Jingle bells, Batman fails

Rating: 3/10 (8 May 2018)

The Dark Knight is one of the most well-made, modern movies. Christopher Nolan shows restraint when it comes to CGI, there are no unnecessary slow motion scenes, "cool" fight scenes or naked people to be found here. It's refreshing to see a movie made in the old-fashioned way. Artistically, it's great. Morally...not so much.
One of the biggest problems with The Dark Knight is Heath Ledger's Joker. Unlike "Batman Begins", there's just too much focus on the villain and his cruel and disturbing acts. Much like Jack Nicholson's version, he almost becomes the main character, the "hero" of the show. People think he's funny, and laugh when he performs his pencil trick. He's also nearly omnipotent...heck, Ledger's Joker could probably kill Superman.
When villains are portrayed in this manner, many people will start to root for them. People think that they're "cool" and start to sympathize with them. Just look at fictional serial killers like Hannibal Lecter. When more and more kids want to dress up as the Joker or Harley Quinn instead of Batman or Batgirl, you're doing something wrong (Black Panther suffers from this as well).
Filmmakers should be very careful in how they portray villains. I don't believe everyone who watches violent movies will wake up one day and find out that they want to study at Charles Manson's serial killer college...but we should keep in mind that some people are more impressionable than others. There were plenty of disturbing, Joker-inspired crimes being committed after the movie came out. Someone even mutilated themselves to look like The Joker. To say that stuff in movies (good or bad) never inspire people is a lie. A good example someone else used is "Birth of a Nation", which revived the Ku Klux Klan. Again, I'm not saying that the movie alone killed anyone, only that filmmakers should be more careful.
Not that Batman is a saint in this movie either. Lying, mass surveillance, cruelty towards prisoners etc. "I see now what I have to become to fight men like him". For Batman, the end justifies the means. The whole movie is about Batman failing to be a hero. People often ignore this just because the movie is (artistically) good.
Batman Begins was far from perfect, but still a better movie than the previous attempts by Burton and Schumacher. The Dark Knight is a step back into the nightmarish and anti-heroic world of Batman Returns, only without the mutated "pervguins" or zombie catwomen. Very sad.
It's fashionable to ridicule the old Batman serials these days. The silly costumes, outdated special effects, the racism in the first one...but at least those movies portrayed Batman and Robin as a heroes. And I really doubt that kids wanted to dress up as Dr. Daka/The Wizard when the end credits rolled!