Director Christopher Nolan apparently had misgivings about returning to the Batman story, but he can’t have imagined the extremity of the reactions The Dark Knight Rises would provoke, even before the events in Denver.
Reviewers who criticised the film as overly dark and ponderous have been “flamed” in online forums and faced death threats. Reviews website Rotten Tomatoes had to shut down its comment section for the first time since it launched in 1999.
The film’s real or suspected use of political themes and imagery has been probed. Bane, the villain of the piece played by Tom Hardy, describes himself as a terrorist and uses bombs to disable Gotham. He wears a brutalist mask and is prone to rabble-rousing speeches.
Right-wing US commentator Rush Limbaugh saw in his name a coded attack on the former company of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Bain Capital.
Absurd, given the comic-book character was created in 1999 by “lifelong conservative” Chuck Dixon. As has been noted before, you can’t get a more Right-wing hero than Batman, billionaire businessman/vigilante.
In the film there are echoes of the Occupy Wall Street protests, and a subplot involves Bruce Wayne’s attempt to create clean energy, and an attendant warning about the dangers of nuclear power. But the Batman films and comics deploy political themes for dramatic rather than overtly partisan effect.
Meanwhile, the debate over whether violent films incite violence is ongoing, but direct links are almost impossible to prove. Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers was accused of inspiring copycat killings. After media claims that A Clockwork Orange had inspired copycat crimes on its 1971 release, director Stanley Kubrick withdrew it from circulation in Britain.
