They begin negatively discussing their boss and how he’s sitting out the heist. “The guy thinks he can sit out and get a cut?” laughs one man. “Must be why they call him the Joker!”
Back on the bank’s roof, the two men we first saw now shimmy into the bank’s security wiring while also discussing the boss. “Why do you think they call him Joker?” asks one. “I hear it’s cause he wears make-up,” answers the other. “Like war paint.”
Suddenly, below, the three men blast into the bank, demanding money and commanding everybody to the floor. Back on the roof, the two criminals intercept the out-going emergency alarm set off by an employee. After they cancel its signal, one of the men shoots the other and heads inside for the vault.
Back inside, the clown gunmen hand all the hostages live grenades. “We wouldn’t want your hands free would we?” asks one with a laugh.
At the vault, a clown opens the door, and just then a second clown shoots him in the back. They’re taking each other out so that the cut between them grows higher! And it’s all because the boss, the Joker, has told them to.
Back in the lobby, a bank manager surprisingly begins firing on the clown gunmen with a shotgun hidden under his desk. Turns out this bank belongs to an influential mobster and the manager, fearless and crazed, says as much to the clowns as he walks defiantly at them. He takes one out with a point-blank blast.
Two remain and manage to disarm the manager by shooting him in the arm before one clown turns his gun on the other.
“I’m sure the boss told you to take me out first,” says the one holding the gun. “No,” says the other, his hands in the air as he sways back in forth as if he didn’t care a gun was pointed at his chest. “I called a bus.”
“What?” asks the one holding a gun. And then BOOM, a school bus bursts its back end through the wall of the bank, killing the clown holding the gun! The lumpy driver steps out and asks what’s happened to the gang, just as the clown who’s life he saved shoots him without remorse.
The surviving clown begins to board the bus with bags of money when the bank manager, lying on the floor bleeding, tells the clown he has no idea who he’s messing with and asks why the crooks in this city have no beliefs anymore. The lone clown aborts boarding the bus and instead turns to the manager. The manager asks him dead to his face, “What do you believe in?”
As the clown slowly places a concussion grenade in the manager’s mouth, he removes his mask, exposing his scar-ridden face. It’s the Joker! “I believe that whatever doesn’t kill you simply makes you stronger,” he says before smiling a huge, twisted grin.
The grenade has a string attached to its pin and as the Joker boards the bus, the string goes taut. When he pulls away and the pin comes loose, the manager lays sweating on the floor. Surely his head is about to explode! Instead, the bottom of the grenade emits a gray, harmless gas. It was a joke!
On the street, the bus pulls into traffic along with several others. Before long, sirens can be heard, but by then, the bus is lost in the crowd. The Joker gets away.
Then the footage cuts to several quick clips, including the new Batsuit in a cage, the new Batpod, the Batmobile (aka, the Tumbler), a shot of a fire truck on fire in the streets of Gotham, Batman on a roof overlooking his city and, finally, a clip of Lieutenant Gordon (played by Gary Oldman) using an ax to shatter the Batsignal.
When the lights came up, applause greeted Nolan before he invited everybody to join him in the lobby for cocktails.
Look for the footage to appear before select prints of “I Am Legend” in IMAX starting next weekend. “Hopefully they’ll play up until the movie comes out next summer,” added Nolan, who’s built a bigger, better, more intense corner into his Batman universe. Don’t be a Joker yourselves. Go see it!
http://www.wizarduniverse.com/movies.../006550689.cfm