When it was announced that Heath Ledger had been cast as The Joker for the upcoming Batman movie, it caught a LOT of people off guard. Most people (like me) didn’t love or hate the selection. Most of us had a “guarded optimism”. After all, Ledger has shown that from time to time he is capable of knocking it out of the park (Brokeback Mountain), but sometimes he can also just suck (Knight’s Tale). He’s hit and miss… but when he hits… there’s no denying it can be something special.
Recently, our friends over at MTV sat down with Michael Caine. When the topic of the next Batman movie came up, one of the great actors of our time had this to say of Ledger’s performance as The Joker:
Caine said, “I’ll tell you who it’s about. It’s about Heath Ledger as The Joker. He will be the talking point of the next Batman.” So will he be scarier than say Scarecrow or Two-Face? Yes indeed, Caine said, calling Ledger’s turn, “one of the scariest performances I’ve ever seen.”
Now granted, Caine is an actor talking about an upcoming movie of his, so you know he’s supposed to say great glowing things… so take it with a grain of salt… but still… when an actor the calibre of Michael Caine says something like that… it can’t be anything but good news.
So what do you think? Could Ledger’s Joker performance make us forget about Jack?
