The past few days I’ve had Batman on my mind, or should I say a couple of the people around him…

First up is Heath Ledger’s Joker from the 2008 Christopher Nolan directed film The Dark Knight, the second film of his Batman trilogy and the film many consider the best of the lot…

I thought that came out pretty good, though I impressed myself even more with my follow-up…

Back in 1997 director Joel Schumacher followed up his Batman Forever with the much lambasted Batman and Robin.  I found it so curious people essentially gave Batman Forever (featuring Val Kilmer in the Bruce Wayne/Batman role) a pass and hated, hated, hated Batman and Robin (George Clooney’s sole outing as the Dark Knight) so much.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t believe Batman and Robin is a great film by any stretch of the imagination.  But it was, IMHO, roughly on the same level of Batman Forever… a theatrical big budget version of the 1960’s campy Batman TV show.  As such, it fascinates me how much people can hate one and essentially have little to no strong opinion of the other.

Anyway, Batman and Robin featured the introduction of the character of Batgirl and they picked a mighty fine actress to play the role in Alicia Silverstone.  After wowing audiences with her sexy -and sometimes deadly!- youthful characters both in film and music videos, Batman and Robin would be perhaps her last big hurrah in terms of youthful movie roles.

In a way its too bad… I thought she made a smashing Batgirl, even if the film around her wasn’t very good.

So here’s to you.  Alicia Silverstone as Barbara Wilson (yeah, yeah, in the comics its Barbara Gordon, the daughter of Commissioner Gordon)… aka The Batgirl!