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.
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