What is the point of a Dark movie

Rating: 8/10 (15 August 2012)

"The Dark Knight" is a film that I'd say lives up to it's title... but just a little too much. It is beautiful crafted and directed - in this realm of filmmaking it is nearly flawless. The story makes sense and plays off seeming very real, which in this case, may not be a good thing.
Most superhero movies have nearly the same structure to them: The hero fights crime, a mighty villain rises, the hero becomes emotionally conflicted, the villain kidnaps the girl, the hero overcomes his conflicts, he saves the girl, defeats the villain and gets the girl in the end, resulting in an always acceptable happy ending.
(spoilers ahead)
Now, here's how "The Dark Knight" goes - (spoilers): The hero fights crime, a mighty villain rises, the hero becomes emotionally conflicted, the villain kidnaps the girl, the hero never overcomes his conflicts, the girl dies, the hero weakly has the villain arrested but the villain's last words leave him haunted, the hero gets no girl in the end because she died, and the hero must now act in a story - that he is responsible for the killings made by an honorary member of the city so that the city can be left to believe that they had a "true hero". In the end, our hero makes a run for it, being chased by the police.
(end of spoilers)
Not your usual superhero film, correct? Now, I am not judging this movie based on how accurately it's structure follows that of a regular superhero film. In fact, I like this film's take on a superhero film. But the film is very comfortless, negative and dark, and the level of how realistic it is can make the viewing experience painful.
Now, we wonder why such a dark and real film can be so enjoyable. The sole purpose of movies when they first came into our world in the early 1900's was to entertain. People during The Great Depression would run to the theater any chance they got and experience an hour of pure enjoyment, savoring the experience for as long as they can. Now, imagine this film, "The Dark Knight" being showed at one of those theaters way back then. Despite it's amazing quality and craft, the film would be found unacceptable. It would leave people wondering why the film was even made if it completely missed the goal of making people happy.
Now, turn the clocks back to present day, where we consider all the unnecessary junk that makes a movie rated R enjoyable. With that the case, we'd certainly just adore "The Dark Knight", right?
Believe it or not, movies give us the slightest amount of permission to do things. If we see lawbreakers in a movie breaking into banks and stealing things, our mind sees and analyzes this, and, although we cannot tell, it interprets this as being 'normal', just because you are casually watching it happen on a screen. However, when "the good guy" comes and takes these bad boys away for a true, worthy punishment, our brain can now think differently, having had the experience of 'good' winning at the end. "The Dark Knight" is a phycological film. We see the Joker, and we all think "I'd never be like him", yet you must admit, after seeing the film, you start thinking just a little bit crazy. Now, why is this film so powerful in regards to making us think like "The Joker"? There are three reasons. 1: The Joker is played out as a very real person. He's no comic book, cartoony villain who you know is going to loose at the end. He's something that seems to be really there. And this is going to really make your mind have trouble figuring out what's real and what's not. A real interpretation of a villain is good as long as the prints left by the villain are all successfully erased at the end. This film leaves you with 'The Joker'. 2: Like I said, a good guy needs to come to set things right - including your brain. This never really happens, or at least never happens enough to have an effect. We are left haunted. We may have left feeling the movie was cool, but at least for an hour or so after, we see the world in a very faint shade of darkness. I don't think a movie should do that to us. And finally, 3: Nothing good every really happens. Everything in the movie goes downhill. And it takes us with it. Why we'd want to experience this? I don't know. If you don't believe this film has an effect on our minds, reflect back on the Colorado "Aurora" shooting.
The film's high ratings come from Ledger's performance. I'm sure director and writer Christopher Nolan wanted The Joker to seem very real, but he forgot to make him "go away" at the end. We don't want the bad guy to win in this case. It's too harmful to us as the audience.
It's a miracle we don't do anything about this.
Despite all of these negative comments, the film sets up "The Dark Knight Rises" very well, as the two films seems to tie together flawlessly. However, although the film should end the way it did to allow the next one to finish up the whole story, that doesn't stop this film from being nothing but depressing.
I give the film a 6/10, mainly because it could have been so close to being enjoyable for me. I don't want to see the hero become miserable when everything around him keeps on going wrong and will always stay wrong. I want there to be hope. But unfortunately, there is very little in this film.
Overall, visually impressive but also very dark and depressing.
Be prepared.