Batman is Not Fat- and Neither is Ben Afleck

Maybe I am still just wasting breath writing this, but I need to vent.

 

Yesterday, Empire revealed its latest issue, with Batfleck gracing the cover. To myself, and many others, the picture looks amazing. However, I soon got sucked into the idiotic online comments concerning Ben Afleck’s weight. On Empire’s Instagram most of the comments (at the time) pictured laughing emoticons and statements like “RIP DC” or “Why’s Batman fat lol”.

 

Now, I generally hate to give idiots online too much attention. However, I cannot believe that all of these comments come from online trolls. Last year’s first picture of Batman was also subjected to the same criticism by tabloids, news outlets and supposed fans of the comics. The large bat logo and the short ears were seen as a stupid change, despite the fact that those were pulled straight from Frank Miller’s batman design. I understand that everyone isn’t a comic book fan, but I have a hard time understanding why people cannot use the Internet to look up information for themselves. Ever seen someone post a question online, in a comment section or on yahoo answers, that they could easily Google themselves?

 

Making a comic book film is always a tough balance of appealing to comic book fans and the general public, and sadly it seems that a comic book film must pay more attention to the general public. Not only for financial reasons, but also because the general public will be the most likely to go into a film with an inaccurate conception of a character, and then use online outlets to spread bad word of mouth. It is a fact that people tend to get attached to whatever comes first. For many people, their first live-action, Hollywood batman was Michael Keaton. Once they saw him on screen many said that no one would ever top him. For others, they saw Christian Bale first, then many said no one would ever top him. When the next adaption of Batman graces the screen there will be people saying no one will ever top Ben Afleck.

 

Until that time, we have the people attached to Bale and Christopher Nolan’s depiction of Batman. I loved Nolan’s work as well and I loved Bale as Batman (except for the bat voice), but I have the ability to judge other takes impartially, instead of letting bias overpower reason and objectivity. I wish I didn’t have to brag about that, but it seems like it is a dying art in this day and age.

 

The depiction of Batman’s personality and struggle in Nolan’s series was exceptional (more so in the first two), but Nolan’s series had some differences and weaknesses in comparison to this version.

 

Firstly, Batman is usually depicted around 210 pounds in the comics. I realize that I posted it as 240 in my Instagram post yesterday. My mistake, one episode of DCAU’s Justice League had it listed as that but I figure it is better to go off of the wider canon of the comics. Bale was around 190 pounds throughout Nolan’s series so it looks like Afleck is actually the closest in size to a comic book version of Batman. Many comics depict Batman and Superman as being around the same size and it looks like Afleck is around the same size as Cavill in this role. Would you consider Henry Cavill fat? The costume and Afleck’s size look heavily inspired by the critically revered Arkham video games as well, which are in turn inspired by the comics. Then again, people are not looking at this objectively. They like Nolan and Bale, they want to see more of Nolan and Bale and they will hate anything else. Then there are also people who struggle to like both DC and Marvel films because they have been brainwashed to think they can only like on or the other. I’ll be doing a blog post on Saturday about that as well.

 

Some may think that Afleck’s size makes Batman too bulky, too slow, but let’s try to be objective again. Although Bale was smaller, he was stiff and slow in the suit. I understand the actor struggled with movement, but the character should not and perhaps some editing could have helped to make the fights more convincing. Afleck’s speed should not be a concern if we are mindlessly comparing everything to Nolan’s interpretation. There is a clip from the comic con trailer, at 2:40, where we see Batman gliding from one opponent to another as he delivers a beat down. From that clip, it looks like we have a faster, more agile Batman than the one we had in Nolan’s trilogy.

 

When the costume was revealed, and appeared to be similar to the Arkham games (a grey, flexible, Kevlar-like material), I was hoping that we would see a faster and more agile Batman. It looks like Snyder will deliver that. People may have a hard time believing someone as big as this Batman will also be quick and stealthy, but if we can suspend disbelief about an alien with heat vision maybe we can suspend disbelief about this too. Bruce Wayne has trained his body to peak condition for the pursuit of justice. He is not your typical gym meathead. He is muscular, powerful, agile, acrobatic and flexible.

 

We have two more months to see what Ben Afleck’s batman will offer, but I think the facts show that there is a good chance I’m right when I say that we will not have a fat batman.