"The Dark Knight Rises" is a huge, action-packed movie with epic cinematography, a pounding score and a musclebound menace who just might be Batman's biggest challenge.

At least, that's what it looks like it's going to be, based on about seven minutes of footage.

That's all that Warner Bros., IMAX and director Christopher Nolan were willing to show film writers at tonight's heavily locked-down Manhattan screening at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square. And yet film writers were more than willing to trudge in just to get a glimpse at what's already one of 2012's most anticipated films.

'It's an introduction to the antagonist," Nolan announced before the screening. But, he insisted, "it's really about the large-scale film format" - a 65mm system he used for about 50 minutes of the film that "gets me as a filmmaker to where I want to be."