The Super Hero genre is intrinsically puerile in nature, featuring characters with stupid names in ludicrous outfits doing ridiculous things. Any attempt to make it 'mature' or 'serious' inevitably leads it to being unintentionally hysterical. Christopher Nolan, a man who clearly thinks Straw Dogs wasn't serious enough, believes otherwise. The actors here perform with a level of intensity that would make William Shatner cringe, and rather than having real conversations, the characters speak at each other in pseudo dramatic monologues. Nolan needs to put down his 'Best Of Stanley Kubrick' blu ray box set for a few minutes and look at some real human interaction. Christian Bale is awful throughout, his Batman sounds like a hoarse Barry White and his Bruce Wayne is strangely unlikable- Patrick Bateman without the Phil Collins collection. Heath Ledger's overrated attempt at a 'realistic' Joker has been usurped by Joaquin Phoenix' performance in 2019 (that film was also a load of pretentious, derivative drivel, but that is for another review). The next in the series, 'The Dark Knight Rises' turned out to be even worse.

Nolan's aunt played Helga Geerhart in the BBC comedy 'Allo 'Allo. I await his big screen adaptation with baited breath.