Corona | Coming Attractions

Two weeks out from the gen pop release of The Dark Knight Rises and people have watched it.

Who are these folk? Select members of Hollywood, a smattering of film critics and members of the Hollywood foreign press. The first screening of The Dark Knight Rises for press took place two days ago on Friday. And if you read between the lines, the early articles and the tweets, the consensus from those that have seen the movie is that it's just as good, if not better than The Dark Knight.

In his article at The Los Angeles Times, Geoff Boucher describes Christopher Nolan's Batman film trilogy as "a tale of different levels — the heights of the city, the street level and the underground of caves and sewers. Dark Knight Rises presents a story where greed, hypocrisy and false justice bring down the city’s bridges, stadium and the houses of government."

A tweet from film critic Tom McAuliffe: "Just finished the screening of Dark Knight Rises...so much awesome...can't wait to see it again. And again. and "9 out of 10 for me. I'd put Amazing Spider-Man at a 7.5 and Avengers at an 8.5."

Another tweet, another positive reaction from @marcogennuso: "Vince just saw Dark Knight Rises at a press screening & says: "Wow. Quite speechless at the moment....TDKR was everything I wanted it to be."

And there was this anonymous post left at the same time on a Facebook group that's following the film: "As far as audience reaction, there were only 40-50 ppl in attendance (mostly critics), but there was applause and I leaned over and shook Michael Uslan's hand and congratulated him when his name appeared in the credits. I, myself, cried twice...once out of sadness and once out of pure geeky uncontrollable happiness."

Could it be that Nolan's third movie is the first one in a trilogy to be as great as the earlier ones? We'll all have a chance to see for ourselves when The Dark Knight Rises opens in theaters on July 20.