Christian Bale and Joseph Gordon Levitt - right for Batman?

[Bob Fett]

I enjoyed Bales portrayal,but would've like to have seen the detective aspect more.Not his fault,just the way it was written.I agree with Carabas with this will be the closest we ever get to a great Batman on film.

[Slugger]

Christian Bale - I'd have to say absolutely not. Bale was the thing that kept me from loving Nolan's movies. His physique was wrong for Batman. Batman shouldn't have lean muscle. I've always thought Batman should have a powerful build. He's described as being 6'3" and anywhere from 210 to 215 lbs of muscle. He should be built like Bas Rutten was in his prime. Bale is muscular, but he's too lean. his chin never looked right in the suit either. His fighting style was extremely stiff and had no variety whatsoever. Batman's style is a mixture of long and short range fighting styles with grappling and weapon styles thrown in. Bale's style was clunky and awkward. His stance was no stance at all and he paused too long between techniques. He never kicked higher than his belt and his punches were slow. He also did very little joint manipulation. Then finally, there was his voice. Dear Lord, that voice. I firmly believe that Kevin Conroy has the best voice for Batman. It's deep, quiet, and edgy. He doesn't say much, but what he says has a cold, quiet strength too it. That being said, Bale's voice is perfect...for freaking Killer Croc! It's trying to be threatening, but it just isn't. It sounds stupid. It sounds like Bruce eats rocks and broken glass. That's just my opinion though. What do you guys think of Bale?

Bale was head and shoulders the best Batman we've had. He was in unreal shape for Batman Begins, in fact he was as big as Bas Rutten. He was slimmer for TDK and TDKR though. You can't really fault the fighting style on him either. That's not his style, that's the style the stunt coordinator chose as it was a bit different and more martial arts based than just having him "punch" guys. Not only that, have you seen the fight scenes from all the other Batman movies? They're f*ckin' terrible. Bale performed all of his own fight scenes and they looked fluid.

Don't get me wrong, I have my gripes about some fight scenes. I felt they were great in Batman Begins (sans editing) and TDK, but they felt somewhat...lazy in TDKR, perhaps we were spoiled at that point, but it seemed like they were rushing through those fight scenes to get to the ones with Bane. The 1st fight with Bane, unbelievable build up, atmosphere and the acting? How can you not think Bale is the best Batman after the 1st fight with Bane? But the fight itself felt, clunky. There was stretches where it felt natural and some when it didn't. Essentially everything on the upper cat-walk was just bad choreography choice, mainly due to the speed.

The first half the 2nd fight was even worse, but there was tight choreography after Bane's mask gets ripped. The voice? That was done post production for TDK. Did you notice how it was more toned down in TDKR? I have my issues with him as Bruce and Batman but it mainly comes down to Nolan's writing. I find his dialogue terrible to be honest. The guy with the best dialogue is Alfred, maybe because he's also English it sounds more natural? I don't know.

[Kensei]

Some of the short posts on this thread aren't clear on whether they're referring to Levitt or Bale.

On Levitt, unless I've missed something, there hasn't been some announcement that he is playing the rebooted Batman, has there? It's been my impression that in TDKR he wasn't literally going to be the new Batman but would have used the cave to develop his own unique hero persona, since the whole archetype of the bat was unique to Bruce since it had personal meaning to him from his childhood. Besides, with the dedication of the Batman statue, the whole idea was to let Gotham know that it was Batman that had sacrificed himself to save them and that he was gone. For a new Batman to appear would have just confused people- wait a minute, is he dead or isn't he? I think all this was just to be imagined however, since Nolan's trilogy was a story that came to an absolute final end and Levitt's involvement with it is over. I've seen nothing indicating that he'll be playing Batman in the JLA movie (in fact no one's been cast, there are only speculations) and even if he did it would be completely wrong for a couple of reasons. One, there will be no connection to the Nolan films and he would not be playing John Blake as Batman. Two, he is absolutely, undeniably, non-negotiably wrong for playing Bruce Wayne.

On Bale, he is my favorite Batman and Bruce Wayne. The Batman actor who most resembles Bruce physically from the comics is George Clooney, who starred in a total schlock-fest. Exact physical resemblance, while not unimportant, is I think not the most important thing and Bale is close enough for me. He did go overboard with the voice and I wish he would have stuck with the voice from "Batman Begins," in which he only went with the extreme growl for moments like "SWEAR TO ME!" But on a practical level, a superhero does need to disguise his voice somehow. People say he didn't have enough moments as a detective and I guess that's true too- I would have liked to have seen the Riddler introduced to force him into more use of his deductive skills. But overall, he was more than satisfying to me.

Neither Levitt nor Bale will be the new Batman, though. It's going to be somebody new.

[Drz]

I haven't noticed that. I always though Bruce explained his muscular form by saying he's a workout freak. Also, I like Keaton better as Batman than Bale. Keaton was intimidating.

Lol so you complain about Nolan's films not getting something comic loyal with physical appearence, but prefer the little man Keaton who had no muscle or fightning style whatsoever. Outstanding performance.