One of my favorite discussions with friends and strangers is based on a simple question: Superman or Batman?
Superman is a god. He fell from the heavens to live amongst us mortals. He is invincible, he has powers of flight, is capable of super speeds, and is naturally the strongest man…ever. No training required, instant hero. Superman pulls his punches, but seems to live by the mantra of ‘punch first, punch fast, ask questions later.’ He’s the true hero who swoops down from heaven to save you. You can place your trust in him because he doesn’t really have a malicious bone in his body.
Batman, on the other hand, was born a prince, was born mortal, and knows malice all too well. His family was violently and traumatically taken from him. Now, he pretends to be the blissfully ignorant billionaire playboy. But the truth is that he lives in the shadows first by circumstance but in the end by choice. He trains himself to fight off pain, to learn different styles of fighting, to invest his riches into technology, machinery, and armor in order to strike fear into criminals. He is a normal man who chose to become, not a god, but a knight templar. Part priest, part warrior. We do not know if we can trust him, and we do not — ever — see his face.
But he is human, and that’s why he’s always been my favorite hero. He builds himself up and sacrifices so much in order to protect a city that took away his parents from him. He is the detective who spends his time trying to understand the criminal element so that he can better defeat it. He immerses himself in malice in order to fight it. Superman sees good and evil and does not question; he rarely puts himself in harm’s way because he’s a god who cannot be hurt save for kryponite which is pretty rare on earth in the first place. Batman, on the other hand, just needs one bad day and one random street thug who has a really good day and a lot of luck.
And that’s the set up for The Dark Knight. This movie takes place less than a year after the events of the first film. By the beginning of the film, Batman is somewhat established in the city as a vigilante, but at least a helpful one that people seem to be able to live with. But just about from the get go, we see that Batman’s presence and desire to be a scourge to the evil in Gotham dampens crime while simultaneously escalating it as well. And that escalation is in the form of one of the best villains I’ve ever seen. A demon from hell that scares the crap out of me. The Joker.
Heath Ledger gives an amazing performance of one of the most complicated villains in the comic book universe. The Joker isn’t supposed to be a campy/gimmicky villain. He’s supposed to be Batman’s arch-nemesis and the other side of the proverbial coin. For Batman’s desire for order and peace, the Joker is a self-titled “Agent of Chaos” who “just want[s] to watch the world burn.” In every other comic or comic-movie I’ve seen/read, I know that the good guy will save the day eventually, but in The Dark Knight I was praying the entire time for Batman to swoop in and was scared of the Joker for the full 2.5 hours of the film. Ledger’s Joker is part reptilian, his tongue darting out for oxygen and to test the air, and part human monster that wants to inflict pain and see a world aflame as a result of his very being. He is evil, he is chaos, he is sadistic, and he is The Thing That Goes Bump In The Night…and then slits your throat. He’s an equal opportunity destroyer of lives, be it the Police, the Mob, or Batman. He just wants the world to burn. And it chills to the bone.
The Dark Knight is not the best movie I’ve seen in years, but it is hauntingly beautiful, well executed, intense, dark, and despairing, but also hopeful. As Harvey Dent – well played by Aaron Eckhart — says, “the night is darkest right before the dawn,” and we know…we hope this to be true, for this movie is very dark. The film’s music and scenery, both beautiful, feel a bit Wagnerian at times and seems to buckle under the weight of the multitude of characters and events occurring. And the fact that the film creaks and groans under the weight of the darkness of the implications of what sacrifices will truly be required of Batman to achieve his dream for order and peace and hope; under the Joker’s laser-focus for destruction and flame; and Dent’s fate of an intense life on one side of the coin or the other, is partially a complaint but also, as far as complaints go, it’s not such a bad one to have. Gotham city is beautiful and the nightscapes are gorgeous. And apparently even moreso at the IMAX. There is a city that’s worth protecting there, indeed. More importantly, there are stories worth one’s devotion of time and attention and emotion.
Go see this movie. It’s not perfect. It’s not the best. But it’s damn good and does a great service to the entire genre of comic/hero movies. It casts off the traditional good/bad guy duality and shows us the complexity of decisions and motivations. It shows us the black and the white, but the real reason that this movie shines is because it shows us the grey.
