The dark knight rises (2012)

I rarely go to the movies. When I do, I am entertained by watching moving images. The Dark Knight Rises (dir. Christopher Nolan) is one of the worst films I've seen in a long time. Of course, Batman is all about the brand, and the brand has to live on. I have never been fascinated by superheroes (beyond watching this TV series about a girl who could speak to stuffed animals) and watching Batman, I am reminded of why this is so. Superhero movies try eagerly and pompously to flatter us, titillating us into believing that the world will not go to hell even though everything looks that way. The world - must be saved and We can Do it. These movies buy into the old worn-out idea that anything is possible and that deep inside some of us, awesome powers are hidden that can change History forever. And so on and so forth. ZzZz. In this movie, we even have a sad-eyed and traumatized superhero with no cartilage in his knee. His enemy is a grunting Wrestling type in a silly mask. Tim Burton's Batman-movies were bearable because of his sense for the Bad and Evil city. In this film, we see the familiar skyline that sends shivers down our spines simply because of ugly associations*. Five orchestras playing on top of each other create a thundering sound that is supposed to 'add some drama' (one of the more successful scenes is a quieter one: a small boy's high-pitched voice singing star spangled banner as the soundtrack to gruesome things going on underground). The actors have been given lines so cheesy that it is a miracle of human nature that they can go through with delivering them without breaking into a big laugh. In the silliest scenes I've seen in a long time, Batman and his Nemesis punch each other in the face, trying hard to make it look like ... well, something that one should take bloody seriously. I try to say something redeeming about The Dark Knight Rises but this would be a distortion of reality and a misuse of language, so I end with a word of warning: do not watch this. Okay, there was something I liked: Albert. I agree with the Guardian reviewer who calls the film a children's fancy-dress party scripted by Wagner.

* The horror portrayed in this Batman film is very much dependent on the real horror of 9/11 and economic crises. Rather than seeing this as a factor that makes the film relevant, I feel it exploits this kind of background, blinding us to tragedy and the unique human life. Here, humans are divided into superheroes and the ordinary people, more or less trampled down by the sinister forces of history.