July 30, 2011 - 3:35 pm
Click here for #10 — Dr. Doom — and the introduction to this project.
Click here for Part #9 — Justice League.
8. The Riddler
The Riddler needs to be featured prominently as the sole villain in a Batman film. He apparently won’t be in the one coming out next Summer.
The current screen performance of Batman’s most intellectual enemy is a campy turn by Jim Carrey. It’s time for a new actor’s characterization of the villain to make Carrey’s clowning a forgotten memory. In the last Batman film the late Heath Ledger reinvented the Joker and forever changed how the character was regarded. There is just as much potential for an A-list actor to do the same as the Riddler. Who should it be?
For expostulations of linguistic badinage I can only come up with Hugo Weaving. After Agent Smith, Elrond and V there can be no other choice. The Riddler as done by the Bard.
The point about a Shakespearean Riddler is a good one, jsallison, and I can see Weaving in the part. To me the critical thing with the Riddler is the script; this is a criminal who chooses to go up against the world’s greatest detective, and then gives himself a deliberate handicap just to keep it interesting. He must come across, as Ledger’s Joker did, as a genius beyond genius, lest he make Batman seem like a fool for having trouble catching him.