Occupy Gotham

In theaters today: The Adventures of Tintin, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

In theaters Christmas Day: The Darkest Hour, We Bought a Zoo

Here’s the scary thing about talented filmmakers. Their work often coincides with cultural milestones, movements or simply the mood of the nation or the world, whether they specifically intend to capture or comment on that zeitgeist or not. Think about Stanley Kubrick’s mind-bending masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. This dark, detached vision of the future arrived in the tumultuous, riot and assassination-filled year of 1968—and mere months before man first walked on the moon.

Last weekend, a lot of people went to see Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol on IMAX or watched Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, and many did so in large part to get their first extended look at The Dark Knight Rises, the final chapter in director Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster Batman series that arrives next summer. Those who did were treated to a breathy Anne Hathaway as Catwoman who pulls in Christian Bale’s uber-wealthy Bruce Wayne close on the dance floor at a masked ball in order to deliver this spine-tingling monologue:

“There’s a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you’ll wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us.”

If you think it’s a stretch to connect Catwoman’s on-screen warning with the current Occupy movement, check out Hathaway protesting on Wall Street. Maybe this new version of Catwoman counts herself proudly among the 99%?

Nolan actually filmed a street brawl between protestors and Gotham PD on Wall Street while hundreds of real life protesters stood nearby. Art imitates life.

Compounding problems for Batman and Gotham this go-round is new super villain Bane, played by the excellent Tom Hardy. Bane is a frightening masked character that seems to be part mercenary, part revolutionary and part classic movie monster. What is most interesting, though, is his motivation. Earlier in the fall, fan-taken set photos showed Bane’s Adbusters-worthy propaganda posters aimed at the rich. “Money makes you ugly,” “Corporations manufacture greed,” and “Let’s bomb Texas. They have oil too!” were just a few of the five-alarm slogans plastered near a building dressed up as the Gotham Stock Exchange.

Whether Bane truly believes in this staunch anti-corporate, anti-globalization ideology or he’s simply stirring up Gotham’s less fortunate for his own devious purposes of controlling the city is not yet clear. The film may see a war between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, but Robin Hood Bane is not.

With a script that was written two years ago, Christopher Nolan seems to have his crystal ball finely tuned to the pulse of the nation, but what he and his film say about that pulse will help determine whether The Dark Knight Rises becomes a classic modern action movie with a brain, or another in a long line of disappointing third movies in a trilogy.