Instead of questioning Capitalism, Communism, Taoism or Existentialism... and challenging the audience... it is about corruption and surrendering to corruption like surrendering to jaded teen boredom. Fueled by the claustrophobic helplessness due to terrorism, and the merciless acceptance of hipster nihilism, TDK is a cold unrealistic mechanical set-up sold over and over again by it's proponents as "ultra-realistic". That is the most frightening thing about the obsessive if not immoral blatherings of TDK fans is the Emperor's New Clothes insistence that the film represents "realism". From the Joker's precision timing to drive a school bus into a line of school buses, with one space left for him... to Dent's facial damage due to 5 seconds of burning gasoline... the film is rife with movie fakeness sold like Ad (or ADD) pitchmen for "Nolan's formulaic realism", which is actually just him stealing from "The Long Halloween".

A meaningless Rube Goldberg contraption, Nolan takes the audience on an endless set of fake-out twists and turns to deliver very little but loud moments. As calculated and obsessive as The Joker is, and to the degree he plans about 5 separate "back up plans" that come to fruition, he enters the level of anal retentive... yet somehow we are to believe he is some "agent of chaos". Which, means cool. Chaos = cool, get it? There's nothing cool or chaotic about this drugged out riffing Joker, and as fun as Ledger makes him, he overshadows what should have been the center of the story: Harvey Dent. But it's Batman so, business as usual... problem child villain acts up, makes a mess, BatDad shows up to clean up the mess. Crowd applauds.

Unfortunately what the film creates is a subtext of a NeoCon wetdream with "by any means necessary" militarism, where the Batman uses unethical means to "detect" the Joker, and we are to assume this fall from grace makes him heroic because he is banished and falsely accused (for 1 minute of nagging by the Joker, turning Dent evil for yet another film coincidence) of driving Dent from white to dark knight... so Batman takes the blame and is the dark knight cuz he's just a Christ figure. So our sacrificial Justice League hero is supposed to be a sympathetic figure of crossing moral boundaries to save society... George Bush must have loved this puppy. Not sure half the tween tards watching this caught that bit of hooey, but as much as the poster art evokes Fight Club, this film is about as far from punk anarchy as you can get. Maybe they should all be sent to military school if this is their idea of rebellion.