Batman’s War on Terror has already made close to one billion e Dark Knight dollars at the box office worldwide Directed by Christopher Nolan and may well be on its way to becom- Written by Christopher Nolan and ing the highest-grossing movie of all Jonathan Nolan time. Undoubtedly, the film’s immense Warner Bros., 2008. popularity is partially due to the suc- Reviewed by Benjamin Kerstein cess of its predecessor, the enduring popularity of the Batman character he resurrection of the superhero in both comic books and pop cin- Tmovie has been an American ema, and the more prurient interest pop-cultural phenomenon at least aroused by the premature death of since the massive success of the Heath Ledger, who co-stars in the X-Men and Spider-Man films in the film as the Batman’s perennial nem- early 2000s, but it has reached a new esis, the Joker. None of these reasons, apex of popularity with the recent however, are quite sufficient to ex- release of e Dark Knight, the latest plain the extraordinary success of e installment in the long-running Bat- Dark Knight. ere have been other man franchise. Director Christopher films based on beloved comic book Nolan’s highly anticipated sequel to characters, such as 2006’s Superman his 2005 blockbuster Batman Begins Returns, which have not been met • A / • with the same epoch-making enthu- Indeed, if any film is going to stake siasm, and superhero sequels are by a claim for the comic book movie as no means guaranteed blockbusters in serious cinema, it is e Dark Knight. any case, as was demonstrated by the It is not a great film, but it is unques- lackluster performance of Batman tionably a work of genuine quality, and Robin in 1997. More interest- made by a director of ambition and ingly, e Dark Knight has been met skill. But the most likely reason e with a degree of critical acclaim un- Dark Knight has become a phenom- precedented for its genre. Even such enon, and not just another hit movie, highbrow organs as the New York is that beneath the standard pyrotech- Times and the Guardian, which usu- nics of the summer blockbuster, it is ally treat comic book films and se- a surprisingly explicit allegory to our quels in general as symptoms of the current age of terrorism, the challenge decline of Western civilization, have it presents to traditional ideas of hero- praised the film for both its artistry ism, and America’s own ambivalence and its content. Some reviewers have in confronting this challenge. In the even gone so far as to suggest that film’s deeply uncertain depiction of e Dark Knight represents a new an all too human superhero, Ameri- maturity for the superhero genre as a cans are watching their own tortured whole—that what was once a ghetto and conflicted relationship to the war for popcorn flicks is slowly becom- on terror laid bare before their eyes. ing something like an art form. e always reliably middlebrow critic atman first appeared in 1939, Roger Ebert went so far as to write, B and the character has outlasted “Something fundamental seems to almost all of his contemporaries. be happening in the upper realms of With the exception of Superman, he the comic-book movie…. e Dark is the oldest and most popular of the Knight move[s] the genre into deeper superheroes and a perennial favorite waters… these stories touch on deep of American pop culture. Despite fears, traumas, fantasies, and hopes.” Batman’s longevity, however, the Joe Neumaier of the New York basic underpinnings of the charac- Daily News summed up the phe- ter have remained remarkably un- nomenon in fairly succinct terms: changed over time. Set in the mythi- “is new Batman action-drama— cal uber-metropolis of Gotham City, ‘action-adventure’ is too slight a de- all the incarnations of the Batman scription—marks the moment su- mythos have chronicled the adven- perhero movies turned serious.” tures of Bruce Wayne, a fabulously • A / • wealthy playboy who lives a secret to his own considerable talents as a life as a costumed crime-fighter. In director of visceral and kinetic genre his childhood, Wayne witnessed the films which still retain a measure of murder of his parents at the hands of a intelligence and subtlety. But it has petty criminal. As an adult, the trau- also been a result of the care which matized billionaire channels his grief Nolan and his co-writers have taken and rage by transforming himself into to emphasize the qualities that made the superheroic Batman. Each night Batman such an enduring character he stalks the rooftops of Gotham, in the first place: While Batman is battling criminals in a high-tech suit a superhero, he is not superhuman. of armor which gives him the appear- He has no special powers and relies ance of an enormous bat, the better to on high-tech gadgets and his own terrify the city’s evildoers and recreate strength and wit to combat evil. himself as a dark and silent guardian More interestingly, there is a basic of the shadows. schizophrenia to the character—he is In 1989, maverick director Tim a human being who dresses as a giant Burton re-imagined the character in bat, after all—which adds a layer of the first Batman feature film, launch- perversion and complexity to what ing a blockbuster franchise which would normally be a simple, heroic died an ignoble death with the afore- do-gooder. Moreover, unlike most mentioned Batman and Robin and of the classic superheroes, Batman was finally resurrected—or “reboot- is a relatively dark character: driven, ed,” as the current parlance goes—by tormented, and violent. He is more a British filmmaker Christopher Nolan Clint Eastwood-style vigilante than in Batman Begins. at film retold the clean-cut, all-American archetype Batman’s origin story in a new and represented by Superman, a contrast grittier style. Nolan’s realist take—to which legendary comics writer Frank the extent that any film about such a Miller took to its logical extreme fantastical and in some ways inher- in his acclaimed graphic novel e ently silly character can be called real- Dark Knight Returns, in which the ist—on the Batman mythos has both two icons literally beat each other to a returned the character to blockbuster pulp. It is also hinted, and sometimes status and given him a new lease on more than hinted, that Batman is at pop-cultural life. least slightly insane—perhaps just To a great extent, the success of as insane as the demented villains Nolan’s take on Batman has been due he pursues. It is this aspect of the • A / • superhero which Nolan explores so fear and despair in the hearts of the effectively in e Dark Knight: his citizenry. status as an exception to the norms As the full dimensions of the of society, of law, and even of sanity, Joker’s plan begin to take shape, it along with the dangers and tempta- becomes clear that his terrorism has tions such an exception presents to a no rational, comprehensible motiva- society in crisis. tion. It is, rather, a form of psychotic performance art: e Joker is deter- he Dark Knight picks up precise- mined to demonstrate to Gotham T ly where Batman Begins left off: City that chaos is the natural state of Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is now things and that the laws and norms of well into his clandestine campaign society are powerless illusions. Ironi- to clean up Gotham City, which has cally, the Joker’s insanity is born of his suffered from years of crime, corrup- conviction that he is, in fact, the only tion, and neglect. In this quest, he is sane man on earth. “e only sensible secretly aided by his faithful butler way to live in this world,” he declares, and surrogate father, Alfred (Michael “is without rules.” is ruthless nihil- Caine), and police Lieutenant James ism presents Batman and his allies Gordon (Gary Oldman). Wayne with a menace they can neither un- hopes that Gotham’s new district at- derstand nor control. e Joker fears torney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) nothing, wants nothing, and cares will prove to be the “white knight” the about nothing. As Alfred sagely tells city requires to return to its former Wayne, “Some men aren’t looking for glory, which will render Wayne’s se- anything logical, like money. ey cret life as Batman—Gotham’s “dark can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or knight”—unnecessary. is fragile negotiated with. Some men just want state of affairs is shattered early in the to watch the world burn.” film by the appearance of the Joker e allusion to the horrors of our (the late Ledger, in a much celebrated current age is fairly obvious, and it performance), a thoroughly deranged is not limited to the film’s dialogue. psychopath who launches a cam- e Dark Knight is laden with the paign of terror against Gotham City, iconography of the war on terror: threatening and assassinating public e Joker is repeatedly referred to as officials and their family members, a terrorist. He makes videotapes of setting off bombs in public buildings, his victims which are eerily similar and deftly using the media to strike to the horrendous videos of jihadi • A / • beheadings and other atrocities death and destruction as the Joker which have become so depressingly without breaking his own personal familiar in recent years. He manipu- code, which forbids him to kill.