Christian Bale is the best Bruce Wayne, hands down. He is the only actor who has had the most depth to his role. I don’t care if you like his occasionally over the top and cringeworthy bat voice. He has enough redeeming moments as Batman. His voice is perfect in Begins and mostly fine in TDK, he has some cringe worthy parts with his “hockey pads voice” but he also has moments where he is like Conroy’s batman. His closing lines at the end of Dark Knight are the most Batman-y in any film.
He does a great job of looking like a tortured soul in the first two Nolan films. He has multiple arcs in Batman Begins. He does a great job of showing his duality where he’s a doofy/selfish billionaire who’s also the playboy but underneath, we see that’s his mask.
Michael Keaton has a better Batman voice for live action but he can go over the top wth his whispering. He is more Batman than AFfleck’s. He does some detective work with investigating the joker’s make up and toxin but there was no depth to his Bruce Wayne.
You need to care about Bruce Wayne to care about Batman. I find this disturbing when people say Batfleck is the best Batman. Affleck does his best but he is also forced to play the Donald Trump version of Batman and if you mean Affleck did actual detective work, do you mean he was just looking up the upcoming Justice League and DCEU movies? Oh and for those criticizing how Fox helped out Bale’s Batman, Jeremy Irons’ Alfred does lots of the tech work for him too. Remember, this is the same Batman who thinks if there is a 1% chance Superman is an enemy then we have to stab him with a kryptonian spear but it’s all good if his mom’s name is Martha. Even that is cool for some fans because he has better choreography, which is the only important thing for some of comic book purists.
Let us look at Bale’s Batman. Don’t tell me he wasn’t a detective. He wasn’t the comic book detective but he was more a real world detective.
In Begins, he investigates Gordon to see if he is trustworthy which is why he reads the newspapers, takes down notes. He goes undercover to wire tap Falcone and Rachel. He investigates the docks and apartments in the narrows, notice he has the night vision goggles to see where the drugs were going. He also speaks with Gordon, which leads to him interrogating Flass. He gives Rachel pictures of Judge Faden so that he’ll prosecute Falcone. He tracks down Rachel at Arkham Asylum. He tells Fox to make more antidote for the fear toxin because he has a hunch that whoever's messing with the water supply is up to something. Also, he forms a plan to stop Ras Al Ghul in case he can’t stop him himself on the train, hence giving Gordon the bat mobile.
In TDK,
He hunts down Scarecrow and breaks a drug deal with the Chechen. He gave Gordon irradiated bills so that his police department can track the mobs money. He develops a plan with South Korean smugglers to track down Lao.
He’s also in his bat cave looking at surveillance footage, studying Harvey Dent and the Joker footage. He takes the fragments from the bullet and shoots different types of bullets to see which matches. He gets help from Fox but detectives take evidence to Lab specialist, he does this in the animated series when he is not sure of something. He also looks up the possible suspects with the same fingerprint. He tells Aflred where to cross reference the addresses that are near the parade while he goes there himself as Bruce Wayne, where he interrogates a Guard about what happened.
He finds Maroni at the nightclub, interrogates him too, when he is done finds Dent and tells Dent to call a press conference, this is where he figures out who Thomas Schiff is.
Joker interrogation is detective work.
He investigates possible cops who’s families are in the hospital. He even crashes his own Lamborghini to save Reese, that’s what I call a hero. He was the one who wanted to do business with Lao so that he can look at their books and revenue stream, to see how shady they are. Hence when Fox says “You already knew.” He personally takes Fox’s sonar concept to the next level.
Fox guides him in the hostage building but its Batman who strategizes. He even tells Fox to look towards the ferries to find the Joker.
People don’t realize even in the comics, he gets help from people, Oracle, Alfred. He even has the mute Quasimoto in the Knightfall series as his tech guy.
In TDK, he was basically Pacino’s character in Michael Mann’s Heat. He travels to China to bring back an accountant, he does this stuff in the comics. He flips the joker’s truck with his Bat pod and takes out all of Maroni’s thugs at a night club. He takes down two SWAT teams while simultaneously saving the hostages in the buildings and is able stop both boats from detonating, remember the Joker was going to blow both boats up?
He takes the fall for Dent's crimes to salvage the city. All of that gliding and dive bomb tackles that we love from the Arkham video games stemmed from some of BB and TDK. Oh and the sonar stuff is basically detective vision.
Even in TDKR,
He investigates the finger prints on his safe, he looks up Selina Kyle and he tracks her down himself. He also fixes the autopilot and creates the magic clean slate(yes I know, eyes roll).
So quit your complaining about Bale or how Nolan’s batman isn’t your batman or the worst thing. You all did this when Batman Begins came out and you quickly threw Tim Burton under the bus. It’s okay to like both. Don’t talk up the new thing by trashing the old thing. Once Ben Affleck quits as Batman, you’ll soon talk shit about him to pump yourself up for the new actor.
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