Darkman - That Vengeance Crazed Guy You Don't Wanna Mess With!

Darkman himself is not your typical superhero. I remembered being berated and asked which superhero wanted revenge as their motive. They say none but think about it that Conan the Barbarian wanted revenge on Thulsa Doom in the hit 1982 film. Darkman himself wants revenge on Robert G. Durant (his personal rival) and the latter's employer Louis Strack Jr. for ruining his life's work. What I thought about Darkman is how he deviates away from typical heroism since he's in an R18 movie. Conan grew up in a life of slavery. Darkman's normal life was taken away from him causing him to go from mild-mannered Peyton Westlake into his dark alter-ego known as the Darkman.

Strack and Durant are both bullies one can relate in real life. Strack thinks that he can get away with everything he does because he's not just rich but he's really super-rich. Durant forms dirty alliances with rich people (such as Strack) and uses thug force brutality to get what he wants. Many of Durant's victims die because they refuse to do what Durant wants in both the first movie and the sequel. Both of them can be considered spoiled brats who just want their way. Darkman becomes the victim of such people. He loses his livelihood as a scientist with a noble cause all because Strack wants that incriminating document (which was only expanded in Marvel's pseudo-sequel that had Durant return as a cyborg). Peyton saw his very life fall before his eyes and surprisingly survives such a life-threatening explosion. Like, how did he even survive that? No real man can survive that kind of set-up! In TV Tropes - it's term as "No One Should Survive That!" which was also applicable to Durant himself.

Darkman's entire mission in the film is more of his personal vendetta than protecting the public. However, he doesn't compromise others just so he could get his vendetta fulfilled. Instead, he meticulously plans to get rid of them such as when he framed Pauly, caused Rick's to fly off (which wasn't shown and maybe it's good it wasn't), or should I mention how he finally decided to drop off Strack from the VERY TOP of a skyscraper construction? Strack must have been reading too many comic books when he said, "I know it's not in you!" before he died. I kinda wanted to laugh when Strack finally fell off to his doom. Why we don't get a shot of Strack's body after his fall which may have been deleted due to time constraints.

The second movie does stack in a lot of hate issues. Darkman doesn't want to stop until Durant is practically dead. How Durant survived being blown up in a helicopter is just funny. But again, remember that Darkman was literally cannonballed into a very LONG DISTANCE and still lived to tell about it? I wish the second film made an explanation or two, turned Durant into a cyborg, in order to explain his return like the 1993 Darkman mini-series by Marvel Comics. The whole motive of Darkman in the second movie is to finish the guy who personally ruined him once and for all. He ain't interested to do it legally - he's more interested in vigilante justice in the way he destroyed Durant eventually. Though this time, Durant does die for good in an explosion which makes you bonkers all the more considering the first movie's events. Durant's head should've flown off instead to prove him dead.

The third movie was the final one. It was moving on with Darkman dealing with a new enemy named Peter Rooker. It wasn't really that good of a film but it did show Darkman's possible return to humanity. He even sacrificed his own creation to save a burned victim rather than his own. Although he could be selfish - he still thinks of others especially when he tried to justify his reason for killing Durant. He's not willing to take others down even if he does take the law into his hands making him a very interesting anti-hero.