Entertainment

It may be the final Batman film from Christopher Nolan, but he's clearly going out with a bang rather than a whimper with The Dark Knight Rises. Judging by the absolutely ingenious new full-length trailer that Warner Bros. released on Monday night, the third installment may just be the best of the series.

Scheduled to hit theaters on July 20, Dark Knight Rises is one of the summer's most-anticipated movies, so it's no surprise that the new trailer is already generating a ton of buzz. In classic Christopher Nolan form, the trailer is the perfect promotion—just enough of a tease without relying on the increasingly popular studio method of showing the whole damn film in two minutes. It leaves us feeling excited about the film, but still dying to know more.

As Catwoman tells Batman in the trailer, "You don't owe these people any more. You've given them everything."

"Not everything," Batman growls. "Not yet."

OH YES. BRING. IT. ON.

Dark Knight Rises is described as the "epic conclusion" to Nolan's Batman series, and it certainly seems to live up to its promise. In the trailer, Christian Bale reappears as the handsome, tortured Caped Crusader; we get several looks at the uber-creepy villain Bane (played by Tom Hardy); and my boyfriend Joseph Gordon-Levitt is featured front and center.

Also, I think this is the clip that will shake off any lingering doubts about Anne Hathaway as Catwoman. She looks—and sounds—fantastic.

Here's the trailer in all its glory:

Yeah, I'm going to call it: this is pretty much one of the best movie promos I've ever seen. The profoundly eerie quiet of the first minute or so is a standout choice when audiences have become so accustomed to being barraged with a seizure-inducing maelstrom of noise and images in trailers, and the way it slowly builds to a crescendo . . . well. Genius, sheer freaking genius. I swear I almost got a little misty-eyed, I was so overcome by the end.

Or maybe I was just imagining a Gordon-Levitt/Bale-wich. WHAT? I AM ONLY HUMAN.

The bridge blowing up; the catastrophic football game; recognizable faces like Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, and Morgan Freeman; some intriguing peeks at storylines and characters yet to be revealed—man, this trailer's got it all. The only moment that initially seemed less than pitch-perfect to me was at the very end, when Hathaway jokes, "My mother warned me about getting into cars with strangers," but that scene (and Batman's subsequent "This isn't a car" snarl) was clearly included so we could geek out over the airborne Bat-vehicle. BATPLANE EFF YEAH.

The new Dark Knight Rises trailer hits theaters alongside The Avengers this weekend, which is great news for those of us who already (nerdily) bought our 3-D tickets for Friday night. I can't wait to see this amazing teaser again on the big screen.

What do you think of the new Batman trailer? Are you excited to see the film this summer?

Image courtesy of Warner Bros