Acting and story is more important than physical portrayal
if the film calls for it.
When you focus solely on the physical portrayal, you end up with a piece of crap movie like Batman & Robin where Bane might look just like the comics, but there's no story, tension or climax. Once you get over the initial 'thrill' of seeing him brought to life on the big screen - which takes all of 10 seconds - you quickly realise there's nothing else there to hold your interest and nothing to captivate you.
Of course, the flip side is that you focus only on story/acting and not physicality, so the audience may then find it hard to accept the character on a phsyical level - especially an established comic book character whose look is widely recognised.
To be honest, I've never had a problem with how Nolan has done things. He serves up most of the physicality, but makes enough changes so that the character works in live motion (which is a totally different thing to seeing them in a comic panel), is contemporary, and also allows him to apply his own unique spin on a franchise which
has been done before.
Take the Joker. Anyone who looked at a pic of Heath Ledger in full costume and makeup would instantly have known it was the joker. The face paint was there, the purple/green outfit, the greenish hue to his hair. However, he still wasn't totally like earlier comic versions - he didn't look skinny or malnourished, he didn't have short-ish slicked back hair, he didn't have a prominent or hooked nose, and he seemed younger than Joker has normally been portrayed. But it worked perfectly for Nolan's world.
So to me, Nolan got 90% of the look right. But more importantly, he got to the fundamental core of the character - this crazy, sinister, chaotic, wicked and unpredictable personality - and that's what made him a pleasure to watch on screen, not how he looked. Looks are there for recognisability only, they don't carry the film.
The thing is, the Joker was easier to carry off. His physicality is still based on that of an average male. Someone like Bane on the other hand ......... well to start with, he's often been portrayed as massively tall in the comics. And that's before you even get to his build, or to the size he gets to when he injects venom. To get that same kind of look in a film, you'd need a 7ft tall bodybuilder. And there's very, very few of them who I can think of that have garnered any praise for their acting...........!
So again, Nolan has concentrated more on the acting and character, based on what we've seen so far. Bane is driven, determined, intelligent, ruthless, brutal. Looks-wise, Hardy may lack the height, but he's still fairly muscular and carries himself with a confident swagger. Bane is also often difficult to bring to life because in the comics his face is fully covered. This would never work properly in live motion. The full mask has been replaced by a mouthpiece, but I see this as a neccessity - it's very difficult for an actor to portray a complex version of Bane with their whole face covered, and it would be very difficult for an audience to accept the character or his pain & motivations. Hardy can act well with just his eyes and voice.
I'd say with Bane, Nolan has probably got 60% of the look, but that's probably the best we could ever hope for if Bane was to be the main villain of the story and actually have character and personality. Batman & Robin may have had a more faithful look for Bane, but his role in that film was minimal and he wasn't called on to do much more than a show of strength.
If Nolan had done something like this - which is more like the original comic Bane - do you not think it would look totally out of place in his Batman universe?
As for scrawny Batman .................... again, it serves the story. In fairness, Bruce Wayne was pretty built in Batman Begins so they
did go for a faithful look.
However, the game has now moved on 10 years+ ..................... this is a Bruce Wayne who has been run down and stressed to the hilt. It wouldn't make sense that he's still built the way he was in Batman Begins.
