Why The Dark Knight Sucks

Christopher Nolan's third Batman installment, The Dark Knight Rises, is on the horizon, and the masses are predictably frenzied. Some friends have even posted images of the poster on Facebook, presumably just before and/or after jerking off to it. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The below article was originally published in a humor rag that I helped run and wrote for during my sophomore year of college (2009). The term 'humor' is, ironically, used lightly. I have cleaned it up a bit and rearranged some things to make it at least somewhat more timely.

Saying that The Dark Knight sucks may be a bit harsh but is, in my view, an appropriately hyperbolic counter-point to the masturbatory lauding by most fans of the movie. I actually enjoyed the film, as both a comics nerd and an action movie junkie, and I have my own copy on DVD. I cannot, however, bring myself to understand the hype and praise that fans continue to pour out. Fortunately, I do have a large enough sense of self-importance to offer my argument for why The Dark Knight is just not that good.

Perhaps the most important thing that Christopher Nolan did in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight was take the comic genre seriously as cinematic inspiration and to set his story in a world where bad things happen to innocent people. This choice, however, seems to have rubbed off on everyone as 'realism.' And while I certainly agree that it was more realistic than earlier Batman films, I also find myself questioning how anyone can refer to Nolan's Gotham as realistic.


Pictured: not realism.

If it was, then someone could explain to me how the Joker manages to wire two warehouses, two ferries, and an entire hospital with explosives without a single person noticing anything. I have also been unable to come up with a plausible reason why the police don't conduct any sort of normal investigations. You know, like try to find out who has been buying thousands of gallons of gasoline or the four million packs of cards that would be needed to get all those jokers.

The single most unrealistic part of the film is the very backbone of the story: the Joker manages to plan out the entire string of events because he knows exactly what every single character will do at every single possible juncture. His mastermind plan includes turning Harvey Dent, Gotham's white light, into a murderous villain. That transformation only happens, however, because Dent happens to fall over and burn half of his face off when Batman saves him. Now I don't have any problem with accepting that the Joker can coordinate and execute such a complex plan, but that's only because he is a comic villain and, therefore, expectations of realism are not applied. The Dark Knight is gritty, sure, but do not defend the movie upon its unwavering realism because, in short, there is none.

The second argument that everyone points to is Heath Ledger's performance. And on that point alone, I have no counterargument. The Joker is incredibly captivating, and I think most will agree that Ledger's performance absolutely makes the movie. But looking beyond Mr. Why-So-Serious for a second, we find that there is little left. Morgan Freeman (Lucius) and Michael Caine (Alfred) are undoubtedly talented actors playing cool characters, but their roles are small and their impact on the story even smaller. Bruce Wayne is unfortunately just a rich asshole with nice cars who whines about how hard his life is for the majority of the movie. And there's Two-Face, classically one of Batman’s biggest rivals and one of Gotham's perennial threats, who is alive for something like two days before dying from a small fall.

And finally we have Batman, the Dark Knight, who is an inspiration to all and Gotham’s only hope. But, for a movie named after the guy, he does very little to carry either the action of the story or the entertainment for viewers (and I'm not even getting into his voice). The fight scenes are slow, clumsy, and look like they were choreographed by an eight-year-old with a bed sheet cape. Also, outside of his trip to China and the final hostage situation, he really doesn’t do anything. He averages like one action sequence per hour. And most importantly, the character of Batman is flatter than a middle school girl. He quite literally has close to no dialogue. Scroll through IMDB's memorable quotes, which is quite the effort, and you'll notice Batman barely shows up. I freely admit this isn't necessarily a bad thing - Batman's silence is intimidating and menacing. But I would argue that when he does finally speak, that it should be momentous and drive home a salient message. His time arrives when he finally captures the Joker. And the hero's kickass lines?

"What were you hoping to prove? That, deep down, everyone's as ugly as you? You're alone!" It's a bit catty, but not terrible. He soon follows up with: "This city just showed you that it's full of people ready to believe in good." And so Batman's only real dialogue, which isn't absolutely terrible out of context, leaves viewers with some notion about the goodness of human nature. That's a good thing. It is unfortunate that, once put into context with the preceding scenes, Batman's big message is laughable at best. A closer reading of the ferry scene reveals not only that Batman couldn't be further from the truth, but that the Joker underestimated just how selfish and frail human nature really is.

The Joker has set up the ultimate prisoner’s dilemma (quite literally, actually) to prove that people are nothing but brutish animals and that human nature is purely selfish. One ferry full of prisoners, the other full of civilians; one must blow the other up by midnight or else both boats turn into pumpkins. By which I naturally mean they explode and kill everyone aboard.


"Want to know how I got these scars?"

Of course, neither ferry is destroyed, but it’s not because people are good and refused to hurt others in order to save themselves. In case you didn’t notice, the majority of the “innocent” civilians wanted to blow the other ship sky high. And I mean that quite literally: 396 vote for blowing up the other boat, 140 vote against it. So roughly 74% of the passengers have no problem with killing a boat full of people in order to save themselves.

The only reason anyone comes out alive is because no single individual wanted to have that sort of guilt on his or her shoulders. One asshole even steps up to do it, only to learn that he doesn't have the balls to pull the trigger. My personal favorite moment is when he walks away and nearly every passenger visibly heaves a mixed sigh of disappointment and helplessness. They are disappointed that Mr. Tough Guy didn't do it, and they are helpless because they are also too weak and spineless to do anything about it. How is the takeaway anything other than the Joker is correct? Not only are people brutish animals, they are weak too.

The implied final message of The Dark Knight might be depressing, but it strikes me as meaningful and, dare I say, realistic. I think it's rather regrettable that instead of further exploring the darkness of human nature, the movie instead offers Batman's throwaway line about the people being good and promptly forgets everything that happened on the ferries. My biggest qualm with The Dark Knight is that it flirted with, but ultimately ignored, some deeply mature themes. What's worse is that it came up short of being a truly meaningful film, but it still getting credit as if it really was. And for that reason, The Dark Knight sucks.

Why Limitless is Worth Watching

Before watching the movie, there were three things I knew about Limitless: First, it stars pretty boy Bradley Cooper and a washed up Robert De Niro. Second, the trailer actually uses the line "you know how they say we can only access 20% of our brain? This lets you access all of it." This is both incredibly false and incredibly stupid. Third, I fully expected it to not only suck, but suck hard. Think golf ball through a garden hose. And I don't believe I was alone; to my knowledge, this is a rather common perception of the movie.

After watching the movie, I have moderated my views of the movie: First, Bradley Cooper is still a pretty boy, but he is convincing, sympathetic, and did a damn good job. Robert De Niro is still washed up, but he appeared sparingly and nailed his part of ruthless business magnate. Second, that line actually appears in the movie. It is still incredibly false and incredibly stupid, but the character who says it gets shot in the head soon afterwards. I'll make that deal. Third, Limitless is honestly one of the smartest movies I have seen in the past few years. I was so impressed by and engrossed with the first half of the film that I decided to finish it rather than leave to get blindingly drunk with some friends...at least until the movie ended.


"You know how they say we only use 20% of our brains..."

There are a lot of cool things in Limitless, but what I am most interested in is discussing is the way that the movie tells its story. I found that there were a bunch of themes at work and that a lot was actually going on under the surface of the story. I may be reading a lot of my analysis into the movie, but just because something wasn't intended doesn't mean that it's not there. If anything, it just means that I'm smarter than they are. Yay, douchebag!

I think that first and foremost, Limitless calls into question modern day morality, or a lack thereof. The basic premise is that a drug called NZT allows users to access the full potential of their brains. As a result, users can do things like learn incredibly fast (like an entire language in a few days) and recall any memory from their life (like the author of a book they saw on a shelf when they were six). Cooper's character, Eddie Morra, is a down-on-his-luck writer who, after using the drug, finishes his novel in a matter of days. He also uses his new-found brain power to bang his landlord's hot Asian wife and then to absolutely dominate the stock market. I forget the exact numbers, but he turns a few thousand into a few million within days. By the end of the movie, he is making a dominant push to become a Senator, with implied future plans for the Presidency. And all of this success, the millions made and power gained, is solely the results of Morra's using NZT.


It's nothing like this.

And at no point during the entire film is a question raised about the morality of NZT. Morra never stops to wonder if what he is doing is right, and none of the characters come close to even touching on the subject. There are selfish concerns about side effects and supply limits, but never whether the use of such a miracle drug for personal gains can be justified. One could even extrapolate that Morra's success necessitates the failure of others; for him to be gaining, others must be losing. And there is even a moment when Morra finds out that, while in a NZT-induced blackout, he likely killed a woman (or, at the very least, was there when she was killed). He becomes incredibly worried that he will be caught and have his career ruined, but he spends very little time considering the moral implications of a drug that has so clearly hurt others both fiscally and physically.

This lack of moral consideration initially struck me as a glaring hole in the movie and as something that should have been addressed. But upon further consideration I have concluded that morality as a non-issue really acts as a significant social commentary in and of itself. No one questions the morality of using NZT because, well, why would they? In today's society, Americans are encouraged to take advantage of everything they can. Find bargains, get things cheap, make life easy. The American ethos, which once had been that hard work leads to prosperity, has now transformed into an ideology that one should cut corners to get ahead of the pack. I should reiterate that this is simply what I pulled from the movie, and not necessarily what the storytellers intended, but the movie really drives home the idea that there is no problem in taking what you can and selfishly ignoring any sort of moral implications.

Countless investors and businessmen get caught every year for participating in insider trading, fraud, and/or embezzlement (not to mention even more who are getting away with it). Steroid and PED scandals continue to be exposed in sports from high schools to the professional level. So really, in today's world, why would Edward Morra even hesitate at the opportunity laid before him? He would be dumb not to.


Don't tell me you wouldn't take a peek.

Another interesting part of the movie is when Morra notices that a competing businessman is exhibiting signs of NZT use and withdrawal. He makes an offhand remark about how many 'meteoric rises' have seemingly come out of the blue, but could have been the result of NZT use. So, in other words, those individuals who are leading their professional fields may possibly be there because of an unfair advantage. I couldn't help but make the connection between the way that NZT provides an unfair advantage much in the way that being raised in a wealthy or prominent family does. Simply being born into wealth undoubtedly grants an individual a significant step up on the rest of the population, both in terms of receiving an education and acquiring professional employment.

This is not to say that the wealthy are inherently bad, nor that all successful professionals have not earned or deserve their titles. I do believe, however, that wealth undoubtedly offers an advantage that the majority of Americans do not enjoy, much in the way that NZT gives Morra an advantage over everyone else in his field. The movie does not go so far as to explicitly comment on whether such advantages are just or unjust, but it is rather clear that viewers are supposed to sympathize with Morra's character, despite his making millions of dollars through his drug use. I want to re-watch the movie before I make any deeper or more declarative arguments, but I think that NZT is a very clever device for opening a discussion on equal opportunity in America. Is Limitless going to be remembered for being some sort of seminal film? Most definitely not. But it is surprisingly smart, cleverly serious, and is certainly worth watching.

The final point that I intended to review was the conclusion of Limitless, which began to deal with the question of whether or not Morra had stopped using NZT as planned or was continuing to use it because he couldn't give up what he had gained. I think that the film is almost literary in the way it leaves room for interpretations while offering clues in both directions. I also think, however, that it's impossible to discuss the conclusion in depth without at least clips of the movie for reference. So, until I figure that part out, then that's all I have to say about that.

It's Alive!

I have finally decided to join the blogosphere! I figure this will provide a dual service of helping me to improve my writing and acting as a compendium for my sure-to-be-profound thoughts and opinions. Plus, if this world is in dire need of anything else, it's even more overly self-important ramblings.

More on sports, movies, comics, and life (oooh, deep) in the coming days.