I personally thought that Heath’s portrayal of The Joker was really good. In fact the only reason I even enjoy the film is because of his performance as The Joker. It certainly isn’t the wooden performances of Aaron Eckhart or Bale. The only good dialogue in the film I believe comes during The Jokers scenes. I wasn’t aware of Heath’s death until after I saw the film, and to be honest I couldn’t care less about his death so it didn’t alter my opinion of his acting. (Other than the fact it was a stupid waste of talent) So I would agree with you any point concerning the appalling dialogue, absurd plot devices and typical rubbish you expect from superhero films. However, I can’t agree with you on your point about Heath because I thought his acting was excellent. Feel free to disagree with me because it’s your choice.

First off, his appearance literally screams to me of lowest common denominator. It’s as if the designers thought “How can we make this, the most unique and deadly of Batman’s enemies, so common and mundane that he’d pack the most asses into our theatre seats? I KNOW!!! Clowns are scary, right? Let’s go as far as we can in all the cliche’d ways imaginable to really emphasize how evil this guy is. Let’s make this guy the common folk epitome of evil clowns!”

Can someone please explain to me exactly what is so pants-shittingly scary about this guy??? Is it the pathetic heavy-metal death clown thing he’s got going? Is it the weird likes-to-play-with-knives-so-he’s-also-probably-a-self-cutter thing? Is it the supposed omnipotency (which, strangely, makes one wonder whether he’s got a copy of the script)? Is it his lip-smacking drooling problem, which I had initially heard described as making him seem more like a dangerous mad-dog, but instead conjured up images of a crusty, old, cigar-chomping George Burns routine?

Please. One look at him and I thought I was looking at an angry, sullen teenager who had spent all morning crying in the corner, bitching about how unfair life was, and was then preparing to go and shoot up his school in a vain attempt to get even. His body language in his first appearance in this movie cannot be denied: he’s friggin’ SULKING.

Once they’d finished butchering his appearance, they then sought to remove anything that might resemble trademark “Joker” behavior from the character. No more with the merry laughter while killing innocents with truly unique yet truly horribly ghastly gag methods that could only have come from him. No longer do his victims die laughing. Now they supposedly die with soiled pants, quaking in fear. I’m sorry, but I thought we did “fear” already. WITH THE SCARECROW!!!!! IN THE LAST FRIGGING MOVIE!!!!!! Or is this the Scarecrow revisited?

Seemingly in lieu of any wit or witticisms or other merryment while causing rampant chaos, they give him the most annoying speech mannerisms, as if to say “Hey, look, he’s funny. Just not “Ha Ha” funny”. In addition to the aforementioned question concerning his appearance, will someone PLEASE explain to me what in the hell is so scary about someone who says “uh-Let’s-AH put a Suh-MY-ULL on that FAYCE-AH!!!” Did they slap a clown suit on Bizzarro? Does Jerry Lewis know his routine is being ripped off?

Then there’s his pseudo-intellectual psychobabble mumbo-jumbo that gets very old very fast. The Joker really only did that sort of thing once, and that was in the Killing Joke. The whole point of that part of the story was how the Joker was ultimately proven wrong by Gordon remaining sane. Funny how that graphic novel is cited as being a major inspiration for the character in this film, yet bears very little resemblance.

So what are we left with? A psycho nut job in clown makeup. That blows up hospitals. And cuts people. Did I miss anything?

???

I’m sorry, but that’s not the Joker. As I’ve commented before and elsewhere, the single most depressing thing for me as a Joker fan is that this bullshit is most likely what’s going to end up being hailed as an inspiration (perish the thought of definition) towards which future renditions of the Joker character should aspire.

I thought tdk was hard to watch (I was falling asleep at the IMAX) but I thought Heath Ledger did an amazing job. Was it revolutionary or ground breaking? No. Worthy of an Oscar? Yeah.