I found most everything about those movies terrible, including Bale. That seems to be an unusual opinion though. I don’t know if it is Bail’s fault, I think it is the philosophical and stylistic choices of the movie over all. The character of batman is as empty and lifeless as one would expect from a paranoid sociopaths wet dream.
I love reading other’s opinions, especially on here!
I loved Keaton’s Batman because, as I said back then, you need to sell me on Batman via Wayne. More than likely, most of the time, it won’t be the main actor in the suit! (More a stunt man or double or something.) So, you need to have a good Bruce Wayne. Keaton did it well. I wouldn’t think his wimpy Wayne could be Batman.
The only scene for me where Keaton’s Wayne was probably too crazy was when he taunted the Joker in Vale’s apartment. The scenes that Gerald II mentions seems more like contemplation and piecing clues together than tortured. That’s me, obviously. Maybe the scene where he refuses to duck as automatic weapons are shooting toward him is also a better look at Wayne’s sanity, or lack of it. He didn’t seem to care if he lived or died but had to get that look at the Joker.
Going into Batman, though, I didn’t like Nicholson as an actor. I have flipped on him over the years, including what I think of him in this movie. I do have to say, though, that he did well enough that I did wonder how well Ledger would do.
What I still don’t like about Burton’s Batman movies, though, are the look and feel of Gotham. Terrible. I much prefer the regular city compared to those sets. Ugh.
Kilmer didn’t work for me at all. Mainly because of the scene when he breaks down the door into the office of the psychologist as Wayne. I guess I have this picture or idea in my head of Wayne doing something by accident, such as “slipping” and pulling down a criminal, than something that overt to show people what he can do.
Clooney . . . I don’t know. Kilmer and Clooney were in movies that were trying to imitate the comics, rather than bring the “realism of the movies” to the comic character like the previous movies did. (Did Batman have a firing mechanism for his rope before Batman the movie? I don’t remember it if he did, compared to throwing his rope by hand, but the device made sense to me out of the comic world.) I’m not even sure the writers or directors were even trying to add in any nuance or darkness to those movies.
What I liked about Batman Begins was again grounding the movie version in reality. By that, I merely mean that his suit is bulletproof, something I think only Dark Knight dealt with prior, he can’t throw a rope as well as he can “shoot” a rope to save himself, his cape is needed to help him glide. I loved the nods to hiding what they are buying for Batman, by buying ten thousand units of something! Little things like that.
If I have a problem with Christian Bale, it’s that he looks too hard, too angular, too athletic to be Bruce Wayne. Keaton still looks more like how I would see Wayne looking. I believed people wouldn’t suspect Keaton’s Wayne of being Batman but Bale has a physicality about him that would seem tough to hide. However, having said that, the reaction of the board members to how he seems not to care about the company and then sleeping at meetings helped pull me back to him as Wayne.
But what I really was shocked by was how well Ledger did. He was small and wiry, as I see the Joker. There was a glee and malice there, and a seeming carefree attitude about his own life that worked so well. I really believed he might pull the cord connected to the grenades, just because someone looked at him weird.
Overall, then, what’s working for me with Nolan’s Batman is treating Batman as existing in something that’s almost our world. Closer than the comic’s world. Joker wasn’t someone who had his skin and hair color changed due to an accident but makeup on a scarred face. Bane doesn’t appear to be a juiced up wrestler. It’s grounding those things more toward reality than the comic book version that I like. I like the mediums to know their medium, know they are different and capitalize on it, not feel like they are being constrained by it.
Wow. That was wordy.
tl;dr - I have liked most of the movie interpretations of Batman/Bruce Wayne even if I can nitpick here and there. I’m certainly looking forward to the next movie in Nolan’s trilogy!
NO. No, no, no. Don’t pawn that shit off on comics. Batman comics were never like either of those movies even at their worst. If those turds have any heritage it is the 60s TV show.
So does Bruce Wayne, in some incarnations.
Yes, that is what I loved about Nolan’s Batman Begins. The way it feels much more like reality than Burton’s Batman.
I think the main reason I like Batman Forever better than the two movies before it was because Batman felt more like Batman. He could jump from rooftops and glide with his cape and all that. In the 2 before it, he looked slow and bumbling. Just to glide from the roof in Returns, he had to pretty much turn into a hang glider like a Transformer. After that, he’s just been able to jump and grab his cape, like in the comics.
Like I say to a friend in work, I tried a growly voice when reading my daughter and you just can’t keep it going. If I can’t do it reading a book, no way Wayne can do it running around roof tops while weighed down with body armour.
You simply didn’t prepare enough. Thank god you didn’t try to run across the roof.
I lot of this stuff is pretty serious nitpicking. Bale’s voice… who cares? Seriously.
I get very bored very fast when comparing a film to the source material, especially when that material is a comic book. The movies on their own are perfectly reasonable without needing to compare them to other Batman films or comics. Speaking purely in terms of the film, Bale did great as Batman and Bruce Wayne and I like these films way, way more than Tim Burton’s Batman. In fact, I really think Burton is kind of a tool and his late-80s goth Batman was really just a bit annoying. Keaton did a good job as Bruce Wayne–maybe more interesting than Bale’s. But compared to what? These are very different movies with very different settings and very different ideologies. Bale far (far, far, far, far) from ruins or undermines the enjoyment of these movies.