A hero is only as good as their villain in a superhero story.
Many of us tend to judge a film by the villain more than the person who is supposed to stop them.
For Batman, the main villain has always been the Joker, and there are plenty of places (including the animated film “The Killing Joke”) where it’s made clear that one can’t really exist without the other.
However, when “The Batman” came out in 2022, another villain moved up my personal list of the best of Batman’s rogues gallery.Paul Dano’s performance as the Riddler was just incredible and pretty terrifying.
Enough so that when I happened to very randomly pass Dano at a film event, I found myself moving back a step.
While I am very much aware that Dano is not his character, that wasn’t long after I saw “The Batman,” and his performance really shook me.
Read full article