Some actors have careers that can easily be summed up. Either they stick to what they're good at, and manage to strike out a distinct if unadventurous line of work for most of their time in Hollywood your Will Ferrells, your Emma Thomases or else they're more malleable, mercurial, and turn their hand to all sorts your Daniel Day Lewises, your Christitna Bales. Michael Keaton isn't really either. Making a name for himself with high concept eighties comedies like Mr Mom and Multipicity, Keaton then sort of ping-ponged between similar, silly roles and more straight dramatic parts in the likes of Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing and appearances in the Elmore Leonard adaptations Out Of Sight and Jackie Brown. He was pretty great at both, too. Then there was a sort of fallow period where Keaton dropped off the map a little, occasionally popping up for bit parts in Herbie: Fully Loaded (aka Lindsay Lohan's last hurrah) and as the voice of Barbie's hairless beau Ken in Toy Story 3. Now he's back on the map thanks to a career-defining performance in the surreal Birdman, out this weekend, so perhaps it's time to assess his filmography up to this point and decide once and for all what kind of actor he is. Here are five Michael Keaton performances that were awesome...and five that sucked.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
