Michael Keaton Was a Great Batman, But These 3 Movies Prove He’s an Even Better Villain Actor

IMAGE COURTESY OF WARNER BROS.$WBD When Michael Keaton first landed the role of Batman$BAT, fans lost their minds, and not in a good way. The fear at the time was that the actor simply couldn’t portray the darkness that the character required — he was thought of as Mr. Mom, or the guy from Night Shift; a comedic fast-talker. And Batman$BAT couldn’t be a comedy; post-Frank Miller, comics fans wanted the Adam West Pow-Zap-Wham caricature gone from the public consciousness. Keaton fans at the time pointed to Clean and Sober, his most serious film to that point, in which he played a recovering addict with a sarcastic edge. Yes, this guy could go dark enough to be a traumatized, angry Bruce Wayne$BAT. As Batman$BAT and Batman$BAT Returns ultimately proved, Keaton had no problem channeling his darker side; yelling “Let’s get nuts!” to the Joker$JOKR, he proved he could amp up the psychosis to match Jack Nicholson. With full hindsight, some have opined he’d make an even better Joker$JKR than Batman$BAT! That isn’t likely to ever happen outside of a comedy sketch, but Keaton did not shy away from the darkness thereafter. Indeed, multiple movies have proven he can be a great villain, too. Let’s take a look at three which saw him cast the crimefighting gadgets aside to embrace illegality. 3. Spider-Man: Homecoming$SPDR:HOMECOMING IMAGE COURTESY OF MARVEL STUDIOS$MRVL/sONY In embracing a comic-book villain role, Keaton didn’t suddenly become a scenery-chewing conqueror of worlds. Rather, he gave the Marvel Cinematic Universe$MCU a bad guy who felt real. Adrian Toombs isn’t out to dominate; he’s just a working man who got screwed by the government and big business (Stark Industries), and feels he has the right to give back as good as he gets. If that screws someone else over, too bad — he’s earned the right to get his at anyone’s expense. It may or may not have added to Keaton’s comfort zone that he got to don a mask and wings again. Spider-Man$SPDR may have defeated Toombs’ new alter-ego, the Vulture, but it cost him, at least in the moment, the girl he was in love with, who just happened to be Toombs’ surprise daughter. Maintaining a weird honor code for a criminal, Toombs refused to rat out Spidey’s secret identity, even in prison. In a blow to Keaton the actor, Toombs was briefly shifted into the massively unpopular Morbius universe, but that seems to be dead now. Here’s hoping he returns to the primary timeline for more self-righteous anger and believable, street-level villainy. 2. Pacific Heights IMAGE COURTESY OF 20TH CENTURY FOX$DIS Pacific Heights utilized Keaton’s charm and fast-talking humor to equal effect with his sinister side, as he played Carter Hayes, a seemingly ideal tenant who movies in to a unit owned by Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith’s Drake and Patty, only to become their worst nightmare. Taking full advantage of tenant protection laws, and provoking his new landlords into overreacting illegally, he engages in long-con identity theft, while infesting the building with cockroaches, in the process caus