Best example of a true villain.

Rating: 10/10 (21 July 2008)

In most 'Super Hero' genre movies, it's the usual action that drives the plot, and the emotion is a reaction, rather than the force. And, up until now, very VERY predictable and formulaic.
In every movie I have ever seen featuring a villain, it has a motive, or a past, or a reason for the villainy. Animal villains don't need a reason unless it is given them by the author or writer/director, as diseased, tampered with or just plain animalistic cravings. The Joker in Dark Knight for the first time is given no back story, no reason, no excuse. He killsbecause he does. Sometimes there IS no reason. Michael Caine's character explains it succinctly when he uses a personal story of a jewel thief in a jungle that just threw away the jewels after killing many people in the attempt. No 'rational' explanation. That is what makes The Joker in Dark Knight so disturbing, and memorable in any form of media. He is just...inhuman, or non-animal. Hannibal Lecter was once 'normal', and although there is no real explaining his behavior, he had a past, and we can relate. The Joker here laughs at his own impending death, not expecting saving. Just does not care, because caring would be human, or alive. This Joker is already dead and has become something 'else'. Something not to try to figure out, reason with or investigate. Just simply needs destroying, at all costs. Because this 'bad guy' brings out the actual evil in those he comes across. Even today's terrorists have a reason for killing and destruction. The Dark Knight's Joker has no such minor flaws. He just destroys the same way a virus does. This Joker IS a virus, and just as a phage spreads destruction and chaos to everything it touches, although the death of the host will lead to it's end, so does this Joker. Christian Bale's Bat Man comes to term with this, and must accept into himself the corruption for just having come in contact with it. But survives it, irrevocably changed.
THAT..is what villainy really is. And what makes The Dark Knight stand out and above all Hero movies that came before.