The Dark Knight:

About The Film

The Brief:
The Dark Knight is a 2008 American superhero film co-written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, the film is part of Nolan's Batman film series and a sequel to 2005's Batman Begins. Christian Bale reprises the lead role. The plot of the film focuses on Batman's fight against a new villain, the Joker (Heath Ledger) and his relationships with district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and his old friend and love interest assistant D.A. Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

For his conception of the film, Nolan was inspired by the Joker's first two appearances in the comics and Batman: The Long Halloween. The Dark Knight was filmed primarily in Chicago, as well as in several other locations in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong. He used an IMAX camera to film some sequences, including the Joker's first appearance in the film.

Warner Bros. created a viral marketing campaign for The Dark Knight, developing promotional websites and trailers highlighting screenshots of Ledger as the Joker. After Ledger's death in January 2008, however, the studio refocused its promotional campaign. The film was released on July 16, 2008 in Australia, on July 18, 2008 in North America, and on July 24, 2008 in the United Kingdom. Prior to its box office debut in North America, record numbers of advance tickets were sold for The Dark Knight. The film broke multiple box office records and was greeted by critical acclaim upon release.




The Plot:
The film begins with the Joker robbing a Mob-owned bank with his accomplices, whom he tricks into killing each other before killing the last one himself. That night, a trio of Batman impersonators interrupts a meeting between mobsters and the Scarecrow. The real Batman appears and apprehends all of the criminals and impostors, but suffers injuries. This leads him to re-design the batsuit. Batman and Lieutenant James Gordon contemplate including new district attorney Harvey Dent in their plan to eradicate the Mob, as he could be the public hero Batman cannot be. While hosting a fundraiser for Dent, Wayne discovers that the new D.A. is dating Rachel Dawes.

When Mob bosses meet to discuss Batman, Gordon, and Dent, a Chinese mobster accountant, Lau, informs the gang leaders he has hidden their money to pre-empt a plan Gordon has hatched to seize the mobsters' funds. The Joker arrives unexpectedly, offering to kill Batman for half of their money, but the offer is refused. After Batman successfully abducts Lau in Hong Kong and delivers him to the Gotham City police, the mobsters agree to hire the Joker. The Joker tells Gotham that if Batman does not turn himself in to the police and publicly reveal his identity, people will die each day. Public officials, including Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb and the judge presiding over the Mob trials, are among the murdered. Wayne decides to reveal himself. Before he can, Dent announces that he is Batman and is arrested, as part of a plan to draw the Joker out of hiding. The Joker attempts to ambush the police convoy carrying Dent, but Batman and Gordon intervene and arrest him. Gordon is appointed Commissioner.

At the police station, Batman violently interrogates the Joker, who reveals that Dawes and Dent have been captured by corrupt police and placed in warehouses rigged with explosives on opposite sides of the city; they are far enough apart that Batman cannot save them both. Batman leaves to save Dawes, while Gordon and the police head after Dent. With the help of a bomb planted at the police station, the Joker escapes with Lau. Having been deceived by the Joker, Batman arrives at Dent's location in time to save him, but the left side of Dent's face is disfigured in the explosion. Gordon does not arrive in time to save Dawes and she is killed. In the hospital, Dent is driven to madness over the loss of Dawes. The Joker frees Dent from the hospital and convinces him to exact revenge on the corrupt cops and mobsters responsible, as well as Batman and Gordon.

Dent, now calling himself "Two-Face", goes on a personal vendetta, confronting the cops and mobsters one by one, deciding their fates with the flip of a coin. The Joker burns Lau along with his half of the Mob's money. He announces to the public that anyone left in Gotham at nightfall will be subject to his rule. With the bridges and tunnels out of the city closed due to the Joker's bomb threat, the authorities begin evacuating people by ferry. The Joker places explosives on two of the ferries—one ferry with convicts, the other with civilians—telling all the passengers the only way to save themselves is to trigger the explosives on the other ferry; otherwise he will destroy both at midnight.

Batman locates the Joker and prevents him from destroying the ferries after the passengers on both decide not to destroy each other. The Joker acknowledges that Batman is truly incorruptible, but that Dent is not, and his madness has been unleashed upon the city. He then proclaims that they are destined to fight each other forever; Batman will not kill the Joker because his moral code will not allow it, while the Joker will not kill Batman because fighting him is "too much fun". After Batman subdues him and leaves in search of Dent, the SWAT team arrives and captures the Joker.

At the remains of the building where Dawes died, Batman finds Dent holding Gordon and Gordon's family at gunpoint. Dent proceeds to judge the innocence of Batman, himself, and Gordon's son through coin tosses. He shoots Batman in the abdomen, but before Dent can determine the boy's fate, Batman tackles him, both falling over the side of the building. As Dent lies motionless on the ground, Batman and Gordon realize the loss of morale the city would suffer if Dent's acts of murder were to become known. Batman convinces Gordon to preserve Dent's image by blaming Batman for the murders. Gordon destroys the Bat-Signal, and a manhunt for Batman ensues.



Developement:
Before the release of Batman Begins, screenwriter David S. Goyer wrote a treatment for two sequels which introduced the Joker and Harvey Dent. His original intent was for the Joker to scar Dent during the Joker's trial in the third film, turning Dent into Two-Face. Goyer, who penned the first draft of the film, cited the DC Comics 13-issue comic book limited series Batman: The Long Halloween as the major influence on his storyline. While initially uncertain of whether or not he would return to direct the sequel, Nolan did want to reinterpret the Joker on screen. On July 31, 2006, Warner Bros. Pictures officially announced initiation of production for the sequel to Batman Begins titled The Dark Knight; it is the first live-action Batman film without the word "Batman" in its title, which Bale noted as signaling that "this take on Batman of mine and Chris' is very different from any of the others."

After much research, Nolan's brother and co-writer, Jonathan, suggested the Joker's first two appearances, published in the first issue of Batman (1940), as the crucial influences. Jerry Robinson, one of the Joker's co-creators, was consulted on the character's portrayal. Nolan decided to avoid divulging an in-depth origin story for the Joker, and instead portray his rise to power so as to not diminish the threat he poses, explaining to MTV News, "the Joker we meet in The Dark Knight is fully formed...To me, the Joker is an absolute. There are no shades of gray to him — maybe shades of purple. He's unbelievably dark. He bursts in just as he did in the comics." Nolan reiterated to IGN, "We never wanted to do an origin story for the Joker in this film", because "the arc of the story is much more Harvey Dent's; the Joker is presented as an absolute. It's a very thrilling element in the film, and a very important element, but we wanted to deal with the rise of the Joker, not the origin of the Joker."[15] Nolan suggested Batman: The Killing Joke influenced a section of the Joker's dialogue in the film, in which he says that anyone can become like him given the right circumstances.

"As we looked through the comics, there was this fascinating idea that Batman's presence in Gotham actually attracts criminals to Gotham, [it] attracts lunacy. When you're dealing with questionable notions like people taking the law into their own hands, you have to really ask, where does that lead? That's what makes the character so dark, because he expresses a vengeful desire."
—Nolan on the theme of escalation

Nolan also cited Heat, the 1995 film directed by Michael Mann and starring Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, as "sort of an inspiration" for his aim "to tell a very large, city story or the story of a city": "If you want to take on Gotham, you want to give Gotham a kind of weight and breadth and depth in there. So you wind up dealing with the political figures, the media figures. That's part of the whole fabric of how a city is bound together."

According to Nolan, an important theme of the sequel is "escalation", extending the ending of Batman Begins, noting "things having to get worse before they get better". While indicating The Dark Knight would continue the themes of Batman Begins, including justice vs. revenge and Bruce Wayne's issues with his father, Nolan emphasized the sequel would also portray Wayne more as a detective, an aspect of his character not fully developed in Batman Begins. Nolan described the friendly rivalry between Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent as the "backbone" of the film. He also chose to compress the overall storyline, allowing Dent to become Two-Face in The Dark Knight, thus giving the film an emotional arc the unsympathetic Joker could not offer.



Filming:
While scouting for shooting locations in October 2006, location manager Robin Higgs visited Liverpool, concentrating mainly along the city's waterfront. Other candidates included Yorkshire, Glasgow, and parts of London. In August 2006, one of the film's producers, Charles Roven, stated that its principal photography would begin in March 2007, but filming was pushed back to April. For its release in IMAX theaters, Nolan shot four major sequences in that format, including the Joker's introduction, and said that he wished that it were possible to shoot the entire film in IMAX: "if you could take an IMAX camera to Mount Everest or outer space, you could use it in a feature movie." For fifteen years Nolan had wanted to shoot in the IMAX format, and he used it also for "quiet scenes which pictorially we thought would be interesting."


Director Christopher Nolan (far left) and actor Heath Ledger (in make-up) filming a scene in The Dark Knight with an IMAX cameraWarner Bros. chose to film in Chicago for 13 weeks, because Nolan had had a "truly remarkable experience" filming part of Batman Begins there. Instead of using the Chicago Board of Trade Building as the location for the headquarters of Wayne Enterprises, as Batman Begins did, The Dark Knight used the Richard J. Daley Center. While filming in Chicago, the film was given the false title Rory's First Kiss to lower the visibility of production, but the local media eventually uncovered the ruse. Richard Roeper of The Chicago Sun-Times commented on the absurdity of the technique, "Is there a Bat-fan in the world that doesn't know Rory's First Kiss is actually The Dark Knight, which has been filming in Chicago for weeks?" Production of The Dark Knight in Chicago generated $45 million in the city's economy and created thousands of jobs. For the film's prologue involving the Joker, the crew shot in Chicago from April 18, 2007 to April 24, 2007. They returned to shoot from June 9, 2007 to early September. Shooting locations included Navy Pier, 330 North Wabash, James R. Thompson Center, LaSalle Street, The Berghoff, Hotel 71, the old Brach's factory, the old Van Buren Street Post Office and Wacker Drive. Pinewood Studios, near London, was the primary studio space used for the production. Marina City was in the background throughout the movie.

While planning a stunt with the Batmobile in a special effects facility near Chertsey, England in September 2007, technician Conway Wickliffe was killed when his car crashed. The film is dedicated to both Ledger and Wickliffe. The following month in London at the defunct Battersea Power Station, a rigged 200-foot fireball was filmed, reportedly for an opening sequence, prompting calls from local residents who feared a terrorist attack on the station.

Filming took place in Hong Kong from November 6 to November 11, 2007, at the Central-Mid-Levels escalators, Queen's Road, The Center, and International Finance Centre. The city's walled city of Kowloon influenced the Narrows in Batman Begins. The shoot hired helicopters and C-130 aircraft. Officials expressed concern over possible noise pollution and traffic. In response, letters sent to the city's residents promised that the sound level would approximate noise decibels made by buses. Environmentalists also criticized the filmmakers' request to tenants of the waterfront skyscrapers to keep their lights on all night in order to enhance the cinematography, describing it as a waste of energy. Cinematographer Wally Pfister found the city officials a "nightmare", and ultimately Nolan had to create Batman's jump from a skyscraper (which Bale had looked forward to performing) digitally.



Design:
Costume designer Lindy Hemming described the Joker's look as reflecting his personality—that "he doesn't care about himself at all"; she avoided designing him as a vagrant but still made him appear to be "scruffier, grungier", so that "when you see him move, he's slightly twitchier or edgy." Nolan noted, "We gave a Francis Bacon spin to his face. This corruption, this decay in the texture of the look itself. It's grubby. You can almost imagine what he smells like." In creating the "anarchical" look of the Joker, Hemming drew inspiration from such countercultural pop culture artists as Pete Doherty, Iggy Pop, and Johnny Rotten. During the course of the film, the Joker only once removes his make-up, causing it to become more unkempt and resemble an infection as it worsens. Ledger described his "clown" mask, made up of three pieces of stamped silicone, as a "new technology", taking much less time for the make-up artists to apply than more-conventional prosthetics usually requires—the process took them only an hour—and resulting in Ledger's impression that he was barely wearing any make-up at all.

Designers improved on the design of the Batsuit from Batman Begins, adding wide elastic banding to help bind the costume to Bale, and suggest more sophisticated technology. It was constructed from 200 individual pieces of rubber, fiberglass, metallic mesh, and nylon. The new cowl was modeled after a motorcycle helmet and separated from the neck piece, allowing Bale to turn his head left and right and nod up and down,, a feature mentioned by Wayne in the movie as necessary to "make backing up the car easier." The cowl is equipped to show white lenses over the eyes when the character turns on his sonar detection. The gauntlets have retractable razors which can be fired. The gloves also possess hydraulics for Batman to crush objects. The original suit was also worn during part of the film. Though the new costume is eight pounds heavier, Bale found it more comfortable and less hot to wear.


The Batpod on display in Los AngelesThe film introduces the Batpod, which is a recreation of the Batcycle. Production designer Nathan Crowley, who designed the Tumbler for Batman Begins, designed six models (built by special effects supervisor Chris Corbould) for use in the film's production, because of necessary crash scenes and possible accidents. Crowley built a prototype in Nolan's garage, before six months of safety tests were conducted.[9] The Batpod is steered by shoulder instead of hand, and the rider's arms are protected by sleeve-like shields. The bike has 508 millimeter (20-inch) front and rear tires, and is made to appear as if it is armed with grappling hooks, cannons, and machine guns. The engines are located in the hubs of the wheels, which are set 3 1/2 feet (1067 mm) apart on either side of the tank. The rider lies belly down on the tank, which can move up and down in order to dodge any incoming gunfire that Batman may encounter. Stuntman Jean-Pierre Goy doubled for Christian Bale during the riding sequences in The Dark Knight.

For Two-Face's make-up, Eckhart warned, "When you look at him, you should get sick to your stomach. Being the guy under all that, well, that was a lot of fun for me. It's like you would feel if you met someone whose face had pretty much been ripped off or burned off with acid ...]There are fans on the Internet who have done artist's versions of what they think it will look like, and I can tell you this: They're thinking small; Chris is going way farther than people think." Nolan described Two-Face's appearance in the film as one of the least disturbing, explaining, "When we looked at less extreme versions of it, they were too real and more horrifying. When you look at a film like Pirates of the Caribbean—something like that, there's something about a very fanciful, very detailed visual effect, that I think is more powerful and less repulsive."

The depiction of Gotham City is less gritty than in Batman Begins. "I've tried to unclutter the Gotham we created on the last film," said Crowley. "Gotham is in chaos. We keep blowing up stuff. So we can keep our images clean."



Soundtrack:
Batman Begins composers Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard returned to score the sequel. Zimmer originally said the main Batman theme was purposely introduced at the end of Batman Begins, and would be fleshed out in the sequel as the character develops. Zimmer and Howard both realized that creating a heroic theme that a viewer could hum would ignore the complexity and darkness of the character. That the heroic theme is audible only twice, early on in the film, creates what Zimmer described as a "red herring", a kind of musical foreshadowing.

Composition began before shooting, and during filming Nolan received an iPod with ten hours of recordings, which Zimmer claimed Nolan fully memorized. Their nine-minute suite for the Joker is based around two notes, D and C (an interesting coincidence to DC Comics). Zimmer compared its style to the band Kraftwerk, who come from his native Germany, as well as his work with bands like The Damned. When Ledger died, Zimmer felt like scrapping and composing a new theme, but decided that he could not be sentimental and compromise the "evil [performance] projects". Howard composed Dent's "elegant and beautiful" themes, which are brass-focused.




Theatrical Run:
Warner Bros. held the world premiere for The Dark Knight in New York City on July 14, 2008, screening in an IMAX theater with the film's composers James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer playing a part of the film score live. Leading up to The Dark Knight's commercial release, the film had drawn "overwhelmingly positive early reviews and buzz on Heath Ledger's turn as the Joker". The Dark Knight was commercially released on July 16, 2008 in Australia, grossing almost $2.3 million in its first day.

In the United States and Canada, The Dark Knight was distributed to 4,366 theaters, breaking the previous record for the highest number of theaters held by Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007). The number of theaters also included 94 IMAX theaters, with the film estimated to be played on 9,200 screens in the United States and Canada. Online, ticketing services sold enormous numbers of tickets for approximately 3,000 midnight showtimes as well as unusually early showtimes for the film's opening day. All IMAX theaters showing The Dark Knight were sold out for the opening weekend.

The Dark Knight set a new midnight record on the opening day of July 18, 2008 with $18.5 million, beating the $16.9 million record set by Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005). $640,000 of the record gross came from IMAX screenings. The Dark Knight ultimately grossed $67,165,092 on its opening day, beating the previous record of $59.8 million held by Spider-Man 3 (2007). For its opening weekend in the United States and Canada, The Dark Knight accumulated $158,411,483, topping the previous record of $151.1 million also held by Spider-Man 3. The Dark Knight also set a new record for opening weekend gross in IMAX theaters, accumulating $6.2 million to beat Spider-Man 3's previous record of $4.7 million.

Besides the United States and Canada, The Dark Knight premiered in 20 other territories on 4,520 screens, grossing $41.3 million in its first weekend. The film came in second to Hancock, which was in its third weekend, screening in 71 territories. The Dark Knight's biggest territory for the weekend was Australia, grossing $13.7 million over the weekend, the third largest Warner Bros. opening and the largest superhero film opening to date. The film also grossed $7 million from 1,433 screens in Mexico, $4.45 million from 548 screens in Brazil, and $2.12 million from 37 screens in Hong Kong.

The Dark Knight sold an estimated 22.37 million tickets with today's average admission of $7.08, meaning the film sold more tickets than Spider-Man 3, which sold 21.96 million with the average price of $6.88 in 2007. It also broke the record for the biggest opening weekend ever. As of August 10, 2008, The Dark Knight has grossed $441.541 million in the domestic box office, breaking the previous record of the fastest film to hit $400 million and $263.1 million in other countries.As of August 10, 2008, its total worldwide gross stands at $704.641 million. The Dark Knight is currently the highest grossing movie of 2008 in domestic box office and second worldwide. It is also the highest grossing comic book film of all time, beating previous record-holder Spider-Man.



Criticals:
Based on 249 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, The Dark Knight has an overall approval rating of 94 percent, with a weighted average score of 8.5/10. Among Rotten Tomatoes's Cream of the Crop, which consists of popular and notable critics from the top newspapers, websites, television and radio programs, the film holds an overall approval rating of 90 percent. By comparison, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, calculated an average score of 82 from the 39 reviews it collected.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times describes The Dark Knight as a "haunted film that leaps beyond its origins and becomes an engrossing tragedy." He praises the performances, direction, and writing, and says the film "redefine the possibilities of the comic-book movie". Ebert states that the "key performance" is by Heath Ledger, and ponders whether he will become the first posthumous Academy Award winner since Peter Finch in 1976. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone writes that the film is deeper than its predecessor, with a "deft" script that refuses to scrutinize the Joker with popular psychology, instead pulling the viewer in with an examination of Bruce Wayne's psyche, while David Denby of The New Yorker holds that the story is not coherent enough to properly flesh out the disparities. He says the film's mood is one of "constant climax", and that it feels rushed and far too long. Denby criticizes scenes which he argues are meaningless or are cut short just as they become interesting. Todd Gilchrist of IGN remarks that, unlike most "mythology"-centred films, The Dark Knight covers everything concerning the logical or conceptual challenges such films present, giving the viewer everything they expect, but in ways which catch the viewer off-guard. David Ansen in Newsweek says the film is "impressive" in discussing the moral dilemma at its heart: the question about whether a vigilante has to abandon his code in order to defeat the villain.

Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News compares the film's sober depiction of characters that are "ticking time bombs" to those in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992). He says that Bale, Gyllenhaal, Oldman, and Eckhart combine to add a maturity that was not present in Batman Begins. Travers has praise for all the cast, saying each brings his or her "'A' game" to the film. He says Bale is "electrifying", evoking Al Pacino in The Godfather II, and that Eckhart's portrayal of Harvey Dent is "scarily moving". Travers reserves the most acclaim for Ledger, saying the actor moves the Joker away from Jack Nicholson's interpretation into darker territory. He expresses his support for any potential campaign to have Ledger nominated for an Academy Award, a call echoed by filmmaker Kevin Smith, and Emanuel Levy among others. Levy writes that Ledger "throws himself completely" into the role, and Todd Gilchrist calls Ledger's performance "transcendent". Gilchrist also shows admiration for Oldman's depiction of virtue, self-doubt and authority, and says Gyllenhaal adds depth and vigor to her role. David Denby remarks that the central conflict is workable, but that "only half the team can act it", saying that Bale's "placid" Bruce Wayne and "dogged but uninteresting" Batman is constantly upstaged by Ledger's "sinister and frightening" performance, which he says is the film's one element of success. Denby concludes that Ledger is "mesmerising" in every scene.

Travers says that the filmmakers move the film away from comic book cinema and closer to being a genuine work of art, citing Nolan's direction and the "gritty reality" of Wally Pfister's cinematography as helping to create a universe that has something "raw and elemental" at work within it. In particular, he cites Nolan's action choreography in the IMAX-tailored heist sequence as rivaling that of Heat (1995). Orr from The New Republic also praised the sparing use of CGI, such as in the chase scenes. Gilchrist praises the film's blending of comic book theatrics into realistic surroundings, and says that the film is the first comic book adaptation to qualify as a superior artistic achievement in its own right. Gilchrist says that Nolan examines the grand themes in "beautifully human" terms, and that the director reaches further than the first film with both his storytelling and camerawork, sustaining the "haunting" atmosphere, momentum and tension throughout the entire runtime. Emanuel Levy proclaims that the film represents Nolan's "most accomplished and mature" work, and the most technically impressive and resonant of all the Batman films. He calls the action sequences some of the most impressive seen in an American film for years, and talks of the Hong Kong-set portion of the film as being particularly visually impressive. While Denby has praise for Pfister's cinematography, he does not rate the film as a remarkable piece of craftmanship. He puts forward that while a lot happens in the film, it is often difficult to follow due to the close, dark photography and editing. Denby says the film is too grim and is seemingly "jammed together".

Dean Richards of WGN-TV calls the film not only the year's best film, "but one of the best films in years." Richards further compliments the film, noting how Chicago has never been used more effectively as a canvas for a story and stating, "It's not just a stunning super hero movie; it's a stunning film, period". Todd Gilchrist describes the film as "dark, complex and disturbing", and the most ambitious film of its type. He concludes that it breaks the boundaries set by any previous comic book adaptation—and even those of good filmmaking—in its weighty, thoughtful examination of the implications of heroism. Emanuel Levy and Peter Travers conclude that the film is "haunting and visionary", while Levy goes on to say that The Dark Knight is "nothing short of brilliant". David Denby surmises that the heavy-handed score and "thunderous" violence only serve to coarsen the property from Tim Burton's vision of the franchise into a "hyperviolent summer action spectacle", and that the film embraces the themes of terror that it purports to scrutinize. Larry Carroll at MTV.com says that the chase sequences, suggestions of The Godfather, and "beautiful" cinematography combine to make the film feel "Oscar-worthy", and David Ansen questions whether the viewer will come away from the film more exhausted than invigorated. He says that while The Dark Knight's ambition to be more than disposable entertainment is admirable, he wishes it could be more fun.

NPR film critic David Edelstein has been less enthusiastic toward the film, saying it "plays as if it were written by Oxford philosophy majors trying to tone up American pop." Edelstein also criticized the decision to set Gotham City in the real world, but then undercut its own realism with action scenes that he called "spectacularly incoherent." Said Edelstein, "I defy you to make spatial sense of a truck/Bat-tank/police car chase, or the climax with Batman, the Joker, hostages, SWAT teams, fake Batmen and Morgan Freeman on some kind of sonar monitoring gizmo."[137]. Additionally, in his appraisal of Ledger's Joker, Edelstein both praises Ledger's attempts and laments his realization as he summarizes "My heart went out to him. He’s working so very hard to fill the void, to be doing something every second. It’s rave and rage and purge acting...Ledger revs it higher and higher...He bugs his eyes...He tries on different voices...I couldn’t take my eyes off him, but in truth, I found the performance painful to watch. Scarier than what the Joker does to anyone onscreen is what Ledger must have been doing to himself—trying to find the center of a character without a dream of one.". The New Republic's Christopher Orr also considers Ledger's performance powerful but disturbing, calling it "the film's most remarkable special effect" and adding that "to call it compelling would be a criminal understatement," but opining that "Even without Ledger's death, this would be a deeply discomfiting performance; as it is, it's hard not to view it as sign or symptom of the subsequent tragedy."

The violence and 'jolts of brutality' of the movie have received some criticism, related to the MPAA giving the movie a PG-13 rating, a decision that Christopher Orr considered "shameful acquiescence", and which has also been questioned by others for a movie that "celebrates violence" instead of laws and justice. The British Board of Film Classification has defended its stance on rating the film a 12A certificate in the UK.

CinemaScore reports that audiences have graded the film "a solid A" with demographics skewed slightly male and older.

On July 25, 2008, mystery writer Andrew Klavan, writing in The Wall Street Journal, compared the extreme measures that Batman takes to fight crime with the extreme measures U.S. President George W. Bush has taken in the War on Terror. Klavan claims that, "at some level" The Dark Knight is "a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war." Klavan supports this reading of the film by comparing Batman, like Bush, Klavan argues, "sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past." Klavan's article has received a great deal of criticism on the net and in mainstream media outlets, including discussions on Fox News's Raw Story with Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson, and Brian Kilmead, and in The New Republic's "The Plank." The Variety Magazine blog Thompson on Hollywood suggests that while this reading of the movie may have merit, "If so, the Nolans actually come down somewhere to the left of Michael Moore."



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