It seems to have been ages since the last Batman film and when it finally arrived it was severely spoiled  by the tragic shooting in Colorado. I think this sadly took much of the steam out of it –was it worth seeing?

 

It was a bit of a mixed bag I felt. Much too long and some of the story was almost unintelligible – but thankfully you could always just about grasp it. It was certainly “dark”, a bit too much for my liking, because, call me old fashioned, but I do think that Batman should have a sense of humour and have his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. This film had no humour in it at all, and it’s difficult to see how he could be called a “comic book hero”, because he had no superhuman abilities at all, other than that he had inherited a lot of money and used it to buy one or two impressive gadgets – oh, and an impressive looking bat suit!

 

There was a big political message in the film, but I’m not sure what it was.  The anti hero was a character called Bain, who wore a spooky mask, talked in a deep voice and had a penchant for twisting people’s heads off – but in all honesty, he was a pretty straight forward sort of guy, aiming to set Gotham City free from the sinister wealthy cabal who had enslaved and terrorised the ordinary hard working man in the street – indeed, he was a veritable one man French Revolution, and I felt that I should really perhaps have been on his side. However, Bain’s style of justice and fairness was rather one sided, arbitrary and bloody, so naturally we needed Batman to come to the rescue of good old fashioned American values.

 

Rather than the somewhat mixed up political message, I more enjoyed the human element of the film, as it dwelled upon Batman’s weariness and wishing to be left alone to have a bit of peace and quiet. After all, it must make you just a bit fed up after you’ve saved the world a few times, get no thanks for it and are then expected to do it all over again. However, conscience overcomes all and he must get himself back in condition to do his duty. In the end it was all worth it for him, because after saving the world, he is able to disappear into anonymity, and what a surprise it is that his faithful butler should bump into him in the bar in Florence (in plain clothes of course!), having a wee snifter with the rather attractive Catwoman, who had spent the rest of the film parading round in a rather fetching skin tight outfit.

 

Yes, I liked the film, even if it wasn’t sure what it wanted to say, even though it was too long and even though it certainly wasn’t anything that I would recognise as being from a comic book.