2. Silva As The Joker
It's no coincidence that the greatest villain since The Dark Knight's Joker is a man with a crooked smile and, as Commissioner Gordon would say, a taste for the theatrical. Raoul Silva is precisely the antagonist Skyfall needed. He's creepy, chaotic, camp (a criticism gleefully embraced rather than shamefully eschewed) and most importantly, he looks like he's having a bloody good time. Admittedly, this may be in no small part due to a facial deformity (an apparent Bond villain prerequisite): having his jaw dissolved by hydrogen cyanide has left him with a mouth resembling a shark's. After a memorable introduction in which he compares himself and Bond to two rats forced to eat each other (allowing the slightest of pauses after his innuendo), it's clear that he's a baddie aware of the bigger picture. Bond and Silva are strangely co-dependent; yin and yang. The Joker echoes this in his coy response to Batman saving his life, I think you and I are destined to do this forever. Both films establish this dynamic to muddy the waters between hero and villain, or, to use an analogy from another of Batman's foes, to represent two sides of the same coin. Similarities abound. The Joker's frenzied challenge to Batman before his truck is toppled is repeated in Skyfall (with just a smidgen of Apocalypse Now added) when Silva, looking every inch the power-mad psychotic, blares The Animals' 'Boom Boom' from his helicopter raid. Silva's silhouette, after Skyfall has been torched, invokes the Joker having just burned 'his half' of the Mob's money. Both the Joker and Silva adopt a policeman's uniform in order to pass by unnoticed, allow themselves to be caught as part of their scheme, and appear to have no ulterior motive other than boundless destruction. Indeed, Alfred's iconic line, Some men just want to watch the world burn is a description that could equally apply to Silva.
