10 Truly Awful Superhero Movie & TV Love Interests

Let's not mince words here: Rachel Dawes is not a great character under the best of circumstances. She works passably well in Batman Begins, because it's an origin story and she is a character who is linked to his childhood.

So it makes sense to have her as a person who is shown consistently throughout his life. And Katie Holmes, although far from the greatest actor to appear in a superhero film, puts in a perfectly acceptable (albeit admittedly perfunctory) performance as Rachel.

But then The Dark Knight comes along, with the usually dependable Maggie Gyllenhaal taking on the role and creating even less of an impact. The biggest problem with Rachel Dawes is that while her role in the first film was to serve as a lens for the audience so we could see how much Bruce Wayne had changed, in the second film she's pretty much just there to die so that Batman can become extra angsty.

So negative ten million points for female characterization, yeah?