The Long Dark Knight...

Jesus. That was DARK. And LONG. When I left the cinema, I went straight home and watched The Sound of Music and Bambi back to back, just to get The Dark Knight out of my system. Only once have I sat in a cinema and witnessed such a punishing film. And that was Frank Miller's 'Sin City'. The Dark Knight takes a cue or two from Miller's sketchbook, of course. Any enjoyment that I was able to derive from the impressive spectacle of the film (and it is impressive, and spectacular) was completely nullified by the ordeal of sitting through some of the most depressing movie philosophy I've seen.

Batman Begins was the palate cleanser, designed to remove from the memory the gothic cartoon of the first two modern Batman movies and the laughable, one dimensional shortcomings of the second two movies. Sure, Batman Begins was dark but not so dark that you couldn't see you moral route out of the cinema. The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's second Batman film is beautiful in many ways but damn ugly in many others.

The gripe with modern blockbuster comic-book movies is that they are just dumb entertainment and don't engage the audience's brain. The successful 'brain-buster' movie where emotions and explosions exist in a satisfying balance, is a rare beast. Noteable successes in this field like Casino Royale and The Bourne Identity can make you think A BIT whilst still providing a sufficiently happy ending to send you on your way after you've dusted the popcorn from your trousers. The Dark Knight just goes too far. It is so dark, that it is without hope. Batman, the fulcrum, the hero, the last gasp of air in the lungs of a corrupt society is a beaten, hunted man at the end of the film. The message is clear, expressed most clearly by the Joker himself: "When put to the test, these fine people will EAT EACHOTHER to stay alive." Or something like that. You get the point. We're fucked. And we fucked ourselves, with our greed, incompetence, fear and mistrust.

There's a comparision to be drawn between The Dark Knight and Iron Man, another superhero movie released at cinemas this year. The main characters in these two films are both billionaire industrialists who use their wealth to bankroll their crime-fighting antics. Both have high-tech suits and gadgets to aid them. And for both, the line beween the real man and the alter-ego is blurred. Which persona is the disguise? Bruce Wayne or Batman, Tony Stark or Iron Man. But here the comparisons end. Tony Stark's Iron Man is fun and brightly coloured. Poor Bruce Wayne is full of woe as he dispatches his foes. If the Iron Man costume is a jazzy, gold and red Lambourghini, the Batsuit is a hurse.

Having said all that, it should be noted that in The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne does drive around in a Lamboughini. But he takes care to drive it into the side of a truck, just in case you thought he was enjoying himself too much. And it is grey.

Maybe that's the problem: If your main character isn't enjoying his mission, then how are you supposed to enjoy the film? In Iron Man, Tony Stark was clearly enjoying himself and I enjoyed the movie but if I'm honest it didn't make me think at all. In The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan wears his social conscience on his sleeve like the deadly armour on the batsuit and it's a shade too dark for me. A little more of that on show in Iron Man and a little less of it in The Dark Knight would have made both films more satisfying viewing.