Remember when the troika of Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman), Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger), and Bane (Jeep Swenson) led their villainous charge across the screen in Batman and Robin, the final installment in the Batman franchise that was rebirthed in the 80s and mercifully executed in the 90s?
Me neither.
However, the blame shouldn’t fall on the thin shoulders of Thurman whose villain was never really more than eye candy and whose ability to make her victims fall in love with her is rather lame and more suited for romantic comedies than superhero action movies. Nor should it fall on the roided-out broad shoulders of Bane, whose character was wasted, or Schwarzenegger, whose most memorable lines were terribly written puns that rivaled Robin’s unnecessary exclamation of “Holy rusted metal Batman!” in Batman Forever: which is both an allusion to the campy television series from the 1960s as well as a factual exposition that they are standing on pile of holey, rusted, metal. Boo.
The blame also can’t be placed on Robin (Chris O’Donnel) or Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone), primarily because their inclusion didn’t cause the debacle; they were just widgets within this conglomerate time bomb.
To assess the damages here, one needs to step back and look at Batman and Robin as a whole, noticing that fourth installments (though only the second by Joel Schumacher) are rarely successful and are reserved more for the horror and sci-fi genres.
More importantly, Batman and Robin perfectly epitomizes the mortal sin of superhero-driven movies: the deluge of villains and sidekicks, whose sole purpose is to distract the audience from a flimsy story or illogical plot points. For additional examples, please see Spiderman 3, a film that focuses much more on visually masturbating its audience than birthing and building on Venom, the best character in the Spiderman canon. One can also refer to X-Men: Last Stand, another film that showcased how superpowers can be translated from imagination to live action, but it becomes more caught up in battle scenes than storylines.
Too many villains spoil a movie because each comes with an origin story of his or her own, and with this story comes motive. The same can be said for heroes. Why is Robin so determined to get revenge? Well because his parents also died. Why is Batman willing to take him under his wing? Well, because both of their parents were murdered. Granted, it would be lazy to have Batman and Robin run into each other at a bar and exchange the brief:
“Nice outfit.”
“I wear it because someone murdered my parents and my inability to save them has made me seek closure vicariously.
“Me too. Want to work together?”
“Buy me a beer?”
However, the drawn out exposition between the symbolic (and often literal) connection between the two characters takes up time; unfortunately these connections are often lateral and don’t progress the story; rather, they only justify the introduction of another character. The same can be said for villains. There never seems to be a need to team up, yet the “two of us could work together and eliminate [insert superhero here]” often enters conversation at the local Villain Lodge, but this is futile, not the least because two villains with domination on their minds aren’t going to work together well – that’s why they’re villains. More importantly two people having one plan leaves little room for failure. Logically, it would be more difficult for [insert superhero] to foil two malicious plots simultaneously:
“I’m going to release Sarin gas in school full of children.”
“I’m going to blow up a large office building.”
“Let’s say March 21st.”
“Buy me a beer?”
They should just exist separately, mutually wreaking havoc on whatever parody of New York City the setting happens to be.
Unfortunately, the emergence of additional characters often signals a larger problem: uninteresting primary characters to drive a story. When this happens, the only thing left to do is fill time by creating vignettes of semi-story that lead to fights or explosions.
Take Batman for example. His story is rather basic: parents were killed, unable to save them, guilt drives him to don the cowl. The progress he makes from young boy to martial arts knowing / gadget wielding badass was interesting to watch in Batman Begins, but what next? This issue is exposed in The Dark Knight because, honestly, Batman is comprised of one note: he seeks closure, though it’s masked as “justice.” He’s seen as an enemy, but he’s also a hero. The story can’t go much beyond that. Fortunately, Ledger’s performance as the Joker carried the film, partially because he was a character whose origin story was the lack of a rational origin story, one that constantly changed and aided his mystery and psychopathy.
At the same time, The Dark Knight also treads on the “too many villains” motif when it births Two Face, killed thirty minutes by creating a conflict between Batman, Two Face, and Commissioner Gordon, then killed him off, never to be seen again without an illogical story line in a subsequent installment. If the purpose of introducing him was merely to kill him off, then what was the purpose of introducing him? Sure, Batman now gets to be the villain – again – because Harvey Dent should always symbolize something “good,” but why? If Dent is exposed as a villain, then people will know that they can’t always look up to politicians? And, why is Batman taking the rap for this? Well, because “we have to chase him.” But why?
All in all, the bigger issue here is that Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises is dancing dangerously close to becoming a villain-filled debacle that promises to visually mesmerize but leave a viewer disappointed, and I hate saying this because Nolan has resurrected the Batman franchise and established himself as one of the best directors in Hollywood.
At the same time, the cast of characters grows.
In addition to Christian Bale, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine (who have 4 Academy Awards between them), the third installment includes Marion Cotillard (Also an Oscar winner), Joseph Gordon Levitt, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, and Matthew Modine. The latter three are the ones that cause concern as they will play Catwoman, Bane, and Nixon, respectively. The villain quota is up to three thus far, and while Catwoman is the well-known villain of the triad – and at times a love interest – the question becomes “where is there room for the other two?” given that time also needs to be allotted for the presence of Cotillard and Levitt.
Perhaps the highly-anticipated sequel will be a three and a half hour opus, and in a way, I hope it is. Nolan revitalized a franchise that devolved to silliness in Batman Forever and ridiculousness in Batman and Robin, but he might be flirting with disaster with his own tidal wave of villains.
Let’s hope not.
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