The Dark Knight Is Eckhart's Two-Face as good as Richard Moll's?

[Hordakfan]

You remember Richard Moll who played Bull on NightCourt and Big-Ben in 1986's movie "House"? i think he did better than Eckhart as Moll's version was more tragic and more evil while Eckhart seemed like a likable Two-Face.

 

[DACrowe]

Who is Richard Moll and when did he play Two-Face?

EDIT: TAS Guy?

Eckhart's Two-Face is really a tragic hero and not a villain. You're supposed to like him. His fall from grace is the backbone of the movie and it ends with him dying right after he turns. It's kind of The Long Halloween with a definitive ending, which I appreciate. He works better as a singular tragic character than a villain who comes back again and again, thereby numbing the reader/audience to his tragedy and making him just a bit more generic.

As for Moll in TAS, he was tragic in his first appearance, but was kind of dull after that. More faithful to the comics, but I prefer TLH-influenced TDK's take on the character.

 

[Blitzkrieg Bop]

Eckhart wins

 

[Hordakfan]

Anyone watched Night Court?

 

[Team Andino]

Anyone watched Night Court?

Of course, everyone is still talking about it in the Night Court thread.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I like Two Face the seemingly perfect guy who secretly has a ruthless, dominant personality that he suppresses until the mob pushes him too far then he lets it loose into the world.

We all have a Big Harvey hidden inside that we repress to have normal lives so I think it's a far more interesting version than Harvey Dent becoming an angry, rage-a-holic with no history of an evil, dual personality.

Harvey should have two distinct dual personalities. His physical scars and personal loses causes the wrong personality to take control, something we all must resist to some extent. The message should be even the most perfect citizen has a darker nature waiting to come out from the shadows. Nolan's Two Face isn't as psychologically complex. He just becomes angry and violent after his girl is murdered. Big whoop, there's more to Two Face than that.

 

[Crazy Quilt]

I like Two Face the seemingly perfect guy who secretly has a ruthless, dominant personality that he suppresses until the mob pushes him too far then he lets it loose into the world.

We all have a Big Harvey hidden inside that we repress to have normal lives so I think it's a far more interesting version than Harvey Dent becoming an angry, rage-a-holic with no history of an evil, dual personality.

Harvey should have two distinct dual personalities. His physical scars and personal loses causes the wrong personality to take control, something we all must resist to some extent. The message should be even the most perfect citizen has a darker nature waiting to come out from the shadows. Nolan's Two Face isn't as psychologically complex. He just becomes angry and violent after his girl is murdered. Big whoop, there's more to Two Face than that.

Although I think Two-Face, as Nolan envisioned him, was very well done and emotionally poignant...I have to agree with this. I prefer Two-Face as we know him from the comics and TAS. There was a real difference between that character and Nolan's Two-Face. IMO they weren't faithful to the core of who the character is like they were with all the others(Joker, Scarecrow, Ra's al Ghul) who were all visually different and had certain other differences from their comic counterparts but in the end when it came down to the core of who they were they were the same.

Two-Face in the comics has a real split personality and has underlying psychological problems going back years. Two-Face in TDK basically goes crazy because of what he endures personally as a cost to him from his war on crime. He's not a schizo he's just a tragic, pissed off guy driven into circumstantial delusion.

 

[akfj]

One is a voice performance and one is a physical performance. How are they comparable?

Richard Moll was chosen strictly for his voice. However, Eckhart was not chosen for his voice, but for his look and physical acting. So, all that can be compared between the two is the voice, but the voice is not the centerpiece of Eckhart's performance.

Now if you want to compare the writing between the two, then that's a different topic which has nothing to do with Richard Moll and Aaron Eckhart.

 

[KRIM]

Two-Face in the comics has a real split personality and has underlying psychological problems going back years. Two-Face in TDK basically goes crazy because of what he endures personally as a cost to him from his war on crime. He's not a schizo he's just a tragic, pissed off guy driven into circumstantial delusion.

Nolan's Two-Face comes off more as a "pushed to the edge" Dent, rather than the conventional split-persona of a man who is in constant conflict with himself and requires chance (personified by the coin) as a mediator.

There's not much to compare. Nolan took out a core element of Two-Face's schtick, as well as killed him off in short time. He was clearly more interested in the rise and fall of Harvey, rather than delving into what Harvey would become.

 

[Crazy Quilt]

Nolan's Two-Face comes off more as a "pushed to the edge" Dent, rather than the conventional split-persona of a man who is in constant conflict with himself and requires chance (personified by the coin) as a mediator.

There's not much to compare. Nolan took out a core element of Two-Face's schtick, as well as killed him off in short time. He was clearly more interested in the rise and fall of Harvey, rather than delving into what Harvey would become.

 

[Ultra Lantern]

Eckhart is good as Two-Face.

 

[hafizbat]

Two-Face wasn't even in TDK...that was an angry Harvey Dent who offed a few people. Is it just me or have we not ever seen Two-Face done "justice" anywhere besides the animated series. TDK's Dent was well used, but still not the Two-Face we deserve, and even the new Arkham City severely underused him. It's such a pity, seeing as he has the potential to be Batman's second greatest villain.

 

[Bathead]

Agreed.

 

[Elevator Man]

I agree with a lot of the negative comments about Nolan's Two-face. Though I thought Eckhart gave it his all and gave a strong performance. But his Two-Face was basically a disfigured Paul kersey (from the Death Wish movies). It was Two face begins. And unfortunately it ended before even began.

 

[El Payaso]

Two-Face wasn't even in TDK...that was an angry Harvey Dent who offed a few people. Is it just me or have we not ever seen Two-Face done "justice" anywhere besides the animated series. TDK's Dent was well used, but still not the Two-Face we deserve, and even the new Arkham City severely underused him. It's such a pity, seeing as he has the potential to be Batman's second greatest villain.

Well we never had Joker either, just a terrorist in make-up.

 

[The Joker]

Who is Richard Moll and when did he play Two-Face?

EDIT: TAS Guy?

Eckhart's Two-Face is really a tragic hero and not a villain. You're supposed to like him. His fall from grace is the backbone of the movie and it ends with him dying right after he turns. It's kind of The Long Halloween with a definitive ending, which I appreciate. He works better as a singular tragic character than a villain who comes back again and again, thereby numbing the reader/audience to his tragedy and making him just a bit more generic.

As for Moll in TAS, he was tragic in his first appearance, but was kind of dull after that. More faithful to the comics, but I prefer TLH-influenced TDK's take on the character.

Ditto

The best BTAS episodes for Two Face were the tragic ones, namely Two Face part 1 and 2, and Second Chance.

Well we never had Joker either, just a terrorist in make-up.

http://jokerfans.blogspot.com/2011/03/heath-ledgers-joker-comic-book-to-movie.html

 

[Fudgie]

He was brilliant. My favorite Two Face.

 

[Brother Jack]

Two-Face in the comics has a real split personality and has underlying psychological problems going back years. Two-Face in TDK basically goes crazy because of what he endures personally as a cost to him from his war on crime. He's not a schizo he's just a tragic, pissed off guy driven into circumstantial delusion.

This is not totally accurate. Yes, Dent's backstory isn't really touched upon or any mental illnesses he may have had prior to the scarring, but Harvey was shown as a volatile and an intensely driven individual beforehand. We have him punching out witnesses in court, shrugging of an attempted murder, essentially laughing in the face of Maroni, taking on the entire mob with a tumultuous alliance with Gordon, and violently and illegally interrogating one of Joker's men. This man was a white knight to Gotham but he was far from perfect, which is why he ultimately folded when things got really bad. His ideological/mental shift after the scarring shouldn't go unnoticed either; he went from being a man strictly devoted to the law to only believing in pure chance and insane enough to try to attain a semblance of fairness with his killing spree. The reliance on chance and fairness is, to me, more important to the character than him having a dissociative disorder and referring to himself in plural form.

 

[Hordakfan]

Anyone remember the 1986 movie "House" with George Wendt from Cheers and William Katt from Carrie and Greatest American Hero? Moll was awesome as the zombie soldier Big-Ben and who else thought Moll's Two-Face sounded like his character from that movie?

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I think Harvey failing to be the honest protector because the monster he surpressed since childhood is much better suited for Gotham City is more tragic and interesting than a noble guy who becomes an angry maniac because his girlfriend is killed.

The coin loses it's meaning without the seperate personalities. The seperate personalities represent everyone's capacity to make good and evil decisions. Without two personalities it's just a pissed off guy with a coin.

We see Harvey turn to evil but it isn't clear it's because he had evil inside of him all along waiting to get out (like all of us including Batman). He just turned evil because he's angry.

Weak.

 

[CapedCrusader14]

I think the whole Thomas Schiff scene showed that he wasn't exactly all there in the head. He was not himself in that scene, as well as using the coin to make a decision even then.

I do agree in many aspects about the complaints, I honestly enjoyed Harvey's portrayal in this over many other portrayals in the past.

 

[El Payaso]

http://jokerfans.blogspot.com/2011/03/heath-ledgers-joker-comic-book-to-movie.html

You know, I was being sarcastic. I think I might have lost my powers.

 

[Nevincer]

You know, I was being sarcastic. I think I might have lost my powers.

 

[kedrell]

I think the whole Thomas Schiff scene showed that he wasn't exactly all there in the head. He was not himself in that scene, as well as using the coin to make a decision even then.

I do agree in many aspects about the complaints, I honestly enjoyed Harvey's portrayal in this over many other portrayals in the past.

But he was really never out of control there. That was a pure bluff on Dent's part since he knew it was a two-headed coin.

Being angry and having a bit of a temper =/= having a screwed up psychological/mental condition.

It's one of the reasons I was never able to buy his change in the movie. It happened because...well it was supposed to happen and for no other discernible reason. It didn't happen because it organically made sense. If he had a pre-existing mental instability then things would've been different.

 

[CapedCrusader14]

But he was really never out of control there. That was a pure bluff on Dent's part since he knew it was a two-headed coin.

Being angry and having a bit of a temper =/= having a screwed up psychological/mental condition.

It's one of the reasons I was never able to buy his change in the movie. It happened because...well it was supposed to happen and for no other discernible reason. It didn't happen because it organically made sense. If he had a pre-existing mental instability then things would've been different.

Fair enough. I can agree with you on that.

I do feel though that he, like Bruce, was having his limits tested by his work in the film.

I still enjoy Harvey in the film regardless.