There wouldn't necessarily have been anything wrong with Clooney - except his sense of humour might have got in the way - if anyone had bothered to write a script, get a director and cut Robin out. Coming out of the wrap party, Clooney reportedly heard saying, "well, it looks like we killed that franchise" and for a long while he was right.
Movie people aren't necessarily comics people and that's a big mistake. Comics writers don't consider themselves as any less creative than their novel, cinema or TV counterparts and in many cases are much more mature story-tellers, and terrific at pruning their scripts. The stories in comics since about 1970, for almost every mainstream (and specialist) character have been contextually convincing and often scary. Tim Burton understood this. Sam Raimi understood this. Chris Nolan and Bryan Singer understood it. Joel Schumacher wouldn't get it if it arrived on his doorstep in driving an Itmobile and wearing green leotards wearing about its neck a billboard in pink neon proclaiming "Comics Ain't for Kids Anymore".
I mourn the wastage of the Earth's meagre remaining resources that were squandered in the making of those irredemably ill-conceived works.
I have little to say of Carrey that shouldn't be heavily censored, he was a ridiculous choice for the Riddler - the Joker, I might just see, but the Riddler?? - and his over-acting, overly malleable face and upstaging tendencies destroyed any subtlety that Tommy Lee Jones might have been going for. Jones' as Two Face could have been brilliant, poignant and disturbing - the Harvey Dent (D.A.) story is at least as tragic as the Joker's. But that's all there is of note about those two movies, and that was only one of them.
Keaton was excellent. Bale is exceptionally skilled and well served by the both script and director.
