Saturday 1 September 2012

Dark Knight Rises to biff dirty commies

So given the choice between dog-sitting and getting out of the house on Wednesday evening I went to see the latest Batman film.

It was OK but I found it a little disappointing, especially from such a great director as Christopher Nolan. Twenty years after the end of the Cold War and with the last communist insurgencies trundling on in Nepal, Peru and India and we are still worrying about the possibility of revolution (at the point of a nuclear bomb, no less).

Bane made a good nemesis and I liked the (slightly predictable) twists regarding the escape from the pit. However, Batman has always had the potential to seem like an especially right-wing superhero since his power is basically having a lot of money. Restoring the dead spectre of communism for another couple of smacks round the face reinforces such impressions and seems very contrived in terms of contemporary politics (even for a Batman movie).

There weren't many laughs and not much that was memorable about this film - with the honourable exception of the genius cameo by Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow as a resigned but sardonic people's judge in the style of Andrey Vyshinsky .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrey_Vyshinsky

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