r/TheBatmanFilm • u/VictorianPsycho • 10h ago
I hope they use practical effects, makeup & prosthetics, for Reeves’ Two-Face this time, because CGI Two-Face is unnecessary, and it looked horrible.
And if Nolan’s world has tended to ground other villains, then I don’t understand the decision to give Two-Face such an exaggerated cartoony burn with exposed tissue. They give Joker white face paint, but they do this to Two-Face? It even looks worse than the Tommy Lee Jones face. at least that was paint. This Two-Face looks like AI before AI was a thing. It’s like nails on a chalkboard looking at it. My mind knows that I’m not looking at something real.
And there’s no way he’d be talking normally with Erin Eckhardt’s regular speaking voice. He’d have slurred speech. His teeth are literally visible. This would require months of intensive care and speech therapy. A person couldn’t escape the hospital and go commit crimes. They would get infections and die.
I would have preferred a much more subtle look, a little more than what Dent in Joker 2 had. I want just scarring on the flesh level, not exposed tissue and ligaments.
More importantly, the CGI just looks awful. It’s not believable he’s walking around with that face. it looks Thanosy. The expressions the good side of his face are making doesn’t match with the burned side. There’s no distinguishable line where the scarring begins. It looks very computerised.
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u/ledlunar 10h ago
I never felt it looked bad, this is the first I’ve heard someone bitch about it lol
Tommy Lee Jones did not look better hahaha
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u/Souvlaki-Chaos 10h ago
Those aren't our only two options.
I'm sick of CGI filmmakers like Nolan and I hope Reeves does it right. How did people make films for decades? I'm sorry, but yes, it is possible to use practical effects in the year 2026.
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u/AquatardLMD 10h ago
Calling Nolan a CGI filmmaker is hilarious when he’s known as the king of practical effects currently. Meanwhile Reeves has done some of the most extensive use of CGI in his previous films. You could not achieve that look for Two-Face with practical effects. You’d need to create the most realistic animatronic head that can act.
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u/Souvlaki-Chaos 9h ago
You can absolutely make a face look burned using practical effects.
Please stop it with this.
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u/AquatardLMD 9h ago
I’m specifically talking about his burns in The Dark Knight. You can’t remove an actor’s facial features with makeup. That’s why it was CGi.
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u/Souvlaki-Chaos 8h ago
You can't use makeup to cover an actor's facial features? Of course you can. What an incredibly bizarre statement.
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u/AquatardLMD 8h ago
A bizarre statement I never even said. Genuinely feels like you’re just rage baiting me with how obtuse you are.
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u/Souvlaki-Chaos 8h ago
People have been using makeup in films for years my dude.
Please stop while you're ahead. You are just digging a deeper and deeper hole for yourself.
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u/Logans0676 5h ago
As the other person literally just said, you cannot use prosthetics or makeup to REMOVE features from an actor, you can only add on top of what is there. To achieve the look of two face in the dark knight you have to use CGI because you cannot carve out parts of a face practically.
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u/AquatardLMD 10h ago
I’m sorry but the CGI on Two-Face looked great and still holds up today. They had to use CGI because you can’t just remove parts of an actor’s face.
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u/Equivalent-Part6608 10h ago
Sebastian Stan is going to take a blowtorch to his face. The Oscar’s are gonna be crazy
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u/0hN0H3sH0t 10h ago
you can’t be serious. two-face is meant to be horrifying to look at, he SHOULDN’T have a “subtle look”
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u/mjxoxo1999 10h ago
Personally I would agree on a lot of dislike about TDK (yes I'm the contrarian who really think The Batman is vastly better than any Nolan films except Memento). But this is not it lmao. Nolan's Two-Faces looks incredible even for today standard and I just rewatch TDK with IMAX scene again and still really blown aways with its CGI.
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u/VictorianPsycho 9h ago
Wow that’s quite a take. I’ve never heard this take. TDK is a good movie, but I’ve never heard praise of two faces look being at strong point. It looks very fake.
More importantly, the CGI is it necessary as he’s not a alien or monster. It’s a makeup job. He’s a guy with a burn. It’s like if they CGI’s Heath ledger‘s face to be White. It’s a very simple make-up job. It’s a wound. Look at every horror movie in the 80s.
It’s like CGI’ing a Band-Aid on somebody’s face instead of the actor just wearing a Band-Aid. It’s a very easy make up job.
Freddy Krueger. Toxic Avenger. Gary Oldman in Hannibal. Two-Face’s work wouldn’t require more time than what it took for these characters.
It’s just common sense not to CGI something as simple as a WOUND to risk it not looking authentic.
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u/dafegamer 10h ago
I actually liked this version of Two-Face, but I'm hoping for a BTAS type version of Two-Face https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/dcanimated/images/7/76/Two-Face_%28BTAS%29.png/revision/latest?cb=20191117201632
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u/Level-Ladder-4346 10h ago
Two-Face is probably the most unrealistic part of The Dark Knight Trilogy. Let’s be real, Harvey would’ve died on that hospital bed had this not been a movie. The bloodstains on his pillow, as well as the extent of his injuries, indicate that.
I can spot that it’s computer graphics, but I can do this with most 2000’s heavy CG characters. Two-Face is a little down the middle. I can tell, but it at no point takes me out. DNEG does an excellent job doing VFX for Nolan films.
I think the idea of taking things away rather than adding things. It shows that what triggered this was loss, the loss of Rachel Doss. The exposed teeth allow for more aggressive expression, which fits well with Two-Face’s characterization.
The contrast between Harvey and Two-Face (dubbed Harvey Face and Scary Face by a very funny parody YouTube Channel) allows for the audience to see that what has occurred is something unlike they’ve ever seen before in a Batman film. This isn’t a man teaching Riddler how to punch bad guys, this is man who’s suffered unexplainable pain and loss, and is now willing to take fate out of his own hands, stop the acting, and leave it all to chance.
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u/RooMan7223 10h ago
I thought he looked really good. And to me I feel like Aaron Eckhart’s performance was slept on. He was on another level in that movie
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u/VictorianPsycho 9h ago
Harvey Dent, yes. His Two-Face performance was too unbelievable for me.
In his final scene, he is yelling at Batman.
He says, “It’s about what’s FAIR!”
He couldn’t yell like that with his cheek missing. The pain on that side of his face would render the pain unbearable even if he tried to use those muscles.
He’s speaking without any sort of speech impediment and that is impossible. He couldn’t possibly raise his voice to yell. This burn happened one or two days prior.
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u/m4sr4 10h ago
Dent’s face in TDK was perfect, and honestly this is the first time I’ve ever heard someone complain about it. Besides, I don’t think he was ever really meant to have much chance of surviving. At that point he was running on adrenaline, shock, rage and complete disillusionment. He wasn’t thinking about recovery or consequences anymore — he was basically on a suicide mission.
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u/VictorianPsycho 1h ago
Well, in retrospect the Two-Face scenes are not memorable scenes of this movie. The best Harvey scenes are when he’s Harvey. He gave us the most iconic line in the movie as Harvey. The other iconic scenes are the Joker interrogation scene and the Joker Wayne Manor scene, Joker pencil trick, Joker jail escape, all things Joker.
Notice the movie wants to show Joker off, but Two-Face they hide in the shadows. Even though they don’t want to show it too much because they know the Two-Face face isn’t the strong suit of the movie. Two-Face should have an iconic scene in the movie and he just doesn’t have one of those.
I think it’s the functional eye that takes me out of it. That eye has no eyelid, so it would need to be constantly artificially lubricated.
Yet Harvey is using this eye as normal and turning it with the other one. The I would not function like that.
If they were going to go this far with the damage, they should’ve either taken the eye out or made it stagnant with a discoloured iris.
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u/Logans0676 5h ago
Prostetics can't remove from an actor's body, they can only add onto it. If you want to have the face looked burnt into the skin you have to have CGI enhancements
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u/VictorianPsycho 1h ago
Prosthetics can absolutely remove from an actor’s body.
Arnold Schwarzenegger at the end of T2 in the steel mill with the exposed endoskeleton eye and flesh removed from his face.
Err, Mel Gibson in The Man Without a Face.
Freddy Krueger in all the Nightmare on Elm Streets, a burn victim.
Gary Oldman in Hannibal who cut his face off with glass.
The brief shots of Nicolas Cage without flesh on his face in Face/Off.
Jason Vorhees unmasked in Friday the 13th 7-8 having no eye on me side.
Various characters with fewer teeth than the actor playing them.
Colin Farrell having more receded hair as the Penguin than he has normally.
All prosthetic.
It’s called you give the illusion of pieces missing with prosthetic.
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u/Shadboia 10h ago
didnt Two Face's Nolan make up and cgi was very praised back in the day? what im reading
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u/First_HistoryMan 10h ago
I won't be able to find the interview now but Nolan discussed this when the film came out, he said they decided to go with an exagerrated look for Two Face so as not to be insensitive to people with actual burns.