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Tim Sale, though I do really like the slender, long-eared Batman that Kane started to perfect later in 1939 before he started to bulk up when Robin showed up.

^I've read that Val wanted to act in a way that was similar to Keaton, but Joel didn't want him to portray a dark Batman. At least he worked well with what he was given. Clooney just acted like himself throughout all of B&R, if you ask me (although his characterization has elements of the Adam West Batman) .

I've read that as well, and I've seen interviews that highly imply that Kilmer and Schumacher didn't see eye-to-eye. But I don't think that Kilmer did well in the role, and I don't get the impression that either he or Schumacher won out in the end. The way the performance is in the film suggests to me that the two went blow to blow, neither of them made the other back down, and so we're left a performance that has absolutely no strong grounding or vision.

I actually enjoy The Dark Knight quite a bit - it's probably my second-favourite Batman movie. The fact that it is surprises me, because Nolan's overall take on the character is so far off from my own. I don't agree with trying to bring Batman into "our world," I've been consistently disappointed with Nolan's visual style, and I prefer a more visual approach to storytelling in film as opposed to the dialogue-heavy scripts Nolan has relied on. But The Dark Knight's story is very interesting and well told and the film has a great pace for its 2 1/2 hour running time. I think the two things that edge it over Batman for me are a more consistent tone and the fact that, while I consider Jack and Heath's two Jokers equally valid and spectacular, I've come to slightly prefer Heath's characterisation.

So far as criticisms go - I think (and no offence intended here) - that the tendency has almost become to fault The Dark Knight for being a different approach than Burton's rather than go after what's actually wrong in the film itself. I've done that to some extent, but at the end of the day, that's a matter of taste. I may not like the Batman suit or the fact that Gotham is Chicago, but that's not necessarily a mistake or flaw in the film. Gotham being Chicago is a little more substantial a criticism IMO because I do think that the more you recognise this supposedly fictional city as a major metropolitan area, the more you risk taking the audience out of the story, but overall, complaints about visuals and tone, while valid, aren't really faults.

Certain things within the movie that I have a problem with and don't consider a matter of taste are:

1. Rachel Dawes. This is a character who I think was a mistake from the get-go. To begin with, I've never understood why the childhood friend of Bruce's who grows up to become Batman's ally in the DA's office in Begins couldn't have just been Harvey. I accept that Warner Bros. requires a love interest in these films, but there was no need to have that love interest take a spot in the story that would have been perfect for Harvey. There's not even a reason for the love interest to be a major character at all - Julie Madison was enough for them in Batman & Robin (and that will be the ONLY time I use that film as an example of a good idea for future Bat-films). But beyond that basic complaint about where the character is put, Rachel's just an unattractive character to me. I find her to be whiney, overconfident, and condescending to anyone she doesn't think is in public service. Some of this came from Katie Holmes's performance in Begins, and I will say that Maggie is far less obnoxious. But I do think a lot of that attitude is in the character in the script, not in the performances. I also never bought her romatic relationship with Bruce Wayne. In Begins, we see them as childhood friends. Then we see them during the Chill trial, which is supposedly the time that they're supposed to be together. The problem is that we never get any indication of that until the end of the movie. They don't hug or kiss, they don't acknowledge their relationship, they don't get along in the scene...the only clue anyone would have that these two are dating is Carmine Falcone calling Rachel Bruce's "lady friend," which I do not usually interpret as being the same thing as "girlfriend." The next time Rachel and Bruce are connected is when she's told that Bruce is back in Gotham, to which Holmes's Rachel gives no reaction. When they meet, she tells him off because he's (as far as she knows) a wild playboy having fun, not a public servant. There's no way to argue that a wild playboy is morally superior to a public servant, but that doesn't mean a public servant can act like a snotty brat. This is even more annoying to me when, once Rachel finds out who Batman is (in one of the worst "reveal" scenes in any of the films IMO), she rejects him for being completely obsessed and committed to fighting crime in Gotham. Why? And how does she instantly know after *just* finding out about Bruce's secret identity that "this is [his] mask. [His] real face is the one the criminals now fear." How the hell would she know that? (More on this later)

I realise all of that has to do with Begins, not The Dark Knight. But the character's very weak introduction in Begins made it impossible for me to care about her in The Dark Knight or to have a reaction to her dying. The "love triangle" sub-plot doesn't hold up to me because I never bought that Bruce and Rachel were in love to begin with, and it doesn't help that neither Katie nor Maggie have any chemistry with Bale whatsoever. I do buy her relationship with Harvey Dent, where I think Maggie had great chemistry with Aaron, and I will repeat that I thought Maggie made the character overall less obnoxious. But the flaws from the first film are largely still there in my eyes, a key example being that she tells Bruce in her letter "I'm certain the day will never come when you no longer need Batman." Again, how the hell does she know this? It was just a poorly designed character from the get-go, and I'm quite happy to see her gone and hope that she's not referred to in any way in the third film.

2. Bale's Batman is not my preferred take on the character, but I don't fault him for that. I may not choose his Batman over Keaton's or the one from TAS, but I do think he does a good job and I don't think the take on the character in these films is bad. His Bruce/Batman comes off to me as a man who, having lost his parents, went out into the world angry and vengeful but, through training and experience, channeled that rage and thirst for vengeance into an earnest zeal to win justice for Gotham City, and in order to achieve that in a dramatic fashion that would inspire others, created the persona of Batman in order to wake up Gotham and give rise to such heroes as Harvey, and maybe one day retire. There's absolutely nothing wrong with playing the character this way, and I think the way Bale and Nolan have played it has made it more acceptable and enjoyable for me than perhaps another team would. The problem, though, is that this version of the character isn't the version that Bale and Nolan have said they want to portray.

Here are some quotes from Bale and Nolan themselves:

Batman is a marvelously complex character-somebody who has absolute charm and then, just like that, can turn it into ice-cold ruthlessness.

You couldn't pull it off unless you became a beast inside that suit.

He's a messed-up individual, as well. He's got all sorts of issues. He's just as twisted and messed-up as the villains he's fighting, and that's part of the beauty of the whole story.

These are all comments by the two key people behind this new take on Bruce/Batman. If that is honestly what they're going for - and to be honest, their quotes don't sound that different from the Burton/Keaton approach, especially that last one - if that was their goal, then I think they've missed the mark wildly, because as I've already said, that's not what I get out of the character in these films. Bale's Bruce doesn't seem a messed-up, rage-filled man as twisted as his enemies and in desperate need for a costume to channel his rage by the time he gets back to Gotham; he seems like a strong, stable, committed individual with a plan for helping the city that involved using a strong persona. And I've already mentioned how annoying I thought it was that Rachel was accusing Bruce of being consumned by Batman when she really didn't know much about his alter-ego, but beyond how much I dislike her saying that, I just don't buy the lines about Bruce being consumned by Batman. I don't buy Alfred's comment about Bruce "getting lost inside this monster of [his]" in Begins. I just don't believe that this Bruce is completely lost and obsessed. There's far too much material in The Dark Knight focused on Bruce hoping that he can lead a normal life and put away the cowl for me to believe that. Even when Batman does such extreme things as spying on Gotham City, they make sure to point out that he gave the power to control that spying to Lucius Fox, and they make sure to destroy the spying equipment at the end of the movie. Again, I'm not knocking Bale and Nolan for presenting a Batman that isn't obsessed and lost in his persona, because there's nothing inherently wrong with that; I'm knocking them because, if I take them at their word (and there's no reason not to), they didn't succeed with their goals.

That, and I just don't like the Batman voice. It isn't inaudible to me, and I don't find it that annoying; it's just a bit too much, and he tries a bit too hard with it.

3. The action scenes in The Dark Knight are far and away an improvement over those in Begins, but they're still not that great and still aren't the easiest to follow. I really hope that Nolan will go and hire a solid second unit director to handle the action scenes with the next film, because he's not doing well with what he has right now.

To my mind, Kilmer is the worst live-action Batman thus far. I get absolutely nothing from him in Forever. Clooney had some decent scenes as Bruce Wayne with Alfred and managed to be likeable if nothing else; Kilmer walked through that film like the living dead. The one scene he has that I liked at all was when he broke down the door to Chase's office. There, he is funny, quirky, and does seem like a continuation of Keaton's Bruce Wayne. But that is the only spot in the movie where I thought he showed any acting skill whatsoever.

Whatever the make-up looked like and whatever Tommy Lee Jones did in the role, the Two-Face character in Forever was way off from the get-go by being only the psychopathic killer. Fans of Forever have pointed out that, in the script, Two-Face was the dark Yin to to Riddler's Yang to provide contrast; the problem is that said contrast is supposed to be within Harvey himself.

As to the make-up, I'm not entirely opposed to the design they went with. The bigger problem is the colouration, not the overall look. I don't think the exposed eye/teeth look was all that successful in The Dark Knight, to be honest, and I think going less extreme would be better for film.

And Billy Dee not getting to play Two-Face is probably my biggest disappointment with the character in Forever, even beyond the campiness and lack of duality.

Tim Burton is my favourite director alive and working today. The only film of his I'm not a fan of is Planet of the Apes. Edward Scissorhands and Sweeney Todd are two of the best films ever made IMO, and The Nightmare before Christmas is in my DVD player every Halloween and Christmas.

My personal preference is for the Returns aesthetic, but both are masterpieces of design in film and Anton Furst's Gotham for the first Batman isn't any less great.

A very interesting review. I prefer The Dark Knight to Batman by a slim margin, but I would agree with him on who makes the better Batman and disagree on which film had better action.

Still disagree Ledger was better than Nicholson.

He resembles nothing of the Joker I know in the comics, tv series, cartoons or previous film. He's a Hollywood creation, and has nothing in common in my mind to the comics of Batman.

Dont want to hear this 'Batman No.1' comic cr4p, Nicholson was more like the Joker in that comic. To me Ledger was just the usual Hollywood psycho with make-up.

I am not knocking his performance it was golden, just the characterization, which I enjoyed. But its not the Joker!

It's funny you put it that way. When I read the script, that's how I felt about the characterisation of the Joker on the page. As written by the Nolan brothers, the character came off as a sociopathic madman who was fascinating and intriguing but had much more in common than Hannibal Lecter and John Doe than *the Joker.* IMO, Ledger was the one who made the Joker of The Dark Knight into *the Joker,* and I think the most important thing he added into the character was humour. The Joker in the script had more than enough menace, but was missing the other half of the equation.