Every Batman Ranked From Worst To Best
2. Christian Bale
Bales Batman is very much a post-Bourne, post-9/11 type: morally conflicted, gristly, viscerally muscular in a way in which his predecessors never were where Keaton, Kilmer and Clooney just turned up looking super-buff like so many butch sausages from a hunk-a-matic sausage-maker, Bales Batman starts out as a weedy layabout, and then spends at least 40% of his screen time either working out, talking about working out, or stitching himself back together after a night of duffing up foes.
The voice much derided and parodied, and not undeservedly so is a great aural interpretation of this toughening up, this revealing of the sinews that barely hold his frame together underneath the Batsuit. Hes completely incomprehensible too, of course, but there is at least a rationale for it.
What makes things even more juicy is the fact that Bales Batman also calls back to his role as noted psychopath and pseudo-vigilante Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. He does also appear to share Batemans apparent lack of connection with other human beings: hes deliberately blank and one-dimensional, revealing little of himself beyond having apparently limitless cash and a taste for ballet dancers in order to protect both himself and those close to him.
That said, he doesnt have many proper mates certainly far fewer than a billionaire playboy might be expected to have and the ones he does make tend to end up blubbering over his grave, heavily burned, or exploded. Lucius Fox turns out alright, but I suspect that Christopher Nolan just didnt have the heart to do anything horrible to Morgan Freeman.
Its this which makes Bale far more interesting than any of the previous iterations, save maybe one. The illustration of the collateral damage which this pulverising lifestyle would wreak on ordinary mortals, in spite of his best efforts.
On top of that, 'Bateman' is just one letter away from Batman. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.