The Dark Night Rises

Christopher Nolan's third installment of his Batman franchise is epic in its scale and story. Nolan has stripped Batman of all its kitsch and caricatures throughout his trilogy. Anne Hathaway betrays Catwoman a.k.a. Selena Kyle as a straightforward cat burglar less of a victim, as we saw in Tim Burton's Batman Returns. Tom Hardy's Bane is not a steroid driven Mexican wrestling masked villain as in the comic books, but a very politely spoken mass murdering terrorist. Nolan's cast looks very familiar, it seems that once you make a movie with him he's going to cast you again. There's lots of ah-ha moments especially with the Joseph Gordon- Levitts character John Blake, and Marion Cotillards character Miranda Tate. Film historians will look back at the early 21st century as a comic book hero era in cinema. Marvel comics, DC comics it seems that will never get enough of our superheroes. I think Nolan has turned the greatest of these superheroes, the most human, Batman into this Shakespearean tragedy. There is a lot of social and political insights here too,it seems Nolan has his finger on the pulse of the 99%