It is hard to image anyone other than Christian Bale suiting up in black and yellow. Wait, is there any yellow in Bale's Batsuit? Anyways, Nolan's Bruce Wayne seems to be played perfectly by Bale but I wonder if Beetlejuice, The Saint or Danny Ocean would do a good job as Gotham's favorite son/most feared being.
Michael Keaton is the consensus pick for the best Bruce/Batman of the 90's. Tim Burton tapped into Michael's dark side and so would Nolan. But Keaton is a bit old for the part. Plus can you really picture Mr. Mom with a girl on each arm after they took an impromptu dip in the hotel pool? You would wonder if he would clean up the water spillage around the pool area while trying to have heart to heart with the young models as to why that was a bad idea.
I wonder how Michael would do with the action and fighting scenes. He held his own quite well in '89 but being 20 years older and not having much action scene experience could have been rough on Keaton. He would look the same age as Liam when Liam needed to look much older in order for us to believe he was training a young, green, hate filled man.
I hated Val Kilmer's Bruce Wayne. He was too robotic. There were scenes which called for emotion like when he was yelling at Robin for taking the Batmobile for a joy ride and taking on an entire gang. There were the scenes when Chase was shrinking his head while he was describing his flashbacks. It was all set up for him to have some dark, moving scenes but it just wasn't believable.
I did love Val in The Saint. He really showcased different personalities in disguise quite well, so going from Bruce's personality to Batman's should have been easier.
To be honest, Batman Forever is the 90's Batman movie I have seen the least. Clooney was fine but Mr Freeze's corniness made the movie almost unbearable to me. So I don't remember if Bruce had a dark side. In fact I don't remember any Clooney roles with a dark side. I know he was battling once again with Robin. He had feelings for Poison Ivy and Julie. He was losing Alfred yet gaining a second protégé so there were plenty of emotions going through him. There were plenty opportunities for dark emotion but all I can envision is the comic book, cartoon like mess Shumacher created.
But George's Bruce was the most suave and believable as a playboy. In fact, his reincarnation of Bruce was a lot like his Danny Ocean. Smooth, smart, devising, juggling a lot of things at once including a mission and a relationship with a woman. Bruce dealt with an adversary with an actual heart of ice and Danny dealt a couple of casino owners with no heart.
So ironically, my choice for the actor who portrayed a Bruce Wayne that is closest to Christian Bale's did come from the worst 90's Batman movie: George Clooney. I know it's a giant faux pas to use an actor from a franchise in its reboot but if the next direction of the Batman films takes a page from recent comic books like The Dark Knight Returns and we see Bruce Wayne in his 50's, George Clooney would be an excellent choice.