Before Christian Bale – the current batty Bat himself – played a darkly brooding Bruce Wayne and body armor wearing Batman, he brought the lead nut to life in the black comedy, “American Psycho” – also starring Chloe Sevigny and Willem Dafoe. Bale proved to audiences he can capably assume a psychotic character with defiant body language and showcased his crisp delivery of weird dialogue. Above all, Bale is naturally blessed with something all Batman actors need to play the unbalanced role – he has great psycho eyes. Batman needs crazy eyes.
It’s an important element for an actor to hope to capture Batman properly. Let’s face it; Batman is one of the most psychotic gents ever to grace comic book pages. If the actor who was fitting into the form fitting suit, and most importantly the face hiding cowl, didn’t have crazy eyes, the illusion would be destroyed. Batman isn’t a sane guy. Batman isn’t a hesitant wimp. He isn’t a well balanced super dude like say Superman, or the playful, ever joke cracking Flash or Spider-Man. Batman is an intensely psychotic weirdo and the actor who fleshes him out and up on the silver screen needs to convey that in spades to an audience.
Michael Keaton, who embodied Bob Kane’s vigilante comic hero in cinema, first flashed us his wickedly weird peepers in 1989’s “Batman. Before the mega blockbuster, directed by Tim Burton, Keaton had excelled in comedy capers like “Mr. Mom”, so there were more than a few who doubted his capacity to play truly crazy. One only has to screen Keaton’s role swapping movie to see instances of psycho peepers, when he had to go domestic as nurturing housekeeper and babysitter opposite Terri Garr’s newly christened business executive wife.
Val Kilmer may only have graced the Gotham based universe of mirthful mayhem one time in “Batman Forever”, but his crooked, crazed stare was in full force when he battled Jim Carrey’s Riddler and Tommy Lee Jone’s Two Face. Sadly, the cinema powers that be then chose to cast an actor who just didn’t have that same kind of eye born insanity.
Enter George Clooney in “Batman and Robin” – the fourth in the classic Batman movie series – and you have an actor lacking what’s needed to properly inhabit the topsy turvy world of bonkers Batman and his frenzied friends. Clooney’s eyes may be called emotional, gentle – even captivating and sexy – but psychotic wouldn’t come to mind. Indeed, Clooney’s bedroom eyes may have been what made most fans reject his tenure as the batty hero.
Christian Bale is hanging up his cape and cowl in Christopher Nolan’s last Batman “The Dark Knight Rises”, and that’s a really good thing. I’m eager to see who will next take up the maniacal mantle of the ever avenging Bat. One thing’s for sure – that actor better have eyes that can curdle milk, make babies cry and generally flash oh so crazily.
