Image Credit: Everett CollectionChristopher Nolan’s third Batman movie has a title: The Dark Knight Rises. But who will be the villain? The speculation has already begun. Geoff Boucher of The Los Angeles Times — who reports that The Riddler and Mr. Freeze are both out of the running — is promoting the theory that Two-Face (played by Aaron Eckhart in The Dark Knight) will return to terrorize Batman and all of Gotham City with his hideous visage. Amid reports that Nolan has been auditioning actresses for an unspecified role, there’s been much speculation that Catwoman or Poison Ivy will figure into the mix, not only as foil but also as love interest to the now single Bruce Wayne. (Tweeted Paul Dini, the screenwriter and comic book scribe: “The Dark Knight Rises. If the villain does turn out to be Catwoman, I can hear the snickering already.”)

Of course, I have my own potential enemies list for what’s likely to be the final Nolan/Christian Bale Batman movie. (Not that I want it to be their last team-up. I’m just guessing they’re aspiring to — or will be content with — a thematically-tidy trilogy.) My choices flow out of my musings on The Dark Knight’s memorably unsettling cliffhanger … an ending that set up the Batman himself as the villain of his next cinematic adventure.

Let’s recap. If you recall, The Joker’s rampage of chaos and murder had scarred both the face and soul of Gotham City’s crusading district attorney, Harvey Dent (Eckhart). No longer capable of believing in his idealism, Dent pursued bloody vengeance against lawmen and lawbreakers alike, ceding his moral choices to a mere flip of a coin. Batman — whose quest to save Gotham City from crime and corruption is as much a culture war as it is a back-alley battle with thugs — couldn’t allow the public to lose faith in the values embodied by the inspiring “White Knight” DA. So he made a rather radical sacrifice: He took the blame for all the murders that Harvey Dent committed during his cynical day as Two-Face so that Gotham could continue believing in the good man he once was. Over the objections of his policeman ally, Jim Gordon, Batman redefined his symbolic meaning: Goodbye bat ears, hello scapegoat horns. “I’m whatever Gotham needs me to be,” Batman growled before riding into the night, a lawless villain on the run — a “dark knight.” Batman’s voiceover: You’ll hunt me. You’ll condemn me. Set the dogs on me. Because that’s what needs to happen. Because sometimes the truth isn’t good enough. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded.

Heavy. So heavy that I’m going to spend the next two paragraphs being really pretentious and ponderous about it. READ FULL STORY »