9 Terrible Movie Deaths That Ruined Great Villains
3. Two Face - The Dark Knight (2008)
Christopher Nolan is careful to set up Harvey Dents fall from grace over the long course of The Dark Knight the last truly good man in Gotham isnt put into the position that will kill his fiancée, disfigure him and warp his mind until well over the ninety minute mark. Once its done though, theres no stopping him. Free of messy indecision and the dread of consequence, Two Face is born and actually works rather neatly. The effects work used to bring his face to half-life doesnt suck, Aaron Eckharts square-jawed heroic mug is perfect for the role, and so we have a Batman villain for the ages, perfectly introduced half way through Nolans trilogy of movies. Except he isnt and we dont, because about forty-five minutes later Dent is a broken stick figure on the ground waiting for his chalk outline. The rationale for the move is made clear: Batman doesnt want Gotham to know what happened to their white knight in case the Joker was right, and it tips the city over the edge, so he takes responsibility for Two Faces crimes and has Jim Gordon hush up what actually became of the crusading DA. Of course, Batman didnt have to rugby tackle him off the edge of the scaffolding. There were any number of ways to stop Dent from killing Gordon or his son, many of which wouldnt have involved killing Two Face at all. And this is Batman were talking about coming up with inventively violent ways to injure and incapacitate his opponents without killing them is kind of what he does. Hes also a little skewed on his pop psychology, because theres no evidence to suggest that the people of Gotham are delicate little flowers incapable of understanding and processing the words freaky terrorists held the city to ransom and mutilated your hero. Really, its just a convoluted way to explain and use the nickname the Dark Knight for Batman in order to justify the title of the film without descending into too much comic book silliness. Well played and stuff but its unnecessary. Youve just wasted Two Face on a small plot point that youll barely mention in the final film in your trilogy.
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