5 Differences In All The Batmen That We've Seen On Screen
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Over the years we have seen a wide range of different Batmen on film. From the Adam West's over-the-top wacky Batman of '60s or the more grounded brooding Batman from Robert Pattinson that we have now. Each Batman franchise gave us something different.
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I figured we could go back and take a look at some of their differences and what made each of them unique, so here goes:
1.The Batsuits
Over the decades that we have seen Bruce Wayne become the Caped Crusader, we have enjoyed many versions of the batsuit.
In the earlier days of Adam West, it almost had a cosplay feel, wherein the times that they were shooting their film, the batsuit wasn't like a suit of armor or something that looked like it would protect him from harm or danger but just something to hide his identity. The utility belt and his gadgets were always the things that got Batman out of a jam and honestly, that thing was sweet. Whatever you could think of he probably had. In later iterations of the suit it wasn't just the utility belt that protected him but the suit itself that could endure several gunshots and deal with explosions and other serious dangers.
Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher's version of the batsuit differ in that Schumacher added the infamous nipples but both were trying to accentuate the physique and gave it a more armor look that could actually protect our beloved Batman.
In Chris Nolan's Batman Begins we got to finally see how the batsuit was created showing a military prototype that Lucious had made which he knew would be fitting for his life of crime-fighting.
It was amazing to see Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne spraying down the batsuit that would be instilling fear into the criminals of Gotham. They also went in-depth on how the suit and cape worked while then downgrading the bulkiness for a more sleek version in The Dark Knight which Lucious explains will allow more mobility but be more vulnerable to knife attacks.
We then got to what I consider the most comic book version of a suit on film, with Ben Affleck's main batsuit from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice being influenced from Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns graphic novel which we also saw Batman face off against the Man of Steel. He then later dons a more militaristic batsuit for Justice League that makes sense for protecting him against Parademons but aesthetically looked weird in my opinion.
Lastly, we Mr. Pattinsons batsuit from The Batman that gives him the most grounded suit of them all. It is something you could see a billionaire scrapping together where even the stitching of the cowl is exposed showing where he put the pieces together and showing the realism of his suit along with the armor plating and crude bat symbol in his chest lend to most grounded Batman we have seen.
2.The Physicality and Overall Physique
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I always felt that Batman's physique wasn't ever truly represented as the big fearsome Batman that I would see in the comics until Ben Affleck was cast, Ben Affleck being over 6 feet really came as the most accurate physical frame of Batman on film I had seen. Though we really didn't see a film take on the physical strength and training of Bruce Wayne until Nolan's trilogy. We not only saw the origin of his martial arts background training with the League of Shadows but we saw how he maintained his physical training with morning push-ups that made me laugh at the time but eventually led to him being able to lift a wooden beam off of him, with the help of Alfred of course. I always enjoyed the fact we got to see that part of his origin as only the animated series had really dived into his training and how he became the hand-to-hand fighter he was.
All the Batmen films before Bale's never really took the time to venture onto that side of the Dark Knight. We knew at those times he was a badass and never cared for how he picked up those certain skills or strengths. To me it is a part of what makes him the great hero he is, he isn't superpowered so for him to physically do the things he does as just a normal human being is all the more impressive. He uses not only his intellect but his brawn to tactfully solve crimes and take down the rogue's gallery of villains he has to contend with.
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Ben Affleck's Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice showed us the brutality of his fighting more so than Christian Bale's ever did with his Batman being a more jaded Caped Crusader who was tired of being the Batman of old and willing to brand and scar people in ways we hadn't seen to put fear into the criminals of Gotham. We also did have a montage of him working out and getting stronger to eventually take on Superman which was kinda cringe but whatever, props to Affleck for getting as jacked as he did for the film.
Recently we have Robert Pattinson's Batman who is not as physically bulky as Affleck or even Bale but carries the height and presence of the physicality when he fights. He specifically didn't bulk as to give his Batman the speed that Matt Reeves wanted to portray. This will always be a point of contention for Batman fans as it's just a point of preference for who best represented the Batman that we like to see and I'm sure the debate will always be around as long as there are Batman fans.
3.The Voice
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Every actor who's portrayed the Dark Knight has brought their own flair to the iconic hero's voice. From the scratchy growl of Christian Bale to the more whisper-like tone of Michael Keaton. We have heard some great and maybe laughable performances of Batman's voice but all unique in their own way.
I thought Ben Affleck's Batman took a nice approach with the voice changer though it did give a little bit of an auto-tune vibe. I would say the overall tonality of Batman's voice is to approach it with somewhat of a whisper which each actor went and made it their own.
I think Michael Keaton's and Robert Pattinson's have been my favorite as they both took the less is more approach on their voices and deliver it in a way that's supposed to instill fear into the hearts of the criminals they're capturing.
4.The Bruce Wayne persona
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For anybody who knows Batman, it's Bruce Wayne that is really the mask that he wears to not only keep the scent off of him from people figuring out that he's the masked vigilante but also to give hope to the people of Gotham by doing good deeds as a philanthropist. It's this persona we have seen in different versions of throughout the years that have given us some more depth to Batman.
Michael Keaton's Bruce Wayne had a crazy side to him, just look at his scene with Jack Nicholson's Joker, pulling a fire poker and breaking some pottery only to be shot so as to not let the bad guys know of his fighting acumen.
Val Kilmer and George Clooney played it more like themselves which didn't stray enough like Michael Keaton's previous iteration, though I thought Christian Bale's take was probably the most eccentric and spot-on acting as the playboy that we know and love and then playing the recluse introvert in the final film of his trilogy. It was that overall arc that really lent to being able to see all aspects of Bruce.
Ben Affleck and Robert Pattinson's Bruce, although at different points in their life, portrayed the broken parts of them the best. You can see the trauma that they've gone through and how it has affected their view on life and Gotham as a whole.
5.The Detective
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Finally what I felt was always the most important aspect of the Batman character, being the world's greatest detective. The earlier adaptations of Batman really didn't dive too deep into his detective skills. He always had some gadget or another that helped him decipher some evidence but we never saw him at a crime scene really until the Dark Knight even then we found out who his next victim was supposed to be and he yet again took a piece of brick and although there was some trial and error of figuring out the bullet so he could get a print its more forensics than straight-up detective work. It has been my biggest gripe with the films as a lot of them focused on big action set pieces than the smaller intimate detective noir stories that made me such a fan.
The Batman has taken a new approach to that as we see Pattinson's Batman actively working Jeffrey Wrights Detective Gordon throughout the movie instead of just a scene or two looking to solve the Riddlers clues and being somewhat of a rookie at it since this version of Batman has only been fighting crime for 2 years. It is why this new Batman film has been my favorite out of all the films. It's this take on the detective noir genre that some of the best Batman comics have been influenced by and made their stories so compelling.
