Dark Knight Rises movie trailer

SKY NEWS

As London prepares for the European premiere of the latest Batman film, a movie website has been forced to suspend user comments after critics received abuse for writing negative reviews.

Hollywood stars Christian Bale and Anne Hathaway will head down the red carpet in Leicester Square to launch The Dark Knight Rises, reports Sky News.

But as excitement builds over the opening of the film on Friday, website RottenTomatoes.com has had to stop comments after abusive and threatening messages were left in reaction to poor reviews of the movie.

Matt Atchity, the site's editor-in-chief, said it is the first time RottenTomatoes.com has suspended user comments.

"The job of policing the comments became more than my staff could handle for that film, so we stopped the comments altogether," said Atchity. "It just got to be too much hate based on reactions to reviews of movies that people hadn't even seen."

While The Dark Knight Rises is currently experiencing a glowing 84% "fresh" rating on RottenTomatoes.com, the film has been deemed "rotten" by a few critics who have said it is "nonsensical" and a "letdown".

The film is the third to be directed by Christopher Nolan and stars Tom Hardy as the hulking, masked villain Bane.

Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are also due to attend Wednesday's premiere.

RottenTomatoes.com said Dark Knight reviews are expected to be restored by the end of the week.