In a post-Dark Knight world, we're forced to return to Christopher Nolan's masterful Batman trilogy to analyze where subsequent superhero films have gone wrong. As stunning as Nolan's films were, their success set off a trend in Hollywood to recreate the formula. Looking at The Dark Knight on a surface level, studios think the people want a gritty superhero crime drama. While it's easy to characterize the 2008 film as such, there's far more that went into making it a good move.
Consider, as a case study, how shitty Suicide Squad is. The film, another movie failure from the DC universe, again attempted to capture Nolan's heavy themes and also brought back the Joker, one of the most compelling superhero villains of all time. Did they do it? Nope!
Thematically, the film was cluttered, and Method Actor Jared Leto's Joker was an impotent afterthought. So what went wrong? What makes one so iconic and one so forgettable?
Let's look at why the Joker in The Dark Knight, even with Heath Ledger's acting aside, was such a phenomenally written character. It has to do with the basics of storytelling, as Lessons From the Screenplay points out. Ledger's Joker was a powerful character who attacked Batman's weaknesses, made his strengths powerless, and forced him to make tough choices. And the brilliance of the writing is in how well Batman and the Joker are balanced. Neither side can ever win. There will always be one force creating chaos and another striving for peace. And that struggle, one with no clear winner, is what compels us to watch.
[H/T: Sploid
