I love Batman stories. He is easily the coolest comic book character in my humble opinion. But it actually goes beyond that. In his best stories, he is one of the most interesting archetypal characters in all of fiction. Enter Christoper Nolan. In 2005, he released Batman Begins. At the time of its release it was immediately hailed as one of the best comic book adaptations of all time, in large part because of its commitment to being grounded in as much realism it possible could be. That, combined with a story that was truly gripping in its structure, revealing to the audience just how damaged Bruce Wayne genuinely is, made for an awesome origin story, and beyond that an awesome movie in general. Also, I gotta shout out my man Liam Neeson. He killed it is Ra’s Al Ghul. But enough about that movie. In 2006, it was announced that Heath Ledger had been cast as the main antagonist for the sequel, and that role would be none other than Jokers arch-nemesis, The Joker. I know we all have hindsight so we all know the stupidity of this reaction, but the public backlash was loud. He was known for being in 10 Things I Hate About You, A Knights Tale, and Brokeback Mountain. All good movies in their own right, but he always played a very shakespearian character, and never showed an ounce of ability to play a manic psycho. I’ll sum up his performance by saying that they were wrong. We’ll come back to his character in a moment.
To sum up the plot of the movie, the mob bosses are all getting sick of The Batman slowing down their businesses, so they hire The Joker to kill The Batman. However, The Joker decides that aside from that, he is going to prove the idealogical point that Gotham City as a whole, is just as ugly as he is. He does this because if he succeeds, then regardless of whether The Batman lives or dies, The Joker wins. The fruits of The Jokers labors are directed at the new DA, Harvey Dent. Harvey Dent’s goal is to destroy the mob, and clean up Gotham City. Both Harvey and The Joker see what Gotham could be, and they are doing a sort of dance over the course of the first two acts to see if Gotham is a place deserving off redemption. The problem is that The Joker is going to end up using Harvey against himself. So, where is The Batman in all of this. Bruce sees Harvey’s success as an opportunity to leave behind the cape and cowl. If Harvey can succeed, The Batman is no longer necessary for Gotham. Here’s the problem for The Batman, The Joker is also manipulating him. Repeatedly, The Joker makes the point that The Batman is not a beacon of hope for the city, but a symptom of its underlying evil. All of these elements come to a head when The Batman and The Joker are interrogating each other, and The Joker tells The Batman that he has taken Harvey and Rachel, and that one of them is going to die. Up to this point, we know that Rachel is the symbol of Bruce’s hope for what life can be like away from The Batman. The catch is that she is now engaged to Harvey Dent. However, Bruce is unaware of that at this time. The Joker hands down his ultimate torture device by lying to The Batman. He tells him and Police Commissioner Jim Gordon the places that they are held, except that he switches up the addresses intentionally. He does this so that no matter what choice The Batman makes, he loses. If he chooses to stop the collateral damage found in Rachel, she dies and Harvey is saved. If he chooses to save Harvey in order to continue the cause, he dies, along with The Batman’s hope to remove the cape and cowl. In the end, as one might be able to predict, he chooses to save Rachel, and thus she dies, and Harvey is permanently scarred on half of his body. From here on, The Joker goes on quite the run of terrorism, detonating a bomb at a police precinct, blowing up a hospital, and finally equipping two boats to blow each other up under the threat that he will blow up both if one doesn’t do it to the other. Before I go any further, if you think Inception is more complicated that that, I can’t help you. All of these attacks though have served one of two purposes. 1.) Continue to drive Harvey Dent into insanity, or 2.) to drive Gotham City to do evil in service of themselves. None of them have anything to do with The Batman at this point. The two of them are now in a ideological race to see who can win what The Joker calls, “The battle for Gotham’s soul.”
At the end of their conflict, The Joker is defeated by The Batman and he has seemingly won the battle. But The Joker has accounted for this by placing Harvey at the outskirts of his conflict, and in doing so, has in a way won the battle as well. The city has resisted The Joker well and The Batman has represented them against him effectively. Yet, during this time, Harvey Dent, the “White Night of Gotham,” has murdered 5 people, and now holds an innocent family hostage at the place his love, Rachel was killed. The family is that of none other than Jim Gordon’s. When the two of them go to confront Harvey, The Batman makes the point that Harvey can still make the right choice. But Harvey’s fatal flaw is his commitment to justice over all. The two have a brief fight, resulting in Harvey’s accidental death. Jim and The Batman lament that the city cannot recover from this and all the criminals Harvey was responsible for locking up will likely be released soon. Instead, The Batman tells Jim to lie. He tells Jim, his closest friend and ally to frame him as the villain that Harvey was, so that Harvey may die as he lived, as Gothams White Night. This would result in The Batman becoming a fugitive of the law, and truly embodying the phrase, “The Dark Knight.” I need to take a breath.
Now, the question must be asked, why is this movie without a doubt my favorite iteration of Batman, as well as one of the most well made crime thrillers off all time? It all has to do with the ending. This might be a reach for you, and if it is I think you need to reevaluate your viewing of this film. When I watch this film, I cannot help but see Romans all over it. “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” 5.6. The Batman underwent character assassination so that Gotham could outlive its idealogical failings.
We see throughout the whole film that The Joker is able to pay off police officers, judges, and poison the mind of the most righteous son that the city has, which reminds me of this. “Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” 1.33.
We even see the example of Christ’s atonement when The Batman’s decisions leads to Gotham’s thriving. “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ‘For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.’” 8.37-39
Growing up I was told that Jesus was the best hero we could ask for. As an adult I realize that viewing Jesus as a hero is so limiting. A hero always does the thing that is visibly the smart and logical thing. Both Jesus and The Batman choose to lower themselves and take the path towards loss and pain so that others may live. As The Batman says at the end of the story, “You’ll hunt me. You’ll condemn me. You’ll set the dogs on me. Because sometimes the truth just isn’t good enough. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.”
Here’s the catch that the movie doesn’t get: We don’t deserve to have our faith rewarded. The truth that The Batman never acknowledges, is that Gotham has earned its decent into the chaos that The Joker fought for. After the best that it has, The Joker still won. What The Batman cannot do is change Gotham’s nature. That’s the beauty of contrasting Jesus and The Batman. Where Jesus succeeds, The Batman will always need to manipulate.
Sawyer Huelat 