Superheroes and summer blockbusters have always had a golden relationship in Hollywood. The upcoming release of “The Dark Knight Rises” should prove just how golden that relationship can be at the box office.

Poised to break box office records, this third and final installment in Christopher Nolan’s Batman series is expected to drive moviegoers into theatres this weekend. But what fans will see, according to new co-star Matthew Modine, is a memorable tale about a man, not a superhero, who is deeply flawed.

“Batman doesn’t wield a hammer or toss spider webs at you when he’s fighting evil,” Modine told CTVNews.ca on Wednesday.

“Batman’s a human being. He’s a person who is broken.  He puts on his mask, but underneath he still has fears than he can’t really hide,” said Modine.

“Christopher Nolan understood that quality in Batman. That’s why he, better than anyone else, has been so successful at telling Batman’s story,” said Modine.

Nolan also understood that Batman’s fight against evil mirrors the times we live in.

“It’s no coincidence that the Occupy Wall Street movement happened as Christopher was working on this script,” said Modine.

“He’s not mimicking events here. But I think he anticipated a lot of the dissatisfaction and strife seen in the world today. That’s what you see in this movie.”

The 53-year-old actor is one of the latest additions to Nolan’s Batman franchise. Modine portrays Deputy Commissioner Foley – a Gotham city lawman.

This new role gave Modine the chance to work with Anne Hathaway, who co-stars as the cat burglar Selina Kyle.

“Anne and I campaigned for Obama, so we knew each other well,” Modine told CTV’s Canada AM on Wednesday.

Modine also spent most of his screen time working opposite Gary Oldman, who returned to reprise his role of stoic good guy, Jim Gordon.

“Gary and I have known each other for a long time. We came up together in this business,” Modine said.

Thanks to Oldman, Modine learned how to deliver a comic book character’s lines with gravitas -- something that was a challenge for Modine at the outset of this project.

The actor also borrowed from Odlman’s experiences on the franchise to give more complexity to the lines scripted by director Nolan, 41, and his 36-year-old brother, Jonathan Nolan.

“When you’re dealing with a comic book story it can be really tricky,” said Modine.

“The big challenge for me was how to say lines without making them sound silly. But Gary understood what to do. He had found that fine, fine line that you need to walk to put real gravitas into a comic book story,” he said.

A Batman for today’s world

With more than 50 film roles to his credit, Modine made his movie debut in 1983 in the John Sayles film “Baby It’s You.”

He is best known for his work in the 1984 film “Birdy,” and for his portrayal of Private Joker, the central character in Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 film, “Full Metal Jacket.”

The youngest of seven children, Modine’s love affair with film began during his boyhood.

The actor’s father, Mark Modine, managed drive-in theatres. However, during the 1960s and 1970s many drive-ins closed across North America, which kept Modine’s family on the move.

“Every year or two we’d head to another town and to another drive-in, so it was an itinerant childhood,” said Modine.

“That’s why every time I meet an actor I ask, ‘Where do you come from?’ I’d say that 90 per cent of them come from itinerant families, like myself,” he added.

Three decades after Modine watched those drive-in screenings, the actor has worked with great directors such as Kubrick, Robert Altman and Oliver Stone.

But the current Batman director’s ability to sense the pop culture zeitgeist in his films has set Nolan apart for Modine

“Christopher has really turned Batman into a metaphor for where we are in the world right now.”

Surprisingly, Modine has yet to see the finished cut of “The Dark Knight Rises.”

“I’ll be seeing it tonight in Toronto,” said Modine.

Early reviews, however, have been favourable.

“It is, through and through, a Nolan movie - a brooding, complicated film that asks that you come to the theater prepared and that you watch the movie engaged,” wrote Stephen Whitty, the film critic at the Newark Star-Ledger.

Film critic Roger Ebert also gave “The Dark Knight Rises” a thumb’s up for its “sensational climax.”

For Modine, however, the film’s success ultimately rests with Nolan and star, Christian Bale.

“I really have to credit Christopher and Christian. They took the Batman myth and turned it into a legend,” he said.