The top villain is Joker

2008-09-03 14:10

Jill Serjeant

Los Angeles - Heath Ledger's chilling portrayal of the Joker in Batman blockbuster The Dark Knight easily surpassed rivals to be named the summer's best movie villain in a poll released on Wednesday.

Australian actor Ledger, 28, who died of an accidental drug overdose six months before the July release of The Dark Knight, won 95% of votes in a poll by AOL's Moviefone.com Web site.

The Batman sequel, which has taken $505m at the US and Canadian box office alone, also won every category in which it was nominated for the end of summer season poll, including best sequel, best superhero movie, best action sequence and "movie most worth your cash".

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had all the hype going into the summer but when people saw The Dark Knight, they really responded in Titanic-like proportions," said Moviefone editor Scott Robson.

Indiana Jones - the much-anticipated fourth movie in the lucrative franchise - got only 5% of votes for best movie in the Moviefone end of summer movie poll. The poll got a total of 646 917 online votes.

Success for Robert Downey jnr

Sex and the City edged out Mamma Mia as best chick flick, while Tropic Thunder beat Pineapple Express 32% to 24% as the funniest comedy.

Summer was no fun, however, for comic actors Eddie Murphy and Mike Myers.

Murphy's Meet Dave came top of the "least worth your cash" category with 33% of votes, closely followed by Myers' vehicle, The Love Guru.

"When you think what these guys were 10 years ago and you look at these two movies, you feel like the wheels have come off their careers," said Robson.

It was the opposite story for Robert Downey jnr, who hit a career rock bottom in the early 2000s because of drug addiction.

The actor won the "hottest summer leading man" and "best combined performance" category in the poll for his back-to-back roles as the superhero in Iron Man and for playing a black actor in Tropic Thunder.

"It shows that film fans can be a very forgiving lot as long as you put something great on screen," Robson said.

- Reuters