8. George Clooney - Batman & Robin
Over my time at WhatCulture! I've made no secret of my burning, passionate hatred toward Schumacher's completely erroneous Batman & Robin (mind you, very few people have) however, despite Clooney's laughable, ham stinkin' performance, I actually lay very little blame at his rubber-clad feet. I look at it like this: if someone approached me and said "Do you want to be Batman in a movie", the "YES!" would leave my lips before my brain had even properly processed the question. By accepting the role George Clooney, as an actor, as a
man, was just doing his job. So in effect, this teeth-grindingly bad rendition of the world's favourite vigilante was partly Schumacher's fault. But I'd say a good 95% of the blame lies on the semi-anonymous suit-wearing money grabbers at Warner Bros. who said "hey, let's try make the Batman movie property more merchandisable, that won't totally p**s everybody off will it?" However, with all that said, I still can't help but shudder every time I think back to Clooney's gum drying turn as The Dark Knight. I've never wanted to punch my favourite superhero more. But, as I say, I can't fully blame Clooney; depending on who you ask, he's usually a fantastic, dynamic and thoroughly likeable performer who I guess here was swept up in a much greater evil than the performance itself.