Clooney doesn't disguise his voice
Like most movie Batman actors. He doesn't make an effort to distinguish the voices of Batman/Bruce Wayne instead just plays himself with his Stallone/Mel Gibson type voice.
shareYeah, very true that he's probably the only one. I guess he couldn't do a deep voice or wanted to be himself. Which is why he couldn't portray him correctly.
shareHe was only cast because Schumacher drew a batcowl on a picture of him.
shareOne thing that should be understood is that Bruce Wayne when you really think about it, is just an average man with a haunted past. At least that was the theory that Tim Burton had when casting Michael Keaton. He's a really 9 to 5 kind of guy, despite being very wealthy. Bruce's wealth of course is a helpful means (it's just like what Ben Affleck told Barry Allen in Justice League, Batman's super power is that he's rich), but it isn't like he's pretentious about it.
shareAnd that wasn't the only thing that Schumacher drew on his picture. Giggidy!
shareI also think that Clooney was cast because he was a rising star at the time with ER, which was at the time, the top rated show on TV. ER was like the Batman franchise a Warner Bros. property so there's some corporate synergy. Plus, there was the general feeling that he would've been more of a "team player" instead of Val Kilmer.
Maybe in 1996-97, George Clooney was a bit of an obvious choice. Val Kilmer was actually a pretty inspired choice to play Batman once Michael Keaton didn't want to do it anymore. Joel Schumacher wanted to work with him after seeing him as Doc Holliday in Tombstone.
It was pretty much a stock George Clooney performance with the head going down then up and it did nothing but damage Batman fans.
A lot of the actors were playing themselves like Schwarzenegger doing stock Schwarzenegger dialogue in a Mr Freeze costume.
David O. Russell, who worked with George Clooney on Three King's didn't want to work with him (Clooney was pretty much forced upon him by the studio) because in his words, he wasn't a fan of Clooney's "head bobbing, mugging" acting style. Granted, David O. Russell himself, is a reputed asshole (if you're mean to Amy Adams, who has a reputation for being one of the nicest, most down to earth people in show business, then something must be wrong with you).
shareI fucking loathe George Clooney, but I love this movie, and have come to appreciate him in it, having said that I can't see him in anything else, and B&R should have been the end of his career, but he's still a huge name.
shareI rewatched it recently. It was quite fun, I kinda liked the campiness, but really didn't like Clooney as Batman. I'll probably end up rewatching it yet again and find him charming. 🤔
I still loathe him as a person and actor but he works in Batman and Robin, which I adore every time I see it more and more.
shareI read a lot of Batman graphic novels and he's just....not harsh enough to be Batman. There was a scene in which he was reprimanding Robin and it was just so unbelievable.
sharebut it's the 40's and 50's comics version.
shareYeah I reaslied it and gave it a chance (3 times now), but to be honest, I just laugh at the whole thing.
sharewhy? it's so cool
shareI do appreciate the way it looks like an old comic, colour wise and everything being quite in your face. I think it's because I'm more attached to the Batman comics that were more geared for a grimmer audience. I think it's because it's kitsch, and while kitsch can be cool, and CAN work for Batman even today, but I just never got the impression that Clooney's Batman took himself seriously at all. Sure Bruce Wayne in the old comics is suave and all that, but there was no authority in his Batman. I didn't buy him.
shareI never thought that George Clooney felt that he had to put his entire heart and soul into playing Batman or that he truly understood the character and his motivations. Bruce Wayne at his core, is a tormented loner, not a happy and well-adjusted man. I'm not necessarily saying that he intentionally set out to not give 100%, but I always though that Clooney just saw Batman as the easiest step (become something like Batman is in theory, a full-proof success) to go things that he really wants to do once he was done with ER.
shareI think that every actor who plays Batman (be it Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, Christian Bale, Ben Affleck, etc.) has to have a moment where the audience genuinely believes that they're Batman. I never once really got that from George Clooney. I just saw it as that guy from ER wearing a Batman costume for Halloween.
With Michael Keaton, I was immediately sold that he was Batman in the scene from the 1989 movie where he tells the frightened hoodlum to tell all of his friends about him. Keaton is probably the only actor who can smile while wearing the Batsuit and still look genuinely intimidating and unhinged. With Val Kilmer as I said before, his version of Batman was very suave and intellectual. He somehow made some of the cheesier lines like "I'll get drive thru!" or his banter with Chase Meridian work.
With George Clooney, I just knew that something wasn't right when he said "This is why Superman works alone!" Kilmer's Batman would've I think made it sound less cringe-inducing because he had a certain element of cool and smoothness behind his Batman. Clooney just comes across as somebody who is genuinely pissed off, annoyed and impatient instead of being witty. It's just that Clooney never gave me the impression that he was fully in control or has much of a presence as Batman.
I agree with this. Where it bugged me the most was when he was berating Robin. He was never less like Batman in that scene.
shareAlso, one thing that has to be understood is that Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer played Batman with a certain degree of stoicism and low-key intensity. They never smirked, habitually shook his head, or casually spoke in their natural tone of voice. I'm not saying that George Clooney is in general a bad actor, it's just that his general style of acting and approach just didn't work for Batman.
shareClooney's Batman sucked because unlike with Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer you don't entirely understand his motivations or what makes him tick. Clooney I suppose, just comes across as some smug, rich dude who dresses up like a bat and plays vigilante just for the thrill of it and because he can get away with it.
With Michael Keaton, his Batman/Bruce Wayne was pretty much a slightly goofy, obsessive compulsive, unhinged man. With Val Kilmer, his Batman/Bruce Wayne was more of a suave, brooding and sometimes emotionally insecure, dark romantic hero. My point is that Keaton and Kilmer's interpretations had more humanity or reliability than Clooney's. They try to give Clooney's Bruce that with the whole Alfred subplot, but it doesn't work because we already know how important Alfred is to Bruce. Plus interjecting this super serious subplot about Bruce Wayne's elderly butler battling a serious illness doesn't jive well with all of the cheesy and goofy crap that's otherwise present in the movie.
well, agree to disagree, the movie works for me.
sharehttps://www.batman-online.com/forum/index.php?topic=3007.msg44917#msg44917
My personal opinion is that George Clooney is a great star and a fine actor, but that his persona was too big for a character like Batman/Bruce Wayne. The best Batmen, and general CBM leads, are usually chameleonic character actors like Christian Bale or actors with relatively low-profile personas like Michael Keaton, otherwise the potential is for the star to overshadow the character. Robert Downey Jr. can get away with it with Iron Man because Tony Stark is meant to be a flashy, arrogant little prick, but Batman/Bruce Wayne is a much lower-key character; even Bale arguably over-did it in some of the Bruce Wayne scenes. Although Michael Keaton's version of Bruce Wayne was, for better or worse, a divergence from the comic-books (he's not many people's idea of a charming playboy), what he and Burton did get was that Wayne only truly comes to life when he's in the Batsuit, and that outside the costume he's uncomfortable in his own skin and practically a blank, personality-wise.share
That said, I have high hopes for Ben Affleck because although he seemed far too starry and flashy as Daredevil/Matthew Murdoch, I do think he has, with time, improved as an actor and attained a type of world-weariness and gravitas that I don't think he possessed during his 'Beniffer' days (circa-early-mid 00s), and that type of persona suits the older, more grizzled, and much-battered Batman we are led to believe he will be playing in the upcoming 'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice'.
at the time of Batman & Robin George Clooney wasn't that big a star, I think he worked fine, we could have done without the bobbling head though. Christian Bale is the worst, a neurotic method actor having nervous breakdowns with every character which leaves little room for acting really.
shareAlso, I think that George Clooney's approach to playing Batman may have been backwards. Clooney played it as if Bruce Wayne was the genuine persona, who goes off and becomes Batman in his spare time. I think that anybody who plays Bruce Wayne needs to understand that Bruce is really a "mask" that he puts on and Batman is for all intents and purposes the *real* person.
Michael Keaton I think understood that, as at least in the first movie, played it as a guy who obsessive compulsively needs be Batman (think of the scene in his bed room where he's hanging upside down, waking Vicki Vale up). Bruce "died" the night that his parents were murdered. Clooney plays the part so sincerely that it just doesn't work seeing him as Batman.
Also, you have to understand that Bruce Wayne when you really think about it, is kind of a sociopath. At least, that was the inclination that I got from Michael Keaton's interpretation. Clooney's Bruce seems way too well adjusted to buy him as a guy who needs to dress up like a bat and fight crime.
shareAlways best to hire actors who don't play themselves in the role of a superhero.
Since it was a rushed production not a lot of time or thought was put into casting.
Arnold Schwarenegger encountered the same problem as George Clooney in that his personality was way too big to work as Mr. Freeze. Mr. Freeze isn't a flamboyant or showy villain like the Joker or Riddler.
shareFlamboyant and showy as Schumacher.
shareI never understood why you needed a bodybuilder to play Mr. Freeze anyway? Victor Fries prior to his transformation at least on the animated series was a nebbish, schlubby looking middle aged man.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dcanimated/images/4/44/Victor_Fries.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150701214158
It was pretty much a stunt casting tactic. As history shows it's best to hire character actors in the role of a supervillian like to with a lesser known or a young up and coming actor as a superhero.
shareHaving Schwarzenegger and Clooney was distracting especially when they were associated with other stuff, nearly always best to hire people who aren't too famous as a superhero or villain that's why you never have someone like Brad Pitt cast as Captain America or Thor.
shareI just think that Clooney was too self-aware of how ridiculous the whole situation was and it showed in his decidedly apathetic, detached performance as Batman.
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