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...

Batman Begins: The Power of Fear

After doing a bunch of low-budget independent films, all of which received critical praise, Christopher Nolan said that it had always been a dream of his to direct a summer blockbuster. He didn't want to forsake his roots, and the result is one of the smartest and best-casted "blockbuster" ever produced. Batman Begins is a reboot of the Batman film series, since Warner Brothers wanted a clean slate after Batman and Robin (insert any joke you want here). I don't know how much of the planning of the movie can be credited to WB and how much to Nolan (I'm guessing the style was more Nolan and David Goyer's idea), but unlike the previous four Batman films, which were certainly "comic book movies", Batman Begins would be based in reality.

The first 45 minutes or so are presented out of chronological order; it begins with Bruce Wayne in a Bhutanese prison, where he willingly fights the other inmates with a kind of sick enjoyment. He is released by a man named Henri Ducard, who promises to teach him how to be a one-man force of justice. As Wayne trains under Ducard and Ra's al Ghul, we see how he came to be in an Asian prison. Childhood tragedy, disillusion with the legal system (the mob in Gotham City either owns the law, or they kill the idealists) and scared into leaving his home city brought him to Asia, where he fell in with criminals in order to develop the skills to take on Gotham's criminals. When his training with Ducard and Ra's al Ghul is complete, he learns that their definition of justice is slightly different from his own; al Ghul's League of Shadows believes that it is their job to eliminate (read: kill) not only criminals, but societies that "pose a threat" to the rest of humanity. Gotham City is next on their hit list, and they ask Wayne to lead a strike force to take down the crime-ridden city. Wayne vows that he will never kill in the name of justice, and destroys Ra's al Ghul's home during his escape.

He returns to Gotham City, masquerades as a clueless billionaire playboy by day, and develops the Batsuit and Batweapons with his butler Alfred and employee Lucius Fox. After a shaky start, he becomes a feared vigilante, a kind of spook story for criminals ("Be good, or the Batman will get you"). In a single night, he does something the cops and the District Attorney's office had been trying to do for years: take down the Falcone crime family.

But he soon learns that Falcone was up to something a little bigger than normal, involving a creepy psychiatrist named Jonathan Crane. Crane, also known as the Scarecrow, has developed a toxin that forces people who inhale it to experience their fears come to life. And that is as good a segway as any to discussing the film's major theme: fear.

The power of fear is prevalent throughout the film. A lot of Bruce Wayne's training involved conquering his fear of bats that he developed when he fell into the Batcave as a child. This fear is what caused him to ask his parents to leave the opera with him, leading to them getting shot, something he blamed himself for throughout the rest of his childhood. When Wayne returned to Gotham City, he chose the mantle of a bat, since he wanted to turn his fear onto those who use fear against the innocent. He uses detective skills, martial arts, and parlor tricks to confuse and frighten criminals with sudden appearances and quick takedowns. And he must prevent the Scarecrow's toxin from bringing the entire city to its knees with fear.

The Scarecrow and his boss are terrorists; they employ fear to achieve their goals. But then, so is Batman. To quote the first X-Files Movie, "The rational object of terrorism is to promote terror", and that is just what Batman does. On that note, I would like to share an interesting article I found on The Onion's AV Club; they reported on an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal that claimed that the new Batman film, The Dark Knight, is a parable for the presidency of George W. Bush (gag reflex!). Check it out. Now, assuming none of the things the AV writer said were true (which they all are; there is a difference between a vigilante and an elected official), the fact would remain that the WSJ writer called the president a terrorist. Very interesting.

But Batman Begins is held together by more than just a compelling and well-applied theme (something usually lacking in summer blockbusters). The story and cast are wonderful. Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Rutger Hauer and Katie Holmes make up one of the best casts ever assembled for a big-budget blockbuster (pretty much only trumped by the cast of the sequel), and they are all at the top of their games. And the real-world style of the film, which redesigns many aspects of the Dark Knight's world and arsenal, makes disbelief easier to suspend than ever.

Batman Begins was a triumph. Not just for comic book films, but for films in general. It showed that superheroes can be serious, that blockbusters can be well made, and that intellectual themes can be backed up with great action scenes. But it was nothing compared with what was to come.

Up next: Darkest before the dawn...