There’s good news and bad news in Gotham City. The good news is that Ben Affleck reportedly is directing a stand-alone Batman movie.
The bad news is that Ben Affleck is still playing Batman. Affleck has only one major flaw as a director: He keeps hiring himself as an actor. There’s an obvious solution for this.
But first, a word in Affleck’s praise following the CinemaCon announcement this week that, years in the future, he will be directing a Batman movie he is also writing with Geoff Johns.
Affleck directed the sinewy, smart detective story “Gone Baby Gone” (2007), his moody, cagey debut; “The Town” (2010), which refreshed the bank robbery film with a sure grasp of character and setting, though it also carried an alarming note of self-worship for the character he played; and his Best Picture winner “Argo” (2012), an exciting period thriller (with a few corny elements, notably the ending) that showcased Affleck’s increasing flair for rousing, old-fashioned Hollywood-style filmmaking with a clear arc of redemption for its flawed central character. Add superheroes to “The Town” and “Argo” and they’d be monster blockbusters.
For the Batman movies to be rescued, they need to pull back a bit from the abyss labeled Zack Snyder. Though he is directing the upcoming Justice League movies featuring Batman slated for 2017 and 2019, it’s obvious that audiences hate him: Both “Man of Steel” and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” lost 70 percent of their audience on their second weekends in theaters, indicating catastrophic word of mouth.
Snyder is too dank, too pretentious, too glum, too allergic-to-fun for his audience. The Batman movies shouldn’t retreat to the silliness of the Joel Schumacher and Tim Burton versions (try watching Burton’s Batman movies today — they’re embarrassing), but they need to turn away from their breathless, claustrophobic aura of doom if they want to keep selling tickets. Movies directed by Affleck are grounded and dramatic without being overbearing.
But let’s not forget that Affleck already had his shot as a leading man, and failed utterly. It’s only Affleck the director who dragged Affleck the actor out of the ashes. After the disastrous “Pearl Harbor” in 2001, Affleck drifted from one craptacular project to another: “Gigli,” “Paycheck,” “Surviving Christmas,” “State of Play.” As an actor, he lacks tools: He has about three facial expressions, the most convincing of which is “slightly bored.” Asking him to be intense or ironical or conflicted or driven is like asking a box of laundry detergent to do these things. Both “The Town” and “Argo” would have been better with another actor.
What other actor? Consider Affleck’s other directorial effort: “Gone Baby Gone,” which starred a dynamic, quick-witted and hot-tempered actor — Ben’s brother Casey Affleck.
Casey would actually make a superb Batman: He’s got range, he’s got depth, he’s got explosiveness. Batman doesn’t have to be played by a skilled actor, but as we learned in the Dark Knight movies, he’s so much better when he is.
Casey Affleck is a certain Oscar nominee next year for his upcoming film “Manchester by the Sea,” in which he plays a tortured survivor of a horrific accident; he showed a demonic savagery in beating Jessica Alba to death in “The Killer Inside Me”; he was a toxic frenemy in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” He can be creepy, likable, scary, funny or easygoing, just as Christian Bale could be.
It’s not surprising Casey was cast as Bale’s brother in 2013’s “Out of the Furnace”: He has that same kind of crazy, unpredictable voltage. He’s got dual Batman DNA, having played the brother of one Batman and being the actual brother of another.
Give up the caped crusade, Ben. Casey is the guy who should be raging at major villains. You belong behind the camera, where no one cares if you look as explosive as a glass of milk.