Class War #4

Government urges councils to sell off high-value houses

Here we go again - social cleansing. We have to pay for the twats with more money than sense who want to live in areas they think are trending or 'up-and-coming.

The Dark Knight Rises

Last week we braved the heat and a cinema without air conditioning to go see The Dark Knight Rises; the final instalment of Christopher Nolan’s take on Batman. I was looking forward to it very much after The Dark Knight even though I have a soft spot for Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman and 1992 Batman Returns with Michael Keaton in the lead. Burton’s noir vision of Gotham City and the dark side of being a ‘hero’, in my opinion, set the standard for all future comic book adaptations.

After Burton’s Batman films there were 2 further, less successful films before Nolan picked up the franchise with Batman Begins (2005). I thought this film was good but not as good as the Burton films though it did successfully introduce the characters, especially Christian Bale’s take on Batman. Nolan upped his game with The Dark Knight (2008). The arrival of the Joker, played by the late Heath Ledger, who won a posthumous Oscar, made the film. Ledger’s Joker was equally as manic as Jack Nicholson’s and twice as scary. Which is interesting as Burton’s films were rated 15 while Nolan’s only 12A. Yet I’m heard film critics refer to Nolan’s Batman films as ‘grown-up’. Of course these days 12 is the rating everyone wants for maximum returns especially on mega-million dollar budget films.

 

So as I say I was really looking forward to seeing the last part of the trilogy. Was I disappointed? Well a little. This is not to say it’s not a good film (if a little too long). Visually impressive, great action sequences and with a fine cast Nolan would have had to done something seriously wrong to have made this a bad film. My main source of disappointment was the villain, Bane, played by Tom Hardy. I’m not saying this was the actor’s fault, rather every time he spoke through the mask I couldn’t take him seriously; he sounded pretentiously camp rather than menacing. And returning to the theme of Batman Begins I’m sure seemed a good way to end the trilogy but it felt to me a little lazy. As for Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle aka Catwoman, well let’s just say she was no way as cool as Michelle Pfeiffer and frankly her only purpose in the film seemed to be to add the theme of starting over with a clean slate.

The ending of the film left an opening for the franchise to be taken up once again though without Nolan or Bale. I’m sure it will be but do wonder if anyone can truly out-do Burton’s or indeed Nolan.