The Movie Was Epic

Rating: 9/10 (16 December 2019)

The Dark Knight poses and plays with ethical conundrums, most of which seem designed to push Batman, his allies and all of Gotham over the brink. "Madness, as you know, is like gravity," the Joker says. "All it takes is a little push."
The Joker succeeds in transforming Dent into a vicious villain with (quite literally) a two-sided face, and then sits back as his pet project flips that coin (one side now charred and scarred) to determine who dies and who lives. "The only morality in an amoral world is chance," Dent says.
Batman argues that the world's not governed by chance, but by choices. And when Dent dies, Batman makes the movie's most interesting choice of all: He takes the blame for the people Dent killed. He becomes, unjustly, a fugitive hated by the very people he's protecting.
"Sometimes, truth isn't good enough," Batman says. "Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded."
The decision, like Dent himself, shows us two faces.
On one side of it, Batman creates a lie-a flat-out fabrication that patronizingly presumes he knows what's best for Gotham's citizens, and that they're too fragile or shortsighted to accept the truth. In an age when we are all wary of lies, deceptions and governmental cover-ups, this kind of fabrication (well-meaning though it may be) feels especially wrong and, in any case, always violates one of God's core commandments: Don't lie.
On the other, Batman takes Dent's sin on his own shoulders, leaving the DA, in Gotham's eyes, pure and spotless and clean. Sound familiar? It can be read, at some level, as an echo of the sacrifice Christ-utterly innocent, yet humiliated and judged on our behalf-made for us.
One more thing to chew on: Batman, in Bruce Wayne's mind, is not a hero, but an ideal-a symbol for something greater. People, he muses in Batman Begins, are corruptible. Ideals are not. It stands to reason, then, that he would want to push Dent from corruptible man to incorruptible ideal-a symbol of something greater. "Gotham needs a hero with a face," Wayne says. And so he gives that hero to the city, willingly destroying his own reputation in the process.
Without a doubt, then, The Dark Knight is mesmerizing and thought-provoking. It's guaranteed to become a critical darling while scooping up a bazillion dollars at the box office. But its dark side cannot be ignored. The Chicago Tribune leads its review with this warning: "Sensational, grandly sinister and not for the kids." The New York Daily News tells us, "The PG-13 rating seems tame; this sucker is rough." You're seeing it advertised on everything from cereal boxes to candy bars, but that doesn't make Knight's violence, it's aura of menace, any more digestible. It's not just kids who'll walk out of the film shaken.
When you see Harvey Dent's new look for the first time, you barely notice his still pretty-boy right side. The left side-charred, unblinking, horrific-seems to fill the screen. And the same could be said for this movie. Yes, it's undeniably well-crafted. But it's a harsh creation, and by all rights shouldn't have been named after the good guy. The Dark Knight is the Joker's court, and he's not looking for a laugh.