Dark Knight: Less fun than having your appendix out.

[richardf8]

After reading much critical acclaim Morgan and I went to see this with a friend of ours from Shul.



Batman/Bruce Wayne is the greatest villain in this universe. The Joker? Acting according to his nature, barely responsible for his own actions, as with a rabid animal running loose in a town the only moral course of action is to kill him. And Batman fails to do this. Why? I can't tell. Does he think that a justice system that has already failed tragically to hold him once is going to do anything about him? Indeed the Joker has effectively destroyed any semblance of Law and Order by the time Batman sends him hurtling to a certain death, only to save him at the last minute.

The Joker argues that Batman's refusal to reveal his identity makes Batman responsible for the Joker's murders. Harvey Dent correctly identifies this as a terroristic threat, and acts accordingly. Batman is not responsible for those murders. But having had the opportunity to kill the Joker and having passed it up, every single murder that the Joker now commits is on Batman's head, as far as I can tell.

And what the hell is up with that paternalistic BS that Batman/Bruce Wayne and and Commissioner Gordon pull at the end with preserving Harvey Dent's image as Hero and demonizing Batman further because "the common folk need something to believe in?"

When all is said and done, this film was a morally bankrupt morass of angst and horror that failed either to entertain or edify. Christopher Nolan has perpetrated an act of narrative sadism on the public, and the public, it seems, is either sufficiently depressed or sufficiently masochistic to sustain the film in the top rankings.

I go to movies to be entertained, if I want to stare into an abyss of moral depravity lacking either hero or savior, I'll watch CNN.

A word on Heath Ledger - his portrayal of the Joker was excellent, and I suspect led him to his death. Jack Nicholson, who has portrayed The Shining's Jack Torrance, Satan, and the previous Batman's less disturbing joker is said to have warned Ledger about the role. From Jack Nicholson, such a warning is to be taken seriously.

Comments

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

This tells me that you're big on stopping a killer by killing.

[richardf8]

Yep. Its a moral imperative, in my mind, to kill someone who is taking innocent lives. With Joker its a no-brainer. He's killed many, he's remorseless, and he thinks up creative ways to kill more. Someone like that you kill. Period. To even have such a thing as a "no kill rule" when dealing with a creature like that is suicide at best, genocide at worst.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

And you don't even mention the fact that the Joker already busted out of jail and half-expected his re-arrest. His plans for escape might be endless.

Let me tell you, the two main objections you raise are the same main reasons I don't readily list TDK as my favorite superhero movie. (The other reason that comes to mind is contrivedness, but that's almost inevitable for a philosopher-artist.) But what did you think of the movie before the last five minutes?

[richardf8]

And you don't even mention the fact that the Joker already busted out of jail and half-expected his re-arrest. Actually, I did note this. But who's going to hold him. Why does arresting him even matter? He blew up the last place they put him by planting a bomb in an inmate!

But what did you think of the movie before the last five minutes?

"The catharsis had better be good, the catharsis had better be flipping good, this film owes me some major catharsis, it had better be good."

And. . . it wasn't even there.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

That was my point, really. If I thought prison could hold him a long time, I might approve the decision to have him arrested instead of killed.

But I like to think that no criminal will ever be that effective in real life.