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http://movies.msn.com/movies/article.aspx?news=685886

I'm rejoicing, he was awful as the caped crusader.

Thank goodness.  I don't think I've ever seen an actor fail so hard at a role before.  It really says something that, in a movie so utterly dreadful as Batman Begins, he still stood out as the worst thing about it.  His turns as Batman were barely up to the standard of "middle aged dentist doing community theater on a lark".  Awful, just awful.

Wow.  Again, I am in the minority.  He was far and away the best since Keaton, maybe better.  I'll miss him in the franchise.

Oh well, maybe they'll go back to Val Kilmer, right? :lookingup: :teddyr: :tongueout:

Bale is awful.

Hes a bland Batman with a bland (stylisticly) director.

He's Batman, his main superpower is he's BATMAN! That means he has to be awesome with an awesome batsui that loos incredible. And he doesnt. He has a silly voice and some body armour (especiall in TDK) that does look terribly super.

His Bruce Wayne has as much charm as a carrot.

Keaton both looked and sounded like Btaman. And he had the start of a mullet in the first one!

Well duh.  The series is coming to a close, so he is obviously done.

I think he has been good in this series as Bruce Wayne.  To me, he nails this playboy and millionare image that I've seen before in the comics, while I never bought Keaton as it.  As Batman, he's okay, but he does something that I've never seen any of the other Batmans in the past, live action or voice acted.  He actually is able to hide his voice so you can't tell he is Bruce Wayne.  I've watched Michael Keaton and Kevin Conroy in their roles and frankly, I can still tell it's Bruce Wayne under the mask because all they do to me is slightly change his tone.  You may laugh at that voice Bale does, but there is no way you can tell it is Bruce Wayne beneath the costume.


You kidding?  They'll back to George Clooney!

Series never come to a close if they make money. I'm of the opinion that Bale was a terrible Batman, but in a funny, riffable way ("WHERE ARE THEY?!"). However, I can't really disagree with Indy that he's the best Batman since Keaton either. Mind you, that isn't saying much. Keaton was excellent, Kilmer was bad, and the less said about Clooney the better.

Good riddance....I never liked him as Batman.

I don't mind Bale as batman but don't think the writers have given him a whole lot to work with so I don't blame him so much for that.  [His lines are always so bland, and that's not just performance.  His Bruce Wayne moments are particularly boring except for odd moments.]

BUT it may pave the way for this:

http://girls-gone-geek.com/2010/07/31/jon-hamm-mad-batman/ (http://girls-gone-geek.com/2010/07/31/jon-hamm-mad-batman/)

Jon Hamm for Batman!

(http://media.comicbookmovie.com/images/users/uploads/35192/BatmanJonHamm.JPG)

The worst person to ever play Batman is not going to play Batman anymore?  This is great news! 

Yeah, that's right.  I said the worst.  Worse than George Clooney, Val Kilmer, or Bruce Thomas (You don't even know who that is, do you?  He was Batman on the Birds of Prey TV series and the Onstar commericals.)

I thought Kilmer was pretty much cardboard in his portrail of Batman, but at least he wasn't actively laughable. 

Of course, I have to admit, some of the blame for Bale's lackluster role has to go to the script as well.  Batman is practically being drug around by the arm by everybody telling him what he needs to do and how he needs to do it. 

You're all wrong.

Bale was a fantastic Batman, and the Christopher Nolan movies are incredible.

It makes sense that Bale will stop playing Batman, because it is the end of the trilogy Nolan made.

If you're honestly going to claim that those movie are the worst Batman movies, I will emphatically state right now that your taste in movies is suspect, and I will think less of all your subsequent movie opinions.

Holy hell, Batman fans, you couldn't be more wrong. Don't try to defend yourself, you're wrong. End of story.

 :wink:

Don't get me wrong, the Nolan Batman films are way far and above the best in my opinion.  But that doesn't make Christian Bale the best batman [or the worst mind you].  Now that I think of it, the weakest part of all the Batman films Nolan has done is Batman himself.  Bale was reasonable in Batman Begins since the character had more purpose, but in Dark Knight he had nothing to really keep me interested. I suspect it's because he was totally schooled by Heath Ledger in how to be enigmatic. As Batman he is not bad, but take away his mask and he's a pretty boring character and a bit of a stereotype brooding fella.  I'd like to see a bit more meat on the character for the next movie since he's pretty unsympathetic at the moment.

I think you may be suffering from what I'm now calling the "Phantom Menace Syndrome".  You're trying to convince yourself something awful is something great.  I'll be right here for you buddy if you need a support system.  I've been there man....I've been there.   :wink:

He's competent but not fantastic. I'd have Bale anyday over Kilmer and Clooney. I think because of the type of film fans we are here, it's easy to hate on things when they become really popular and critically lauded. For me the best Batman films have been the first Tim Burton flick in '89 and TDK.

Neither of them are amazing movies.

I feel that Batman Begins is objectively bad.  The lighting was too dark (it wasn't setting a mood, it was just DARK), the editing was slipshod, the camera was never pointed quite at what you needed to see, and the plot was ... not really there.  Whether it got left on the cutting room floor because the movie was too long or if the script really was that haphazardly written, I don't know.  I don't really want to bash on the actors (except for Bale who was REALLY bad) because the script gave them nothing to work with, and it seemed as thought Nolan decided to use rehearsal takes for some of the dialogue scenes.  When I was in the theater watching it, I honestly could not believe how bad the movie was.  Battlefield Earth has nothing on this turkey.

TDK was a lot better but still only kind of ok, imnsho.  The lighting, camera work, and editing were light-years better.  Unfortunately, the plot was still an idiot plot, and was far too busy, but at least there was one.  Characterization was better ... except for Batman, who seemed to have been inserted almost as an afterthought into his own movie.  Aaron Eckhart was marvelous as Dent and Two-Face but he had very little to do.  Heath Ledger did an ok job as the Joker but was let down by the makeup design, which made him look like a vagrant who found some Halloween makeup in the trash.  Bale seemed to realize Batman was little more than a supporting character and just phoned it in, making his already horrid performance even worse.  Ultimately, it was just a minimally decent popcorn movie that took itself too seriously.

I agree with Circus. Bale is just too talented to say he's a crap Batman, I just, IMO, think he's not the best fit, although I think the Nolan films are decent enough.

I thought that Val Kilmer was passable as Bruce Wayne but as Batman he just didn't have it. As for George Clooney,well, I've never really been a fan of his and as Batman he simply didn't work.

Bale is normally a good actor, and if he had brought any of the skills from American Psycho into play, he could have been a great Batman, but instead he was a real wishy wasy Bruce Wayne and his Batman always sounded like he was trying to gargle gravel.   This just wasn't a role that had any real depth to it, and they did practically everything they could to make Batman not fit in to his own movie. 

Of curse I also thought Ledger's performance was horribly overrated and didn't resemble the character he was supposed to be playing either.

I'm with MOFO on this, you're all wrong  and  1.5  Billion dollars say so.

And we all know that the only way to define quality is "does it make money?" 

That's why Stephanie Myer is worth $125 million and Edgar Allan Poe died penniless in the street. 

I define quality by asking myself:

"Was I entertained?  And if so, how much?"

In the case of the Batman Begins, not at all.  TDK had some moments.  I don't regret seeing it once, though I don't think I could ever sit through it again.  I was highly satisfied when they blew up the ... vehicle Batman drove.  I will not ever call that ... thing ... the Batmobile.

Well, I'll put forward the opposite syndrome, the inability to recognize something as good because it has proved incredibly popular. You want to enjoy it, but the more popular it becomes the more you are unwilling to recognize it as good. I've been there, too.

Tell you what, if one of us has to be right and the other wrong, we should flip a coin for it...

(There would be a winking smiley face here, but I'm pathologically against emoticons.)

Meh, I like my theory better.   :bouncegiggle:

I'll put an extra one in for you.   :wink: :wink:

:thumbup:

I have to add my two cents since this thread has become if the Nolan Batman movies suck.

Alot of the people here are saying Batman Begins sucks, and one person said it "has no plot".  Let me address this since Batman Begins has alot of plot.  However, unlike typical action films the plot is all character development.  The movie looks at how Bruce goes from a happy kid, to a vengeful adult willing to murder for revenge, to his training where he refused to kill a criminal, to the hero batman.  I think Bale did an excellent portray at all of those stages.  The only scence that didn't seem to fit was the one where Katie Holmes b***h slapped him.  I think that showed how a bad of an actress she is.

     Fear was a big theme in the movie.  Most of the people were scared of the crime, Gordon was the only cop not scared to go against the mob, same thing with Katie Holmes,  Bruce set out into the criminal underworld because of his fear of the unknown, Bruce's fear of bats, becoming something criminals fear, and the Scarecrow enjoying peoples fears.

The dark knight was a good film too, however, its plot was more like a traditional action film which is likely why it is more popular.

Ok since I've been a little vague I'll add this although I've probably blabbed about this in the past in other threads:

I liked Batman Begins, I really did.  There was something there that worked and worked well as an origin story.  Bale was tolerable to me in that one because it was mostly about Bruce Wayne which he can pull off as an actor.  However, as Batman the train goes off the tracks when he brings out that ridiculous growl.  

The Dark Knight, as I poked fun at Mofo earlier in the thread, suffers from The Phantom Menace syndrome or at least it does for me and I think many other folks.  You go in expecting the world and you walk away trying to convince yourself you received it.  However, it simply failed on all levels.  Story wise it was a choppy mess.  Yes I get the underlying theme of "how far must you go to stay the hero" which I'm cool with.  That and what makes a hero.  However as a viewer, I want to know how far the film will go to entertain me which frankly, it didn't.  It has no rewatch value for me personally.  It was actually painful the second time around and I mean painful.

Harvey Dent should have simply been a background character but gets thrust into the mix way too much.  Ledger was par for Mr. J but I really don't think it was as epic as people made it out to be.  Especially Oscar winning, no offense to the deceased of course.  

the tim burton batmobile certainly had more style.  However, it had a cocoon mode which turn it into a thing as well.

For the people that didn't like Batman Begins and the Dark Knight; I wonder what superhero films you did like.  I have a feeling it will be Green latern or fantastic four movies.

Don't say people like the recent Fantasic Four films around here.  Do you want to get hurt?! 

I would have to estimate a lot of people around here liked the original 2 Superman films, Tim Burton's Batman, Roger Corman's Fantastic Four, one of the Spider-Man films, possibly at least one of the animated DC superhero films, and maybe one of the Punisher films.

Most of the previous Batman movies, all of the Spider-men and X-men movies, Blade 1 and 2, Ninja Turtles 1 and 2, Punisher, The Mask, all of the old Superman movies, Ghostrider, Thor, Captain America, both Ironmans, and a few other I can't think of right now.

In general I don't care for comic book movies. I never have. Occasionally one will come along that I like, but mostly I think they are crap movies that studios make because they are easily marketable and will almost universally make money no matter how bad they are. In the last few years, they have taken on the added annoyance of being a springboard vehicle for up-and-coming, questionably talented "hunks" that the studios are trying to groom for superstardom.

Mask of the Phantasm, Return of the Joker, Under the Red Hood, Return of Black Adam, The Batman vs. Dracula, Crisis on Two Earths, Planet Hulk ... oh, did you mean "real" movies?

Superman IV, the 1989 Batman, the 2008 Incredible Hulk, the Dolph Lundgren Punisher and ... that's about it.  X-Men 2 and X-Men First Class were all right.

(http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii300/thesacredblueboy/adam_west.jpg)
Amongst others...you know, because superhero films didn't just arrive 10 years ago

Adam West will always be the true Batman!  In terms of live actors, he's still the best by far IMO. After that, only the animated films and TV shows have come close to really capturing Batman, then the Burton films, then Schumacher and then your more modern ones in which Batman is more like Iron Man than Batman....

But... I thought we were friends.

Actually, most of the things you mentioned didn't work for you I thought were the strongest points of the movie. I think the movie is very tightly constructed, in that there is almost nothing mentioned in the movie that does not come up later and serve as an important plot point later on. Harvey Dent/Two-Face is the very sole of the movie, his downfall is the entire point.

The Dark Knight, to me, is a phenomenal film. There is a very human story being told in a big-budget action film, and it's the best Batman movie ever made. Well, outside of Batman: Dead End (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zn53yhjsDM).

I think the film is brilliant and very, very good. Obviously there is a difference of opinion here, but I don't care. I loved the hell out of The Dark Knight and if you disagree, well, I still don't care.

Oh but we are Mofo hence why we are discussing this with a civil yet underlying wiseassary tone. 

Thus the basis of all film debates.  Actually, all debates come to think of it? 

wow, it seems you like them all, except ninja turtles 3 and christan bale's batman.

there you go.  If you don't like superhero movies then no batman movie will do it for you.