But now that it’s finally landed, what does this two-minute long snippet actually tell us about next summers most anticipated film? Thankfully, the latter appears to be the case and – as the trailer builds – the anthem gives way to the familiar swoops of Hans Zimmer’s Batman score. But this opening choice is interesting as it’s inverting this very formalised and symbolic image of American civic pride, and saying that something sinister is lurking under the surface In the eight years since the events of The Dark Knight, Gotham appears to have been both renewed and reborn, and its former DA Harvey Dent seemingly deified....

‘YOU AWAKE TO FIND YOURSELF IN A DARK ROOM’ A child of the Eighties, John Robertson remembers text-based adventure games. I distantly recall my school’s BBC computer, with its floppy disc containing a tortuous purgatory involving a quest and a tetchy wizard, but more familiar to me were the ‘Choose your own Adventure’ books (the first computer my parents bought was a Mac, and I still haven’t completed the first Discworld game)....

As someone who has read and written many words about the film, I was in that camp, too. I’m happy to report, though: no matter how off-the-chart your geek cred levels are, you’ll want to check out The Death Of Superman Lives: What Happened? This joyous exploration of Superman’s greatest cinematic ‘what if?’ is enabled marvellously by Schnepp, who took writing, directing, presenting, co-producing and co-editing duties himself. If you hadn’t guessed, the film is a passion project of mammoth proportions....

The Deuce Season 2 Episode 1 While David Simon and George Pelecanos’s previous television efforts have been some of the most important work ever committed to the medium, they weren’t necessarily happy, rip-roaring good times. The Wire charted the degradation of America through one crumbling city and all its failing institutions. Sure, the characters were charming, lived-in creatures and it was pleasant to get to know them but the scythe of capitalistic doom that hung over them made The Wire a dour, sometimes difficult watch....

For the film dramatises the West Memphis Three story – so hauntingly dealt with in the likes of Paradise Lost and West Of Memphis – which saw three boys brutally murdered, and the clamour for justice overtaken by a clamour for legal retribution. Director Atom Egoyan makes no attempt to obscure which side of the story he sits on, and it’s certainly an issue with The Devil’s Knot that a seemingly one sided legal process is documented in a film that’s also single-tracked in its beliefs from a very early stage....

1.7 Let Me Go Most of this season has been the Kevin Bacon show, and with good reason. He’s been good in every episode, and he gets some decent action scene work in this week’s episode, but the focus isn’t on him as much as it is around him, because he’s the focus of Joe Carroll’s attention. James Purefoy is given a lot of screen time this episode, and while he’s still not exactly the Manson-type charismatic guru that he’s sold as being, he’s able to acquit himself a little better with a fairly clever, intricate plot to extract himself from federal custody and make another escape....

1.7 The Hunt Granted, Theo (I’m not sure we’ve actually heard his name in the show, but the IMDB mentions it, so we’ll go with it) is a brilliant computer hacker, so it’d be easy for him to figure out who has connections to Strauss or what serial killer is being moved around by the police. Indeed, he recovers Duncan (Tim Guinee) from the back of a cop car after remotely hacking into the car, redirecting it, and then killing the cops after disabling its electronic brains....

3.8 Kill The Messenger There hasn’t been much of that this season, but it seems like the show is slowly coming back around to giving us what we wanted all along, which is Joe and Ryan together, either as a sort of Hannibal and Clarice or as antagonists. The recurring dream sequences have been one of the better parts of the season, either from Joe’s perspective or Ryan’s perspective, and it’s helped keep that weird relationship in focus even when Joe’s not on screen, or Ryan’s being fussy and not visiting his BFF (best felonious friend) in jail....

So, he does the next best thing and plays a politician in a movie. He gets to make all his stump speeches, talk about his pet issues, state his slant on things, and not actually have to deal with his herd of former girlfriends writing tell-alls or travel outside of his Italian villa (once filming is over) to get his politics heard globally. However, he avoids the standard trap of making politicians into horribly flawed people or into moral crusaders....

I like Robert Downey, Jr. and I loved the first movie but building up to the freshly-released Iron Man sequel I can’t help but hope that ‘our hero’ gets a good pasting. He’s a self-absorbed playboy who only has superpowers thanks to high tech gadgetry. He only really gets by because of a privileged upbringing, the fact he inherited his daddy’s business empire and a fortune earned from the massacre and mutilation of others....

At this point, Gene Kelly bounces into view, swings around a lamppost in front of our impromptu street rally and enthusiastically cries out, “Gotta dance!” Brothers and sisters, the Singin’ In The Rain star is right! Dancing is freedom and he’s showing us the steps we need to take to further our revolution of freewill. Put simply, dancing is about letting it all out. Disco hustle, mosh pit headbanging, ballet dancing or ballroom tango, whatever....

Or, no thank you, ma’am. I just don’t know. I’m confused, it’s noisy in here and what is real, what is fictional – what is imitation and what’s authentic – are all merging and muddied. Likewise, The Clash at Demonhead, Crash and the Boys and the Katayanagi Twins from the Pilgrimiverse. While we’re at it, I’m also eager to see Wyld Stallyns of Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure in action, especially if they hold the key to a utopian future....

3.9 & 3.10 The penultimate episode of The Killing III began in, well, in much the same way that many of the episodes this series have, with Detective Inspector Sarah Lund heading into a dark basement, flashlight in one hand, gun in the other. This time she’s investigating the burglar alarm at the home of Niels Rheinhardt’s, personal assistant to Robert Zeuthen of Zeeland, whose daughter has been kidnapped by the father of Louise Jelby, who in turn now believes that Rheinhardt may have murdered Louise....

And here we have The King’s Speech, a film that, at first glance, seems to be spinning royal themes into awards fodder in a similar way to 2006’s hugely successful The Queen, and even though both films share a similar set-up of distant monarchy startled by public matters, then re-aligning their private business before our gaze, it is a rather different beast. One that, even when stripped of its major, monarchic themes, is still a compelling, wholly affecting character drama....

The film is a nuts-and-bolts sci-fi horror flick that played out of competition at last year’s Cannes film festival, during directors’ fortnight, but it’s the interesting way in which it’s been executed that marks it for such distinction, more than any real sort of innovation or unpredictability. Right as they’re about to set off home, the discovery of a fossilised bacterial life-form piques their curiosity, and things quickly go south after one of their number dies of a virus contracted at the site of their discovery....

Adapted by director Lenny Abrahamson from Sarah Waters’ best-selling novel, The Little Stranger follows the troubled Ayres family as they deal with the changing times post-World War II, whether that’s navigating brother Roderick’s (Will Poulter) significant physical and mental scars, his mother’s (Charlotte Rampling) repressed grief over a daughter who died before her other children were born, or simply trying to keep the family’s estate from being sold off piece by piece to the highest bidder....

1.5 Sinners and Saints Thankfully, as was the case with its parent show, now that we’re out of that awkward beginning stage, The Originals is getting better and better. Last week we fleshed out Cami’s character and made a start on Davina, but that was nothing compared to this. As Elijah surmised at the end of the episode, the hour proved that the series isn’t about what we thought it was, and what we’re getting looks a lot more exciting....

While both are (to some extent) true of The Sapphires, a film acquired by the Weinstein Company after its out-of-competition premiere in Cannes, it’s also a film that’s been made without any of the post-acquisition pretensions that come with awards season. Actually, there’s little hype around it in that regard, beyond the positive word of mouth from which crowd-pleasing hits are made. Fortunately, all three of them are discovered by a drunken musician called Dave Lovelace, (Chris O’Dowd) who has somehow drifted from being a cruise ship entertainment manager to getting sozzled in the Outback....

Before it had even begun, this week’s episode came very close to collapsing under the weight of expectation Malcolm Tucker fans placed on the return of TV’s best-loved invective-spitting bully. With that level of anticipation, unless Peter Capaldi had zip-lined in naked, daubed in Old Etonian blood and screaming put-downs so vicious and profane they’d make Ozzy Osbourne wet himself, it was likely people were going to be disappointed. And at first, it did seem to be a gentler, less bile-filled Tucker we saw (albeit one who spends his weekends trolling the cast of Glee)....