Will A Comic Book Movie EVER Beat The Dark Knight?
2. The Pretenders
Part of the problem, certainly on the DC side of things, is taking the hardened 'realism' of The Dark Knight and little else. In the wake of the movie's success, we've seen far too many movies that have aimed to be dark, serious, and above all else, "gritty", a word which recently resurfaced in the description of Warner Bros' Joker origin movie. 10 years on, and still some of the wrong lessons are being taken.
The Dark Knight is slightly more realistic than the colourful, superpowered efforts that were popular in the early 00s, like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man, and there's a nihilistic side to the movie that envelopes the whole thing. But that seriousness is earned through its study of Bruce Wayne's character, with his Batman having good cause to be so grim, rather than it being corporately mandated, and even then it's not exactly realistic in the traditional sense.
What's more, though, is that the movie is, at times, a riot. Michael Caine's Alfred gets some hilarious one-liners, Heath Ledger's Joker is, as he himself says, a dog chasing cars, and there are moments of pure comic book ridiculousness. It's 'gritty', sure, but it isn't po-faced about it.
Marvel movies, by contrast, have gone completely the other way, relying on bright colours, inherently good heroes, and so many jokes. It's worked for them better than anyone could have ever expected, and has brought about some truly great movies, but not even the spectacle of The Avengers or Captain America: Civil War quite lives in the awe-inspired memory the way The Dark Knight does. The latter, in particular, strives for some weightier themes, and all credit to it, but there's nonetheless a formula that it needs to adhere to. The Dark Knight, like its best character, revels in pure chaos in a way a MCU movie never could, making it all the more impossible to predict.
In the last couple of years another pair of movies have come close: Logan and Black Panther. Critically, Black Panther has been lavished with praise and many will say it's the best comic book movie ever made, and indeed it does intertwine its important, relevant themes around black lives and culture with popcorn entertainment, but that doesn't cover up for the often generic third act, terrible CGI and all (problems which Wonder Woman, another commonly cited as one of the best superhero movies ever made, suffers from as well).
Arguably the closest another comic book movie has come to toppling The Dark Knight is Logan, a personal, intimate tale of loss, grief, and rage, which is a far cry from the crime epic of Nolan's film. Even that, however, lacks the same mass appeal (partly due to the R-Rating that helps make it so great), and unlike The Dark Knight isn't a film to encourage countless rewatches. Just once is enough, for quite a while at least, which suggests it's missing at least one key ingredient to truly be considered better than The Dark Knight.
Concludes on next page.