Men in suits

In the 1997 turkey Batman and Robin, there’s a hilarious conversation between George Clooney’s bemused Batman and Uma Thurman’s Mae West Poison Ivy. Looking at Batman’s rubber nipples, Ivy says: “There’s just something about an anatomically correct rubber suit that puts fire in a girl’s lips.” To which Batman despairingly replies: “Why is it that all the beautiful ones are homicidal maniacs? Is it me?” Well, in that case, it, indeed, was him. By then, the fourth movie of the original series, Batman had been reduced to a suit, all gleaming rubber pectorals and infamous nipples, destined to carry on as if in a fetish club where the suit matters more than the man in it. The other characters were little more than caricatures, going through the motions in a never-ending series of blockbuster explosions and empty bluster. So refreshing that two of the best superhero movies of 2008, Iron Man and The Dark Knight, are as much about the men as the suits they wear while saving the world.

Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark, the billionaire playboy arms manufacturer turned superhero and peacenik Iron Man, is fascinating because of his quirkiness. Fashioned after Howard Hughes, Stark loves the high life and lunches with the hawks, turning out new cluster bombs that can decimate mountains. Wounded and captured by an unintentionally hilarious villainous Afghan warlord, he relies on his ingenuity to fashion a metal suit which he uses to decimate the hideout and escape. Stunned by the proliferation of his weapons of massive destruction, he vows to lay off making weapons and instead gives himself over to crime-fighting. Downey plays Stark with wit and immense charm. Here’s an arrogant man who you might not like, but he draws you in with his nonstop banter and moments of quiet, when his haunted eyes reveal more depth than you’d bargain for in a superhero movie. In a departure from formula, he doesn’t fight some shadowy corporation, or archsupervillain, but his own contradictions.

Christopher Nolan’s superb Dark Knight carries on from the dark noir tones of the first movie of the new series, Batman Begins. Christian Bale’s brooding Bruce Wayne/Batman is still fighting crime with an intensity bordering on the psychotic. But there’s new game in town. The first is District Attorney Harvey Dent, played with a straight bat by Aaron Eckhardt, a man of such conviction, charm and humility that you just know something bad is going to happen to him. The second is the bona fide psychopath The Joker, played brilliantly by the late Heath Ledger, a scheming, sophisticated and scary monster with peeling face paint who is not only evil, but also capable of bringing out the worst in his enemies.

If Downey’s Stark trades on charm, Bale’s Batman is a violent masochist who eagerly breaks the law to achieve his ends. What the two have in common is charisma. If Stark embodies the primal urge of a human being—no matter how wealthy—to be truly free, Bruce Wayne is like a black hole, helping create new villains in his image even after he vanquishes the old ones. But neither is prone to putting rubber nipples on their suits for kicks.

—Note: Both Iron Man and The Dark Knight DVDs are available from BIG Music and Video. Price: Rs 599 each.

Two books
That inspired the superhero new wave

The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
Much of Christopher Nolan’s inspiration comes from this masterpiece. Appearing as a mini-series in 1986, this dark tale about an aging Batman coming out of retirement in a world haunted by nuclear devastation ensured that Batman would never be seen as a simplistic good guy.

Watchmen by Alan Moore
A peerless deconstruction of the superhero concept, it heralded Moore’s genius. Another tale of the existential anxieties that can beset even the most powerful of heroes, it’s a modern classic. The movie is out this year.