The Dark Knight: Anarchy

Three years later, after Christopher Nolan reteamed with Christian Bale and Michael Caine to do The Prestige, the movie that broke countless box office records and proved that a comic book movie could be art arrived in theaters. I know I'm gushing, but The Dark Knight was an incredible film. Beware of some spoilers.

Knight continues working on the theme of fear that was introduced in Begins, but it looks at the nature of heroism as well, and touches on order vs. anarchy. But let's begin with fear. Batman's crusade of terrorizing Gotham City's criminals has worked well enough to reduce the various mob families into a single group trying to take back the streets. This has created a bit of a power vacuum, since the crime families no longer rule the street, and this has allowed small-time criminals to attain a level of power. One such small-timer was the Joker.

The Joker is unlike the mob, though. He uses theatrics, disguises his identity and is a loner. Sounds kind of like Batman. Allow me to take this opportunity to clear up my labeling of Batman as a terrorist. I find the character of Batman to be an interesting one (much more so than Superman), and he is truly a dark superhero. He breaks the law to protect innocents. There is an adage that claims that, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". George Washington fits that description; he was a terrorist to the British, but he did what he did for very principled reasons. Osama bin Laden may believe that he is helping a cause, but his violent acts are not justified, since he targets innocents. Batman may break the law, but he attacks the guilty, and does not kill.

The Joker is much closer to bin Laden, except he doesn't seem to be fighting for anything except chaos. Alfred summed it up best in the lines from the very first teaser trailer for the film:



The Joker uses fear against citizens, but does so in a way much more dangerously than the way Batman uses fear against the city's criminals. Batman strikes fear into the hearts of criminals to make them easier for him to take down. But it takes the truly crazy genius of the Joker to scare the citizens into doing his dirty work for him. The Joker believes that fear can force people to do anything, even turn against each other. For example, when a Wayne Enterprises employee threatened to expose Batman's identity, the Joker broadcasted a message to Gotham City telling them that if said employee weren't dead within an hour, he would blow up a hospital. And then, people listened. Fearful that a hospitalized loved one would die, they made the choice to take the life of another to prevent it.

Of course, the Joker isn't above doing some dirty work of his own, and he truly relishes it, making him all the more scary. Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker was beyond incredible; he effectively played a character devoid of morals or humanity. He knew no fear, not even of death (he was willing to blow up an entire roomful of people, including himself, to prevent being killed by a mobster)... or at least, he effectively convinced people he had no fear. But praise also goes to Aaron Eckhardt, playing District Attorney Harvey Dent. Referred to as Gotham's "White Knight", Dent brought hope to the people of Gotham because he was able to bring down the mob through legal channels. Dent's role in the film was to contrast with that of Batman; one is a vigilante and the other is an elected official. Both are heroes in their own right, each with their own limitations as well abilities that the other does not have. Eckhardt's portrayal of a man willing to do anything within his power, even if it meant self-sacrifice, to uphold the law was incredible. And then, when Dent became the man (men) he was destined to become, Eckhardt's performance changed into something even more incredible.

Of course, the entire cast deserves praise, as do Nolan, Goyer, and everyone involved. The Dark Knight once again proves that summer blockbusters can be smart and well-acted. Nolan is contracted for at least one more Batman movie (Bale I think has two more on contract), and I walked out of The Dark Knight wishing that the next one was already being filmed.

I do want to end this by talking about a couple of things I thought of while watching the movie, all of which had to do with a scene taking place towards the end. Therefore, if you haven't yet seen the movie, you may want to skip to the end. (Woot! Spaced reference!)

During the scene where two ferries were launched from Navy Pier (ok, so it wasn't Navy Pier in the film, but it was shot at Navy Pier), I started to wonder what the Joker's real intention was. When he radioed the boats to tell them that each boat had the detonator for the bomb on the other boat, I thought that he was lying, and that if a boat were to turn the key, they would blow themselves up. I also thought that the prisoners were going to be the noble ones and throw away the detonator (which is what actually happened), but I also thought that the citizens were going to go through with their plan to destroy the prisoners' boat (which, if I was correct about the detonators, would have blown themselves up). The Joker would be able to point out how crazy society is, and that "honest, law-abiding" citizens could be just as cruel and crazy as the people we lock up. Of course, this would have ruined the idea that people are redeemable (and further proves how sadistic I am when it comes to fictional characters; when I saw WALL-E, I hoped that, at the end, WALL-E would not regain his memory, and the end credits would show EVE teaching WALL-E how to be human, just as he originally taught her).

Up next: Last men, elected superheroes and Runaways...