The caped crusader made another appearance in March 2022 with Robert Pattinson playing the brooding and rich boy. The Batman focuses on The World’s Greatest Detective part – something that Batman was from the beginning and we most possibly forgot about it. Matt Reeves wonderfully complicated the whole movie Riddler style and presented us yet another version of Batman that nobody could hate. It seems like Batman and Joker are two foolproof formulas of DC that never fail.
One of the arguments in the superiority battle of Marvel and DC is that all DC characters have depth and Batman and Joker have always proved it to be right – especially in the last decade. Todd Philips’ 2019 Joker and Matt Reeves 2022 The Batman proved that the audience loves depth in these two spectra opposite personalities.
Nolan’s Batman was probably the first attempt when DC started to go down the rabbit hole exploring Batman as a person. Unsurprisingly, the audience hailed Nolan’s trilogy. Before Nolan, with Val Kilmer, George Clooney’s Batman, the characters were portrayed as just that – Batman or they tried to explore little more of Bruce Wayne aspect with Keaton. But the story never explored those dark passages of Jr. Wayne.
Until Heath Ledger’s Joker, everyone saw The Dark Prince of Gotham as an idiosyncratic clown and a never-ending annoyance to Batman. Heath made the Joker so distinct and purely evil that audience not only hailed his Joker but also demanded more. And he did all of that without the clumsiness and annoying part of being Joker.
With DC facing a tough fight after Marvel’s Disney takeover, they seem to have gotten the Batman-Joker formula right. What is surprising is the audience accepted the three variations of Batman and Joker in a decade’s time and loved ‘em all. Affleck’s Batman has mixed acceptance but Bale and Pattinson top the charts. Equally true with Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker.
Clearly, DC is making money off their cash-bats-and-clowns and even the variations are working. The question has to be asked: Why and How? Until 2021’s Spiderman No way home, every Spiderman fan argued about which actor did it well but there seems to be no such differential for Batman and Joker movies. The reason could be attributed to two things: first, how humane and relatable those characters are, and second their depth.
Bruce Wayne is a dark, brooding, and super-rich who never got over his parents’ death and Joker is someone who was abandoned and picked on by society. Nolan’s exploration of Batman, his darkest fears and his feelings, his persona as Batman, and his rise to it, all of it was shown realistically possible. Joker’s insanity tipped by the society seems very plausible – unlike a guy being bitten by radioactive spiders or someone injected with the super-soldier serum.
Batman and Joker have a very grounded background story and neither of the characters has any superpower. It’s as simple as pure courage vs pure lunacy. No nanotech, no gamma radiations, or no trips to Nepal – simply human nature at its best and worst and that is exactly what resembles with the audience. Both character movies show what would happen if you had it all or if you lost it all.
This is also in contrast with the usual Good guy – Bad guy story where the dark and brooding but rich Bad guy tries is taken on by a poor and alone good guy who has lost everything. Here, the good guy (Batman) is rich, wears all black, and is brooding and alone while the bad guy (Joker) is jolly, colorful, and has absolutely no inhibitions.
Movies give us hope and possibility and they try to portray the question of “If this happens” and DC was spot on with that formula. Pattinson’s Batman was the last nail in the theory which sealed the perfect formula for DC. Even if unconfirmed so far, Barry Keoghan’s Joker cameo in the latest Pattinson movie will most probably work its charm. The only question DC has to ask itself is will they work on their other characters as well as they do on the Batman-Joker combo or will we always have to see the same duo dancing around Gotham.
Excellent!!