Batman is known for his vast army of memorable super-villains, second maybe only to Spider-Man or the X-Men in terms of recognizable faces. Consequently, it shouldn’t be terribly difficult to find one that will work for Batman 3.
However, having seen the first two movies that came out under the watchful eye of Christopher Nolan, I think that we can all agree that, while many of Batman’s famous adversaries certainly are colorful, very few are actually appropriate for the film’s darkly realistic style and tone. Clearly, there will be no Penguin and/or Mr. Freeze in this film.
Nope.
Obviously, this poses a major problem to the filmmakers, especially when trying to follow up Heath Ledger’s amazing performance as The Joker. Which of his many villains could conceivably exist in real life, and have the potential to deeply impact Batman as a character, rather than simply providing a minor roadblock in his nightly crime fighting routine? We’ve gone over the roster 100 times and the one name that keeps coming up is Hush.
Now I know that many of you are thinking that there are maybe a dozen or so Batman Villains that are better known than Hush, and I’m not debating that fact in the slightest. But when you look closely at a lot of these characters, you’ll see that most of them are either ridiculous (like the aforementioned Penguin) or have little potential for emotional conflict with the Batman. Catwoman is one that a lot of people are talking about, but she wouldn’t really work for a number of reasons. For starters, she’s merely a cat burglar. There is nothing about her character or motivation that could make for a truly compelling story, especially when you consider that she has virtually nothing in common with Two Face, who is likely to make a re-appearance in the third movie. Read the rest of this entry →
Everyone knows that nine times out of ten, movie sequels suck so bad that they make you want to bash your head in with a petrified movie theater hot dog. Painful and unnecessary, they represent the unchecked greed that is destroying our entertainment industry, and the stupidity of the people that they are marketed to.
Except for these sequels listed here, which were all freakin’ sweet! Each and every one of the following films were even better than the originals, most (but not all) of which were pretty great to begin with. Please note that planned trilogies were considered for the list, as the second movie in any trilogy (except the Matrix) is always the best in the series and therefore unfair to include. So if you’re looking for Empire, the The Two Towers or Godfather 2, go look up some hack-job AFI list instead.
The Dark Knight
While Batman Begins was a far sight better than the couple of lame-o Batman movies that preceded it, there were still one or two problems with it. It had too much painfully redundant origin stuff, and lacked a truly memorable villain. Plus, Katie Holmes was intolerably out of place (bad actress, way too young to be the D.A. of Gotham, not even that hot to make up for it, etc.). The Dark Knight corrected all of these problems, nixing Holmes, adding The Joker and Two Face to the mix, dispensing with all the lame origin bullshit and getting right into the action. Everything about The Dark Knight was better in every way, and has the box office numbers to back it up. I still say it was about an hour too long though. Read the rest of this entry →
