REVOLUTIONS of the Left almost always lead to destruction and tyranny, something Batman knows, says Andrew Bolt.

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MY kind of hero. The Occupy movement has tempted Batman out of retirement to flap again to the defence of freedom and the capitalist West.

But, wow, aren't film critics of the Left furious with The Dark Knight Rises, the third of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy.

What? Pick on the Occupy anti-capitalist movement? Pick on the mob that actually befouled scores of city squares, inconvenienced hundreds of thousands of citizens and hurt dozens of police?

Spluttered Mark Fisher in The Guardian: "The film demonises collective action against capital."

Frowned Paul Byrnes in the Sydney Morning Herald: "Some might wonder at the sensitivity of its metaphors."

Well, whack, pow and wham to the collective. Batman knows what history shows: that revolutions of the Left almost always lead to destruction - and ultimately tyranny.

Cluey guy, our batty friend. A true conservative hero, as Nolan and his fellow scriptwriter, brother Jonathan, now make unmistakably clear.

Mind you, in his previous outing, The Dark Knight, Batman was already defending Gotham from terrorists just like a regular George W. Bush.

If it was his last hope, he'd resort even to torture to save lives. Not waterboarding three al-Qaida leaders, but bashing one Joker.

And, like Mr Bush, he'd take the responsibility, while the pure he'd protected struck poses about his brutish ways.

That's a conservative ready to be judged by the results, not the seeming.

So The Dark Knight Rises opens with Batman still carrying the can. Still retired, as is Mr Bush today.

Then along come the Occupiers.

WARNING - SPOILER ALERT. SOME PLOT LINES REVEALED.

Actually, I simplify. The Nolan brothers already had the outlines of their film. Their theme, as Christopher Nolan explained: "OK, what's the threat to the civilisation that we take for granted?"

It was, they decided, another revolution of the Left.

One of their inspirations was Charles Dickens' Tales of Two Cities, in which the hero sacrifices himself on the guillotine of the French Revolution to save a rival, declaring: "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."

The Nolans have those words read out for Batman.

Indeed, their film fully shares Dickens's horror of the revolutionary mob with "their heads low down and their hands high up", and repeatedly draws parallels with France's terror.

The French Revolution started with the storming of the Bastille which, despite the heroic legend, freed just seven prisoners - four forgers, two madmen and a lecher - and ended hideously, with the pris-oner governor's head stuck on a pike.

The Nolans have their villain Bane also storming a prison to free the "oppressed", criminals primed for murder. More parallels.

The French Revolution descended into the giddy expropriation of property by "the people".

Again, the Nolans show Bane ordering "the people" to "claim what is rightfully yours". Bane storms the stock exchange, and sets loose an orgy of looting.

"This is everyone's home," one squatter boasts, gloating over a mansion the mob has trashed.

The French Revolution, having destroyed tradition and authority, was inevitably captured by the strongest and most vicious - men who sent 15,000 people to the guillotine.

Likewise, the Nolans have their own people's tribunal, with some Robespierre handing out death sentences wholesale to "enemies" of Bane's revolution.

Most of this was already in the Nolans' mind, and then came the Occupiers to prove the Left still hasn't learned what Batman tries to teach.

Christopher Nolan decided against filming scenes in New York's Zuccotti Park, where the Occupy movement started, but the Occupy vibe still throbs in the scenes of anarchy.

This link is what has the critics fuming.

"Such readings spuriously conflate Occupy Wall Street's anti-capitalism with the indiscriminate violence used by Bane and his followers," protested Mark Fisher.

Guardian critic Catharine Shoard complained that Bane's "Occupy Gotham movement" was "fuelled by a lust for destruction, not as a corrective to an unjust world".

But wasn't the Occupy movement until it died from mockery and indifference already following the trajectory of past revolutions?

From media reports:

October, 2011: A peaceful protest in Rome in support of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement erupted into violence ...

October, 2011: Violence erupted on Wall Street this morning with hundreds of protesters clashing with police ...

November, 2011: At least 300 people have been arrested during clashes between police and Oc-cupy Wall Street demonstrators ...

How well Batman knew where he'd seen their like.

Not in the best of times, but the worst. Kapow!

Originally published as Bolt: Caped crusader is right