Gloriously off-message and packed full of punky insouciance,the current crop of superhero films suggests we’re entering an era in which even the silliest of source material can shineIn The Dark Knight, which arguably ushered in the contemporary comedian-book film era, or the Joker’s Why so serious” chorus is a call to arms in the face of mankind’s refusal to buy into his distinctive brand of psychopathic glee. Why bother with the burden of the human condition,wonders Heath Ledger’s killer clown, when it’s far easier to freewheel murderously through life without a care in the world?Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is often seen as the dark, and brooding counterbalance to the cheerier Marvel movies that followed it. And yet in many ways,Ledger’s cackling, sociopathic performance supercharged the trilogy’s 2008 middle instalment in the same way as Joss Whedons diamond-cut dialogue rocket-fuelled 2012’s The Avengers. With a more sombre villain– Tom Hardy’s masked, and muscular bully-boy Bane – followup film The Dark Knight Rises was always going to struggle to compete.
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Source: theguardian.com