The Dark Knight films are 'boring and pretentious, shallow and badly written', says The Prestige author

Author thinks trying to make superheroes all tortured is a mistake

Christian Bale as Batman in 2012's The Dark Knight Rises (AP)

Christopher Priest, the author of The Prestige which was adapted by Christopher Nolan, has criticised the director's Batman trilogy, saying that trying to bring psychological realism to "a bodybuilder who jumps off buildings" is absurd.

"I've only ever had one meeting with him, when the film was finished," he told Script.fr. "Because I wasn't very interested in him. We all have different points of view on the world.

"To the world he's this great, innovative filmmaker; to me, he was a kid who wanted to get into Hollywood."

Priest said that he thinks Memento and The Prestige are Nolan's best films, but he's not keen on his work since.

"I don't like his other work, I think it's shallow and badly written, " he continued. "I've got kids who like superheroes, and they think the Batman films are boring and pretentious. They like things like The Avengers and Iron Man because they're fun.

"It's a wrong move to take a superhero and give it psychological realism. There is no psychological realism. He's a bodybuilder who jumps off buildings."

The author feels that movies like The Avengers and Iron Man get the tone right.

"I'm sorry, I feel really strongly about this, and I think the proof is in the audiences. I've been to the movie house and seen things like Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and the audience - they're mostly kids, they're restless, they don't watch the film, they talk to each other, they start texting and doing Twitter, they change seats, go to the toilet, kiss their girlfriends.

"And every now and then the guy jumps off the building on a rope, and they watch it and go, 'Woo!' Then they lose interest. To me, that's a real, major lack of judgement in Nolan, to go for superhero films."

The Dark Knight remains one of the most critically and fan-acclaimed films of all time, though the follow-up The Dark Knight Rises was met with a more lukewarm reaction.