So, this was a great movie and I still think about it. My friend Byron put me on to a review about the film that I felt was worth reading into:

“Despite its superhero trappings, DARK KNIGHT is more a piece of film
noir, a style that typically uses hard-boiled plot lines laced with
machismo. The true aesthetics of macho movie-making, however, have less
to do with explosions and car chases than with how a man defines
himself in a hostile, usually corrupt world. It’s the old story of “a
man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” but in hard-boiled plot, unlike
the Western, what a man’s gotta do is often not nearly enough.

THE DARK KNIGHT is really about the failure of the hero. Batman
strives mightily, but the Joker outplays him on almost every hand. Even
apparent small victories lead to defeat. Batman may capture the Joker,
but the effect is like trying to stuff a genie back into the bottle:
the madness has already been unleashed, and it seems unstoppable. The
large-scale goal of redeeming Gotham remains elusively out of reach.

This is not the sort of stuff we associate with summer blockbusters.
It’s dark and pessimistic, but not outright cynical, and I suspect that
this quality – rather than the guy flick designation – is what has
embedded the film in the public consciousness. THE DARK KNIGHT
celebrates the struggle – the effort against all odds – even when
victory is at best partial. The film refuses to sell out with an easy
happy ending; it captures the tenor of the times in which we live, when
our institutions and government have failed us…”

I think that there is could be some good work here that could be done on giving a theological reading to the film. For this, I anticipate Byron’s reading on the film. We’ll see if he gets around to it…