George Clooney was a relatively late arrival at the gates of mega-stardom. Having spent his earliest active career years jumping from one low-budget flick to another, between TV roles, the man who would be Batman got his big break with ER, playing a children's doctor, which is pretty much the same as being given a key to all of the women in the world. As Dr Doug Ross, Clooney built a sterling reputation, not only as a dashingly good-looking life saver, but also as a screen presence with the kind of golden age appeal that modern actors don't often display so instantly or so effortlessly. His star arguably came before his acting chops, but despite taking eye-catching, franchise leading roles like Danny Ocean, he also started out relatively small, finding his way with intriguing properties that allowed him to show a diverse skill set, and resisting the ominous type-casting shadows that typically follow any actor known for a break-out "heart throb" role. He is never an incidental element, such is his charisma, and though his track record has been far from flawless, his output in the past decade has been difficult to pick to pieces at all. Thankfully though, Clooney was once jobber, and his transformation into mega-star is only the more remarkable for the fact that the same man who wows in almost everything he appears in now, was once listed in the credits of a movie simply as "lip synching transvestite." With his latest - Disney's wayward utopian Tomorrowland - jet-packing into cinemas on a cloud of extremely mixed responses (edging towards apathy, in fact), there are still stark reminders that despite his capacity to win Oscars and delight film fans and critics, he still has bad movies in him. And unfortunately, when they're bad, they tend to be almost on the Bruce Willis scale of "not really appearing to be bothered at all." As further reminder, here's a look at the two faces of George Clooney: charismatic leading man, but a worse Batman than Adam West...
