Obligatory Dark Knight Open Thread

A major SPOILER WARNING will be operative for this whole thread, including the rest of this post...

Iain and I saw it in IMAX!!11!!!eleventy-one!! with Mama and Papa Shakes this weekend. I totally loved it, my one complaint being that it was ridiculously short on female characters and people of color; Maggie Gyllenhaal was laughably underused, and when there's basically only one other female character of passing note, you can't make her corrupt, even with a sob story about a sick mother.

Mind you, I love Morgan Freeman so much I'd go see a film of him farting for two hours, but Lucius Fox was the obvious character to feminize for the big screen. It would have been awesome to see a female scientist, in particular. Naturally, I'd prefer to see a woman of color in the role, since if you 86 Freeman, you get rid of the only prominent POC, too. Paging Angela Bassett.

That there was a woman of color cast as a judge in a film so frustratingly devoid of female and/or POC characters just made me laugh. Has no one involved with casting the film heard the complaints about black female judges on TV? There are more black female judges on Law & Order than in the whole of the American judiciary; it's always the bit part that's cast with a nod to diversity, as if to apologize for casting ten zillion white female assistant DAs in a row. Same thing here—except she had the misfortune of being blown up, too!

And gay characters? Whazzat? Whozit? Wuh? Come on—can we get Alfred a boyfriend already?

Okay, so my usual (though by no means insignificant) complaint notwithstanding, I really did love the film otherwise. I've noted some criticism that the film was a neocon manifesto, a justification for engaging policy that encroaches on civil rights, but that really misses the point. The movie certainly does make a case for taking power; but, more importantly, it makes the case for giving it back.

And it makes no bones about its opinion of leaders who don't.