15 Bravest Creative Decisions In Comic Book Movie History

6. Batman Breaks His No-Kill Rule - Batman (1989) & The Dark Knight Trilogy

One of the distinguishing aspects of Batman is his no-kill policy, that no matter how far a villain pushes him, he won't take the life of anyone in the pursuit of "justice". However, a number of times throughout his cinematic tenure, Bats has found himself betraying that rule, often under dubious or debatable circumstances. Firstly, we have Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, where the Caped Crusader (Michael Keaton) grappling-hooks The Joker's (Jack Nicholson) leg to a concrete statue, causing him to fall to his death when the helicopter he's trying to escape on pitches upwards. Then there's Christopher Nolan's Batman movies. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is against killing, though in Batman Begins, he explodes the League of Shadows' temple, surely killing a number of people. Then there's the much-discussed case of leaving Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson) to die when the train derails ("I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you"), his tackling of Two-Face (Aaron Eckhart) in The Dark Knight, causing him to fall to his death, and then firing missiles at Talia al Ghul's (Marion Cotillard) Tumbler in The Dark Knight Rises, causing her to die as a result of the crash damage. Did It Work? It depends. Not really in the Tim Burton movie, because Burton clearly had no regard for the no-kill rule and just went with whatever he wanted. There's a greater sense of ambiguity in the Nolan movies, though Nolan's stance is clearly that Batman has never actually killed anyone directly, which, really, is total bull. The Joker (Heath Ledger) provoking Bats and promising he'll have to break his rule is great fun, and it's a shame the rather awkward nature of this rule wasn't explored more in the trilogy.