1/7/12

It's certainly one of the more unusual tickets I can recall purchasing as a moviegoer, the much-hyped IMAX quasi-double-feature of Mission:  Impossible-Ghost Protocol (only the second Hollywood movie to be shot in part in the format rather than simply converted to it), and the first 8 minutes of next summer's most anticipated movie, The Dark Knight Rises.  I'm told this went on previously with the opening scene of The Dark Knight and the IMAX release of I Am Legend, but then Knight was just the sequel to Batman Begins, not to the highest-grossing movie ever to not be directed by James Cameron.  And Legend, while very popular, was just another in a long line of Hollywood blockbusters tweaked to be projected on a really big screen, not an IMAX event so heavily hyped itself that the studio released it in that format five days before it hit conventional screens.  Making all of this a little stranger is that they're not even studio stablemates:  to get the biggest possible audience for their Dark Knight teaser, Warner Bros is essentially selling tickets to a movie from Paramount.  Weird.  But also kinda wonderful.

I don't get out to IMAX that often:  I'm just not going to pay $13.75 (at Harrisburg's Whitaker Center for the Performing Arts) to see a movie projected onto the IMAX screen unless it was shot with IMAX cameras.  That leaves actual IMAX faire like Under the Sea 3D or U2 3D and the pair of movies to actually, in part use the cameras.  First was The Dark Knight, which got a great deal of vertiginous and pavement scraping mileage out of shooting many of its action sequences with the cameras, which upgrade the blockbuster experience in a way 3D could never dream of.  It costs a lot of money, of course, and it's also, so Christopher Nolan says, like asking actors to perform in front of a jet engine (the cameras are very, very loud).  So it took a couple years for anyone else to take the leap, but those Pixar wonderkunds who're now making the leap to live action (leaping form a sinking ship if Cars 2 represents the new sequel-happy direction of the one-time animation innovator) don't like taking no for an answer.  While Andrew Stanton is busy racking up a 500 million dollar budget for the upcoming John Carter, Brad Bird took the reigns of the Mission:  Impossible franchise with a more modest budget-busting idea, shooting most of the movie's key action sequences in IMAX.  So, just what do you get for your extra couple bucks?  Well, for one thing, you're getting one of the best movies of the year (You'll know IMAX has jumped the shark when you see the first piece-of-crap-dollar-grab shooting that way).  And, for those who've already seen it and are thinking of seeing it again on the big, BIG screen, you get the following (SPOILER ALERT... kinda):

-The opening gambit and flashback sequence that show how Hanaway (Josh Holloway) first acquired and then lost the nuclear launch codes.  It's impressive that Holloway's slick, cool table-setting performance was given entirely in front of those jet engines.
-The opening credits:  that whole "light the fuse" graphic scheme played a little corny for me in 35mm, but the IMAX version had a lot of kick.
-The destruction of the Kremlin:  a quick sequence, but still plenty explosive.
-Establishing shots of Dubai:  IMAX loves a travelogue, and the desert certainly looks stunning.
-The building climbing sequence:  this, of course, is the Money Sequence, the one that shows off how well IMAX does heights.  It's such a show-stopper at any ratio, but man, it is a LONG way down!
-The sandstorm chase:  for my money, this was my favorite.  So many close calls in the sand (which was actually shot in 35mm because it didn't show up on the IMAX cameras and then composited in with the other IMAX-filmed shots.  I could tell, but then I'd also read that on IMDB before I went in, so I was looking for it), and the shot where Ethan ducks a car that goes flying upside-down over his head made me lunge back against my seat like nothing I'd ever seen before.  Quality IMAX!
-The climax:  from the moment Ethan Hunt reaches the parking structure (which I incorrectly identified as a car dealership in my original review:  something else IMAX does nicely is help you to read signs and take note of extras) until his Mission is in fact Accomplished.  Another sequence that played so well in 35mm it's hard to say how much it's improved here, but once again there is some SERIOUS concussive action and long drops involved.  I had no complaints.

Overall, the movie plays extremely well in the format.  I really loved how when Bird seques from 35mm to IMAX for the building climbing sequence, he expands the screen in a smooth transition rather than a quick cut as Hunt looks down over the edge.  It's a little thing, but it shows a great deal of flair and showmanship, and that's what you're looking for in any "enhanced" movie experience.  I'd love to see more movies shoot the action scenes in IMAX, and would certainly pay the extra money for it, at least until they get lazy.  Luckily, there IS a major IMAX movie event right around the corner in July...

...and of course, that's The Dark Knight Rises, which reportedly will contain a record-setting 50-odd minutes of IMAX footage including the 8 minutes running with Ghost Protocol.  Since it took me a couple weeks to get to it, I'd already heard the buzz, or perhaps more aptly the muzzle:  nobody, I'm told, can understand a word coming out of the mouth of Bane, Batman's new nemesis, played by Tom Hardy.  So, here's where I stand on that:  hell, yeah, I had to focus pretty intently to try to catch every muffled word coming out of his mask-covered mouth, but Hardy seems to be doing something pretty awesome here as well.  The performance has a lot of electricity and uniqueness to it, and I can see why Nolan might feel hesitant to risk its quality by having Hardy go back and loop his dialog.  But, seriously, he's GOT A MASK OVER HIS MOUTH.  I have no idea what kind of sound recording techniques were used:  Nolan might actually have added muffle if he thought it was cool, but it's really going to be a struggle if the sound levels are not somehow corrected before Rises' July 20 release.  And I'm not going to be happy with anything that makes the finished product look any less awesome than this trailer suggests:

But that's for the 35mm viewers, you're here to read about the IMAX prologue.  It exists primarily to introduce us to mumbly Bane, who I know from Dennis O'Neil's 2004 novelization of the "Knightfall" comic book storyline Rises seems to be at least a partial adaptation of.  The character was previously seen as a mute henchman in Joel Schumacher's abomination Batman & Robin, but we don't really need to get into that.  The new Bane, as the casting of Hardy suggests, is not Hispanic, but the prologue hints at the "venom" formula that gives him his powers, and also at the notion that he might not be able to remove the creepy mask he wears (the comic/B&R Bane dressed like a lucha libre wrestler).  If so it'll be fitting, as it will make Bane a man who can't take his mask off while Bruce Wayne will likely be required to, as the prologue ends with a shot of the villain carrying Batman's broken mask. 

It also hints at all manner of strangeness, as Bane's clearly part (perhaps not the leader) of a cult of assassins.  Something about how "the fire rises" and his henchmen going to their death with the zeal of true believers.  Ra's Al Ghul (Liam Neeson) is rumored to be among an army of returning characters from the previous films, and he certainly presided over such an organization himself before Batman seemed to blow him to smithereens two movies ago.  His comic book alter-ego DOES have a Lazarus Pit specifically for resurrection purposes, but whether Nolan would go that far into the realm of fantasy (his Batman movies are the least science fiction and fantasy-based since Tim Burton first made the Dark Knight a movie star).

The spectacle itself is astonishing:  I've never seen this sort of James Bond-style action sequence shot in such an almost documentary style.  You really can see one airplane being disassembled by another before your very eyes, and those with a fear of heights will find out that the mere sight of Batman jumping off really tall buildings in The Dark Knight is just the beginning.  We then also get a few quick shots from the movie, and the total package suggests a much denser and more complex plot than Knight's, which in many ways derived its iconic power from the fact that we never had the slightest idea who The Joker was or where he came from.  As the finale of a Batman Origin trilogy, I expect The Dark Knight Rises to traffic in answers:  not to those questions perhaps, but at least to what the hell's going on in its opening minutes and, hopefully, who Joseph Gordon Elliot and Marion Cotillard are playing...  And while I expect to get my first look at it in 35mm, you know I'll be back for IMAX as well.  That screen is REALLY big.