If Fanon Discontinuity applies in connection to the sequel, seeing Darkman force Durant to crash and blow up in his helicopter is a cool, satisfying moment.
Darkman dropping Strack to his death also counts with how he's so confident he'll be alright only for it to totally turn on him moments later.
Complete Monster: Robert G. Durant is a Psycho for Hire-turned-crime boss who is introduced having a potential obstacle's entire outfit executed before he tortures the boss by chopping off all his fingers with a cigar cutter. Later, on behalf of Louis Strack Jr., Durant attacks Dr. Peyton Westlake in his lab, setting him on fire, killing his lab assistant and ruining his life by turning him into the titular Anti-Hero Darkman. Durant thinks nothing of betraying and killing allies—not even when he learns Darkman tricked him—and when he returns in the second film, he shows himself as even nastier than before. He hires crazed scientist Dr. Alfred Hathaway to build a high-powered laser weapon to mass produce to anyone who can afford it; has scientist Dr. David Brinkman beaten and murdered in order to steal his lab; and has David's sister Laurie threatened to get to Westlake when he discovers his archrival Darkman's return. Durant also has reporter Jill Randall killed for bringing his activities to light and showing an unflattering picture of him.
Ho Yay: Between Peyton and David in the second film.
Iron Woobie: Peyton evolves into this after becoming Darkman.
Magnificent Bastard: Dr. Peyton Westlake is a scientist who makes a breakthrough on his synthetic skin research before being tortured and left to die by the psychopathic hitman Robert G. Durant. Treated with an experimental procedure, Peyton becomes a superhuman with super-strength and immunity to pain, while struggling with a tug on his sanity. Consumed with vengeance, he takes the mantle "Darkman" and hunts for the men responsible for his injuries, systematically taking out Durant's goons, fueling Durant's paranoia, and succeeding in killing him. When his foe returns from death, Peyton continues his fight against Durant, taking down a weapons deal brokered by him, and ultimately kills him by using a remote control bomb. Using drug kingpin Peter Rooker's funds to improve his skin research, Peyton devotes himself to taking down Rooker after Rooker produces a drug made from Peyton's adrenal gland fluids. Peyton eventually kills his foe and manages to save Rooker's daughter Jenny from being scarred from natural gas by sacrificing his only batch of perfective synthetic skin. Although he sees himself as a monster, Peyton seeks to help the downtrodden and punish evil whatever the cost may be.
Narm Charm: Sam Raimi's always had a talent for cultivating this, and any Narm-y scene can be laugh-out-loud funny and still not lose much, if any, of their dramatic impact.
The carnival scene, due to its Creepy Circus Music and jarring, almost Jump Scare-y cuts to extreme close ups on creepy clown statues and a Laffing Sal while Peyton is reaching his Rage Breaking Point.
Darkman/Peyton himself is this. Yes, he's the main hero, but he's extremely vicious and shows some sadistic tendencies. Not to mention how he looks under the bandages...
Older Than They Think: Starting with this movie Liam Neeson had been playing brutal anti-heroes before he was known for his action role status in movies like Taken.
The film contains several very poorly-executed green screen and matte painting effects.
When Ricky is lifted up through the manhole, a lot of shots use what's quite obviously a barely-mobile stunt dummy.
Spiritual Licensee: To some hardcore WWII comics fans, this film and the sequels would be the closest thing to a film adaptation of the DC war hero the Unknown Soldier, except the action would shift from the Second World War to The '90s and The Hero was a generic crime fighter rather then a U.S. military soldier.
Spiritual Successor: To RoboCop. Darkman also features a corporateVisionary VillainBig Bad whose Dragon is a ruthless criminal with a Quirky Miniboss Squad at his service, and a protagonist who is brutally left for dead by them and seeks revenge after his body is subjected to non-consensual experiments that turn him into a superhero at the bittersweet cost of having to abandon his former life.
Darkman. Peyton Westlake was an aspiring man of science working on a synthetic skin that can help those with scarred body parts, who gets his life ruined for being in the wrong place at the wrong time by the hands of a deranged criminal gang that sadistically mutilate and leave him to die in an explosion, ending up scarred on the inside and out into a Mood-SwingerAnti-Hero.
Julie. She partially feels responsible for Peyton's demise due to her leaving the Belisarius Memorandum in his lab (even though in the end none of this would've happened if Strack wasn't a soulless businessman who resorts to murder to get what he wants) and in the ending despite her Undying Loyalty to Peyton claiming that she still loves him and can make it work, he insist that he's far off into the He Who Fights Monsters deep end and disappears into the crowd.
Louis Strack Jr. is the conscienceless CEO of Strack Industries and is ultimately the man behind Dr. Peyton Westlake's mutilation and transformation into Darkman. Strack is the one paying Robert G. Durant to torture and slaughter his way through anyone who refuses to acquiesce to his corporate takeover of the city, from the mob outfit in the opening to Peyton and his innocent assistant. Strack has no compunction using Peyton's Love Interest as a hostage after having dated her himself; in the same scene, he reveals he arranged for his first wife to die in a plane crash. In a storyline excised from the film, Strack resolves his differences with his own father by paying Durant to murder him.
Sam Rogers, aka Smiley, is a far cry from his film counterpart. Smiley, as a teenager, killed many neighborhood animals and his baby sister Sarah, often digging a hole in the ground and sticking the victim's head in, watching them suffocate with a sick grin. Smiley would eventually join the ranks of Robert G. Durant, engaging in violence for the hell of it. He contributes to the torture of Peyton Westlake, a doctor perfecting synthetic skin, and helps set up Westlake's lab to explode. Unaware of Westlake's survival as the Master of Disguise vigilante Darkman, Durant's gang is symmetrically taken out. Smiley assaults Darkman's warehouse laboratory with Durant; kills his cohort Rudy Guzman, thinking it was Westlake; and is beaten and left to die with Peyton's laboratory rigged to explode. More than eager to follow Durant's orders, Smiley's penchant for violence, his willingness to shoot anything that moves, fulfills his own sick, twisted pleasures.
Nausea Fuel: At the end of The Price of Fear, the novel's secondary villain, Alfred Lowell, sets Julie on fire in front of Darkman. Darkman responds by ramming his hand through Alfred's throat and out the back of his neck before pulling his arm back out, ripping Alfred's flopping head off, and bearhugging his body while aiming his neck at Julie so that all of the blood that gets violently squeezed out of the headless corpse will drench and extinguish her in a scene that is simultaneously both disgusting and ridiculously OTT.
1990 comic, written by Ralph Macchio (not that one): Louis Strack Jr. is the conscienceless CEO of Strack Industries and is ultimately the man behind Dr. Peyton Westlake's mutilation and transformation into Darkman. Strack is the one paying Robert G. Durant to torture and slaughter his way through anyone who refuses to acquiesce to his corporate takeover of the city, from the mob outfit in the opening to Peyton and his innocent assistant. Strack has no compunction using Peyton's Love Interest as a hostage after having dated her himself; in the same scene, he reveals he arranged for his first wife to die in a plane crash. In a storyline excised from the film, Strack resolves his differences with his own father by paying Durant to murder him.
Sanford Lowell is the police commissioner and the former chairman of the Metropolitan Club. In actuality, Sanford is revealed to be a Serial Killer known as Matthew Hopkins, aka "The Witchfinder", who preys on the homeless and has them burned at the stake, or kidnaps them so he can torture them in his personal chamber. Having done so to an innocent woman known as Grey Bess, Sanford later drugs Darkman and torments him within his torture chamber.
Claude Bellasarious is a member of the Metropolitan Club before betraying Sanford Lowell and having him commit suicide. Becoming the new head of the Club, Claude has a Mad Scientist resurrect the infamous Robert G. Durant with the intent of having him kill Darkman to secure his power. Once Claude learns Darkman has survived his battle with Durant, Claude orders Durant to destroy a village of homeless people in order to find and finish Darkman, resulting with Durant and his men planning to leave no survivors.
Robert G. Durant comes back from the dead as a cyborg after his first demise in the first movie. Durant reveals himself to the Metropolitan Club members and fellow criminals, ripping a man's arms off for making fun of his new body while openly stating his new hobby of collecting people's arms. Durant later kidnaps Darkman's Love Interest and plans to tear her to shreds while he makes Darkman watch purely to hurt him. After breaking Darkman's ribs, he and his men raid a small village of homeless people to find and kill Darkman, ordering his goons to leave no one alive and burn the place to the ground.
Video Game
The Problem with Licensed Games: Bad controls, bad graphics, bad mechanics (the quality of the pictures you take affects how long the masks you make last, rather than how well they fool people), silly levels (a circus level), and A Winner Is You ending. At least the soundtrack was amazing.
. Would you expect anything less from Danny Elfman?