The thing is, I'll reserve judgement. The thing is, I thought a lot of the casting choices for Batman in several movies were bad. The ones I often thought were the worst idea worked out the best. The ones I thought might be good, were ****.
Michael Keaton - Thought this was a terrible idea, and he did an excellent job in the role.
Val Kilmer - Thought would be good, but wasn't.
George Clooney - I thought this one was a bad idea and it was. The only one I was right about.
Christian Bale - I thought he would be excellent in the role and I absolutely hated him in the movies. I think that 1 & 2 were great films in spite of Christian Bale rather than because of him.
Ben Affleck - I thought this was the worst idea possible. However, I actually think he's the best version we've seen on screen and he looks the most like the iconic comic book character out of all of them so far. Now, its unfortunate that the movies he was in were generally not that great, but all his scenes were fantastic. He was the only one who looked the part physically, in and out of the suit. He's also the only one who really nailed the differences between Batman and Bruce Wayne since Michael Keaton.
So, while my first reaction to the casting of Robert Pattinson was shock and horror, I might very well be wrong again. I'm often a good predictor of casting being good or bad, but not when it comes to Batman. Ironically, Batman is my favorite character and one I'm quite familiar with as I've enjoyed reading the comics and books, playing the character in games and watching him in various animated and live action adaptations. Which BTW, in live action film, I don't think the character has ever truly been done justice. They always manage to mess it up in one way or another. Either the actor wasn't good for the part or the movies / TV shows he was in were bad.
Michael Keaton's Batman was way off the mark in a number of areas, but we didn't care at the time because it was so far removed from the campy 60's version of the character that we'd give a pass to almost anything. The character killed people and shouldn't have and Keaton didn't actually look the part. However, his suit, car, gadgets, and the film were still great for their time.
Val Kilmer's film was basically ****. It had a campy 1960's TV show plot and horrible visual style. Kilmer does a decent enough job in the suit despite having a ****ty script. However, his Bruce Wayne was lacking for reasons I don't want to get into. His portrayal largely felt off, but then again that may simply be the bad movie and script more so than the actor's fault.
George Clooney basically played Batman as if he were gay. Not only that, but he failed to portray the character accurately as Batman or as Bruce Wayne. The movie was terrible in virtually every way it could be. Visual style, story, acting, direction, you name it. The movie was bad. His bat suit was awful. The movie had too many characters and was just silly. The director didn't take the movie or its subject matter seriously, and it suffered for it. To me, this remains the single worst super hero movie of all time. Nothing else even comes close to matching this cautionary tale of how not to make a comic book movie.
Christian Bale largely looked the part, but his voice as either Bruce Wayne or as Batman were my biggest issue. He did a poor job masking his native accent and I hated his voice which made him sound like he was gargling ground glass. While the first two films were excellent, it was in spite of him. One huge problem I have with these movies is that they try and state through dialog that he's more Batman than Bruce Wayne, which is something they get from the comics. However, we see absolutely zero evidence that this is the case and quite a lot of evidence that suggests the opposite. The third movie is a pile of ****, but I won't get into that here. It's not Christian Bale's fault. It was a bad movie. In fact, its pretty much the third worst Batman movie of all time.
While Ben Affleck really captures the character in all the right ways, the movies take a bit too much liberty with the character's actions. For example: Batman doesn't kill. This is for two reasons. One, its an intrinsic part of Batman's moral code. Two, the character largely avoids killing because the fact he doesn't kill is a big reason why he's tolerated by the public and the Gotham PD. Anytime he's believed to have killed someone erroneously, he's been hunted down to a point where even he's had trouble with the police. They suddenly become effective when they believe him to have crossed that line. As long as he doesn't kill, he's a good guy. When he does, he's bad. In the Batman v Superman movie, he doesn't kill anyone, unless he's in the Batmobile, in which case he's causing car accidents and blowing up vehicles in ways that people won't walk away from the carnage.
That said, that's my only real problem with how the character is portrayed, although his letting Wayne Manner fall apart isn't congruent with the character's usual behavior. This is a character trait of the Thomas Wayne version of Batman from the Flashpoint universe. It's a trait that I felt was meant to do something different with the character, but it didn't work for me.
