Like Science Fiction, comic books are just an extension of our own reality.

I wrote the following in response to the article below.

I can't speak about other people, but the dilemma that Batman faces in Dark Knight in combating The Joker is what we as a people and nation face every day. Joker is just the extreme. He is the terrorist and the Investment Banker without scruples merged into one and beyond. You better believe you become something like your enemy in order to defeat your enemy. You think just because the Taliban believe what they are doing is right makes them any less the monsters that they are? I've been over their several times now and believe me, I don't care whether they act in the name of God or opium, what they do to defenseless people is pure evil. They torture and kill with imagination and glee. And we don't have to look to Afghanistan for the only source of it. It's everywhere in the world. Pick up the paper.

The evil and the ease with which Joker manipulates his adversaries doesn't affect me at all because I've seen it happen so many times in real life. Maybe people are interested in the movie because the fantasy is watching one character, Batman, handle that evil a little or a lot better than most of us do on a daily basis. Maybe the comic book world is closer to the real world than you think, only there isn't someone like Batman to take care of things. It's just you and if you're lucky someone will stand next to you.

Matt

Too Far From Escapism

By ALLEN BARRA
July 24, 2008; Page D5

Director Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight," currently on track to be the biggest box-office smash of the year and maybe of all time, crosses a line that perhaps did not need to be crossed, the fantasy-into-reality line.

Nothing illustrates how much movies have changed over the past 20 years than to compare Tim Burton's "Batman" (1989) with Mr. Nolan's "The Dark Knight." The Burton film, starring Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nicholson as the Joker, was photographed in garish, neon-noir colors in a gargoyle-infested neo-gothic city designed by the late Anton Furst. The action was highlighted by Danny Elfman's rousing pop-Wagnerian score.

Peter Vaughan and TM

Christian Bale as Batman and Heath Ledger as the Joker in 'The Dark Knight.'

In contrast, Mr. Nolan's movie drains the fantasy element from the material. Gotham City bears a striking resemblance to Chicago, where some scenes were filmed, as photographed in shades of black, green and drab industrial gray. Gone are the Batcave and "stately Wayne manor." Bruce Wayne lives in a penthouse, and the closest thing to a cave is an underground garage where he tests high-tech weapons with his armorer (Morgan Freeman). The Batmobile is banished, replaced by an assault vehicle -- a high-speed tank, really. The minimalist score by James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer evokes not exhilaration but dread.

All color, lyricism, and virtually any humor that doesn't partake of the macabre is gone from this Batman story. There isn't even a hint that this PG-13 film might be suitable for youngsters, as many parents of distraught preteens have discovered. The Joker's psychotic brutality -- he impales one character on a pencil and in a shocking scene blows one of the franchise's leading female characters to smithereens -- makes a mockery of the rating system.

What, then, is "The Dark Knight"'s near-fanatical audience responding to? To Heath Ledger's Joker, of course. Mr. Ledger's character has clearly touched some national nerve, and it will be interesting to see how the rest of the world responds to the film after the initial wave of hype has passed.

"The Dark Knight" isn't simply another superhero movie. In fact, taken on its own terms, it's really not a superhero movie at all: It's a supervillain movie, and the many critics and fans who are calling for Mr. Ledger to be nominated for an Academy Award are reading the film correctly -- they want him nominated for best actor, not best supporting actor.

This Joker is the most thoroughly principled and incorruptible character in modern movies. He doesn't care about money -- he contemptuously burns a pile of cash containing millions of dollars -- and, unlike Mr. Nicholson's Joker, he doesn't even care about power. He consolidates the various mobs of Gotham City merely as a means to his end, which, contrary to numerous editorials we are seeing, isn't terrorism. Terrorists, in their hearts, believe that they are really the good guys; Mr. Ledger's Joker has no such illusions. He's a nihilist whose avowed purpose is to disrupt society by corrupting and destroying its heroes -- Batman and Aaron Eckhart's straight-arrow D.A., Harvey Dent.

In the most unsettling scene ever presented in an action movie, Christian Bale's Batman is left to interrogate the Joker in a police lock-down room while the police simply watch. Mr. Ledger snickers, leers and goads Batman into beating him up -- thus violating his civil rights, which is precisely what the Joker wants Batman to do. It's a stunning victory for the villain that makes Batman seem helpless and foolish. This is the first time I've ever seen a superhero humiliated like this in his own movie. "The Dark Knight" seems to be telling us that, ultimately, we're completely helpless against any characters as ruthless and ideologically pure as the Joker. We can't even win by becoming vigilantes -- that's what the Jokers of this world want us to be.

Although pop-artists such as Frank Miller (creator of the "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" series) and Mr. Nolan (who also directed the previous Batman film, "Batman Begins") are undeniably gifted creators of images, the film is a bleak reminder of the limits of comic-book literature when it comes to dealing with serious themes. "Some men," says Michael Caine's Alfred the Butler to Bruce Wayne, "aren't looking for anything logical, like money. Some just want to watch the world burn." Is the only alternative to become as merciless as your opponent? It's a dilemma that leaves Batman and his fans in the dark.

Find television listings for Christopher Nolan, Heath Ledger and Jack Nicholson at LocateTV.

The mania that "The Dark Knight" has touched off in a certain segment of the movie-going audience -- and it's not hyperbole to call it mania when people are going to eBay and paying up to $100 each for Imax tickets and $229 for action figures -- is reminiscent of the nuttiness exhibited by American teens in 1955 when "Rebel Without a Cause" was released after James Dean was killed in an auto accident. Media pundits who ask if Heath Ledger's death has anything to do with the obsession surrounding this movie know that the answer is yes.

But there is another, more troubling, aspect to this part of the story. We know that Mr. Ledger died of an overdose of prescription drugs after a period of insomnia and acute depression. What we see on the screen in "The Dark Knight" -- as we are plunged into a netherworld that provides no escape from its brutal realities -- may well be a projection of Mr. Ledger's inner torment as he tried to fight those afflictions: a portrait of a Method actor who could not keep a proper distance from his role, an artist who stared too long into the abyss and saw a twisted, drug-addled death mask staring back at him. (This past weekend, Christian Bale was arrested then released on bail following charges of assault from his mother and sister; "The Dark Knight" must present one heck of an abyss.)

We know enough about how involved actors can be in their roles to see that this idea is not far-fetched. Does that make "The Dark Knight" a $180 million-plus snuff film? Give that a thought before you plunk your $229 down for that action figure.