'The Dark Knight Rises' Is Going to Dominate Your Weekend Conversation and More Movie Thoughts

To call The Dark Knight Rises the most-anticipated movie of all time might not be entirely accurate. Then again, it might not exactly do the buzz surrounding the final installment of this Batman trilogy justice.

Ignoring the fact that The Dark Knight should have won Best Picture, Christopher Nolan appears ready to one-up himself and wrap up his epic retelling of the Caped Crusader’s tale. With some help from Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway and the whole gang, I bet he pulls it off. So unless you live under a rock inside of a bunker, it’s going to come up in a conversation at some point.

Fans who went to an IMAX showing of the latest Mission: Impossible this past winter already got to see a sneak peek of the movie, and as one of them, I think it’s safe to say that this thing is going to be nuts.

If you haven’t bought tickets yet, you might be out of luck trying yto see it on opening weekend, but don’t worry. Thanks to this all-Batman edition of “Spoiler Alert,” you can still join in on the conversation and hold your own. Let’s get to it.

The Dark Knight Rises

Goosebumps. That’s the only logical reaction to watching this and hearing that crazy chanting going on and then hanging in when the music swells and oh man this is finally happening.

Sure, this is clocking in at an intimidating 165 minutes, but I think Nolan has earned the right to send his final vision straight to the silver screen. I’m sure there was a Hollywood executive somewhere saying that it had to be cut down to under 2 1/2 hours, but seriously, I bet that guy is no fun at parties. At all.

The Dark Knight Rises — with Pee-Wee Herman voices

Speaking of fun at parties, well played, Jimmy Fallon. I would probably see this movie as well, but I would probably be laughing too hard to hear any of the important plot points.

Batman Begins

The most incredible part of the success of these Batman films, to me at least, is the inauspicious start it all got off to. Batman Begins not only came out of nowhere to reboot a franchise that George Clooney did his best to destroy, but it also launched an entire genre of gritty reboot movies that continues to this day.

The Dark Knight had the (unfortunate) buzz of Heath Ledger‘s demise as a huge conversation driver — and it had the sturdy foundation of this film to stand upon — but all Nolan and Bale had to work with the first time around was, “Hey, our Batsuit doesn’t have nipples.” Pretty impressive work.

Batman