I just read a review of The Dark Knight by a guy I happen to like a lot, and generally agree with. But I must disagree with him here, vehemently. I won't argue with his not liking the movie, because that's just a matter of taste. What I will argue with is his reason for not liking the film, because I felt it was an unfair criticism. I'm not writing this to convince him (he doesn't have any idea who I am), but some of the things he wrote and things commenters wrote really struck a nerve with me and I felt compelled to address them.

About Batman in particular, here were the main complaints (and I won't take the time to differentiate between the actual post and the comments):

1. It was pointless, violent noise.
2. It tried to be deep, but really said nothing.
3. People look to Batman rather than Jesus.
4. It is bad for young children.
5. It had no redemptive themes.
6. It shows how in decline our culture is.

WARNING: SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW. If you read on, I am assuming you have already seen the movie, aren't planning on seeing the movie, or you don't believe me. TRUST ME, if you haven't seen the movie, I WILL RUIN IT FOR YOU.

Seriously, MAJOR SPOILER ALERT.

Also, again, this isn't about Batman. Obviously, I loved it, thought it was great, etc., so I'm much more inclined to defend it. I am not unbiased, I am not a film critic, but I will try my best to point to any meaning that was there, and I'll also try to abstain from over-reaching. This post is more about the substance of the criticism, and less about the movie.

And again, SPOILER ALERT. I'm not kidding, I'll spoil it for you, don't read on.

1. Pointless, violent noise: Yes, Batman is violent. If you aren't prepared for that going in, then you should really rethink seeing it. It is a violent, and sometimes brutal movie. That said, the violence in it was not gratuitous. Much of the violence dished out is dished out to hardened criminals. The rest is dished out to cops and city officials. No children die.
Heath Ledger's Joker is about as sadistic as they come. He is creepy, he is brutal, and he's clearly insane. As in most superhero narratives, the lines between good and evil are pretty well drawn out. Evil is ugly, shady, and well, obviously bad. The good guys are upstanding, honorable people. Even for all his inner-conflict over being Batman or not, Bruce Wayne's conflict is not a conflict of whether to be good or bad, but a conflict of principal in that being Batman is getting people killed (one of the Joker's ultimatums). The only exception to that is the tragic Harvey Dent. Dent is brave, honest and good to the core. Unfortunately, tragedy leaves him without his fiance and without half of his face (he's Two Face). He goes after the crooked cops who led to his fiance's murder and hashes out some "unlawful retribution". The only place where his actions aren't understandable is when he goes after Gordon's family. To be honest, it doesn't make sense, even in the context of the movie. But of course, Batman saves the day, and Two Face is defeated.
So yeah, the movie is violent, but it isn't gory, and the violence isn't glorified. It also isn't pointless and random. Though attempts are made on innocent people's lives, again, the only deaths I recall are those of mobsters, petty criminals and cops (and one judge). Gotham portrayed as a city whose war is a war on crime. People die, but they die fighting that battle.
And though Batman can unleash a pretty thorough arse whomping, he won't take a life, even the life of the Joker. It's a point that is made ad naseum in the movie.
As for the more meaningful point to the movie, I'll be discussing that a few points down.

2. It tried to be deep, but really didn't say anything: I am someone who is constantly annoyed by movies that think they are being deep or smart or original but really don't say anything (Babel comes to mind). I hate most Indie films, contrary to popular belief. But this is a superhero movie. It isn't meant to be a deep discussion on the heart of man. It did however raise an interesting conflict within Joker's staged moral conundrums. He appealed to people's baser instincts and believed that if pushed far enough, they would resort to slaughtering each other and tear each other apart. Joker isn't about money or power within the crime world. All he cared about was, as Alfred put it "watching the world burn". He believed he could achieve that simply by pushing people to the edge. People like Batman, Gordon, and (for the first 2/3 of the movie) Dent believed that there was a higher goodness in people. Bruce Wayne discussed with Alfred several different times the fact that he considered himself simply a hero for the time being. His goal was always to inspire the goodness of others so that someday a "hero with a face" would rise. It does raise interesting questions about how people are inclined act when society seems to break down. And to anyone who saw the movie, it's obvious that, in Batman's world at least, people are capable of being good, courageous and noble even in the most extraordinary circumstances. But more on that in a minute.

3. People look to Batman rather than Jesus: The way I want to respond to this statement is, "no-freaking doy". In the interest of being kind and charitable though, I will say that we live in a secular society, and you just cannot expect that. Also, though I won't go so far as calling Batman a Christ-figure, he is a kind of Savior to the people of Gotham. He fights the battle that they are simply inadequate to fight. He is, in a way, their advocate. I'm not going to over-spiritualize it anymore than I already have, so if I haven't convinced you, then get over it. Movies aren't Sunday School, nor were they meant to be. NOTE: This was not a point made by the blogger, but a commenter. The blogger stated explicitly in one of the comments that he wouldn't tell Christians not to see this movie. Just thought it was worth addressing anyways.

4. It's bad for young children: Maybe I'm not so moved by the stories of five year olds being made to sit through this with their parents because I'm not a parent yet. I always think parents are a little crazy in guarding their children the way they do, but I'm sure I'll be just as crazy. That said, this movie is PG-13. It isn't for children. Hopefully you are smart enough to discern that. And while I wouldn't take a child into this movie, I know parents that would, and I know kids who grew up seeing movies that make this movie look like the Jamboree. I had a friend who saw Saving Private Ryan in theaters when it came out, which would have been 3rd grade for us. And he told me about it, in great detail (which is why I now know he wasn't lying). I have Saving Private Ryan sitting in my DVD player right now, and the violence in the two movies is not even on the same planet. Batman is much more tame, by a long shot. I say all that to say this, while you are probably smart enough not to expose your kid to this movie, some parents just don't think the way you do about it. And generally, kids turn out okay. I haven't seen any evidence that certain movies scar children for life, and of the kids I know who grew up in different households with different rules about movies, all of them have turned out fine. So yeah, I would say don't take your kid to see this movie, but if a parent walks in with a five year old, please don't come home and write a blog post about how horrible that parent was. The kid's probably fine.

5. It has no redemptive themes: I addressed some of this in the third point, but I'll go in a little more detail here. The movie is essentially a big battle between good and evil. And guess what, good wins. Anytime good truly wins out, as it does here, I would consider that redemption. It isn't the best kind of redemption, which I believe takes place on the personal level, but it is a kind of redemption. Again, the movie was, at it's most basic level, a battle between Batman and the Joker. The Joker tries to appeal to man's more carnal instincts, while Batman appeals to what is good and noble in human beings.
The clearest picture of this is in the two ferries. Blow the other up, or both of you will be blown to bits. The most surprising moment to me in the entire movie was when the prisoner took the detonator and threw it out the window. In the end, both groups of people decide that they cannot resort to taking life. They simply wait and clock run out. And thanks to Batman, none of them die.
The people are pushed to an extraordinary edge, and even then they chose not to resort to their inner-savage, proving the Joker wrong.

6. It speaks volumes about how in-decline our society is. One more time, yeah this movie is violent. But it is completely devoid of sex, the language is sparse, and evil isn't glorified. And this movie is nothing compared to most of the trash pumped out by the Hollywood crap factory. This movie was big because people love Batman, superhero movies are the flavor right now, and yes, partly because of Heath Ledger. People, generally speaking, are not going to see this in order to be shocked by the violence. If they are, they must be pretty mild. If you want to be shocked by violence, go see Saw or The Hills Have Eyes. If you walk out of those thinking about how horrible our society is, I wouldn't blame you. But Batman? Come on, the man's a cultural icon. We aren't sick for going to see this movie, and we certainly aren't sick for enjoying it.
Which brings me to another point. Everyone is always bemoaning how evil the world has gotten or how godless or however you want to put it. I wish that would stop. Yes, people can be pretty messed up. Yes, we are certainly fallen. But I don't believe people today are any worse than they were 10 years ago or even 10,000 years ago. People have always hated their brother, people have always raised their hands against one another. What makes Cain any worse than Adolph Hitler? It was the same desire in each of them that drove them to kill. Just because Cain didn't have 6,000,000 Jews at his disposal doesn't mean his heart wasn't tainted by the same evil. Society changes, people don't. I'm not surprised by what we see everyday. It makes sense to me. It is history repeating itself, six billion times a day.

So, on that note, I must, respectfully dissent.