I actually have to amend my previous comment. Believe it or not, The Dark Knight may be the most powerful movie about terrorism to come out since the WoT began. The script touches on many of the moral – even existential – challenges we’re dealing with these days. It asks how people who value human life, law and order, individual rights and freedom can fight an enemy who seems to value none of those things – who, in fact, recognizes no rules at all in his war against civilization. It shows how such an enemy, through terror, can manipulate us into doing anything he wants, including violating our own principles so that we risk becoming “just as bad” as he is. It also presents leaders who are forced to respond to his plots when there seem to be no “right” or “good” or “correct” choices open to them. And it shows ordinary people refusing to be manipulated – even at the cost of their own lives. The ending is messy, not triumphal, not even making the best of a bad situation. More like the characters living with the choices they’ve made and vowing to fight on.
OK, it’s comic book characters in costumes beating each other up. Not usually my thing. But I found it to be a surprisingly mature and accurate philosophical depiction of our current world. I noticed something similar in Iron Man as it dealt with the unintended consequences of selling arms (or information, or anything powerful) in a global economy. Compared to these “superhero” films, Hollywood’s “serious” WoT-related offerings have been more or less emotional anti-war blurts. The Dark Knight’s writers, in contrast, that it’s not as simple as being for or against. Sometimes you don’t have a choice.
