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Oh please.. “Inspire Hope?” anyone who is remotely familiar with the Batman Comic Books, in particular the “Dark Night” title, know that Batman is not a book about “HOPE”... its about a very disturbed man, who in spite of little hope of ever truly winning and saving Gotham.. battles on anyway.

I hate when folks project onto things what they want, that are obviously completely ignorant of the source materials from which the movies come from. “The Dark Knight” comics are not the old Batman TV shows, they are as the title implies DARK... He battles on, in a generally dark world, knowing that the best he will ever manage is holding the line... and that is no less noble.

You want cheesy kiddy fare, you should not be going to this movie, and if you saw BATMAN RETURNS (the previous movie to this one) you’d know this out of the gate. Batman is not some 2 dimentional character anymore, you want this sort of stuff, there are pleanty of movies like that out there... personally I’m glad that hollywood has stopped dumbing down super hero movies and respected their source material.

The author of this article is completely ignorant about the Batman comic and its characters. In his original incarnation, Bob Kane's Batman was a violent vigilante who often left the criminals he caught permanently crippled. The Joker, meanwhile, was based upon the protaganist in Victor Hugo's dark story The Man Who Laughs, and has always been a maniacal mass murderer and terrorist. Nolan is just getting back to the original source material, as did Frank Miller in the 1980s.

Saw it twice this weekend.
The second time around the plot becomes much clearer. Easily the best TRUE to character superhero movie to date. Still they are miss showing how smart Bruce Wayne really is, just like They missed Peter Parker’s brains in the Spidey movies.
I don’t think it shows any Nihilism at all. Batman does what is RIGHT through the whole thing. He is undoubtedly good while the Joker is purely evil. I would suggest seeing the movie instead of reading articles by some clown and making your judgment second-hand.
If anything it shows that we should keep doing good even if its unpopular. (IE today’s society in the US)

Thanks for that link. My son saw this movie and liked it. The reviews I’ve seen (such as the one you posted) are disturbing which means I’ll go see this so I can discuss it. It seems much of the entertainment and world view aimed at young adults is nihilistic and therefore they latch onto this familiar theme when they see it.

If the reviews are correct not only is the Joker a pure demonstration of Nihilism but the “hero” response of telling a lie for the greater good is as well. Perhaps these reviews are wrong, I’ll find out for myself.