Welcome one and all to The Bonus View‘s March Movie Madness Tournament o’ Death. With the college basketball season nearing its widely popular 64-team tournament, we thought it would fun to create a little tournament of our own. Only this time, basketball teams have been replaced with all sorts of movie characters, from villains to heroes to just plain crazies. Your job as a faithful Bonus View reader is to make sense of this whole thing and then vote on each match-up that comes your way.

You’ll only be asked to do one thing: Vote on who you think would win in a battle to the death. Taking into account what you know about each of these characters, it will be your job to vote them through to the next round or eliminate them where they stand. The weak will fall and the strong will survive.

March Movie Madness Rules

For this first post, we’re going to explain the rules and give you a beginning playoff so that you can get used to what we’re doing.

1. The field of characters was chosen carefully by a selection committee (of one). Sure, some of your favorite characters may have been left out, and yes there may be some characters in here that you’re not necessarily fond of, but the committee tried to span genres, film franchises, and also pick a few dark horse candidates to make things interesting.

2. Seeding was done scientifically by placing numbers on a piece of paper that corresponded with each character and then drawing them out of a bowl.

3. For the first round, each blog post will feature two match-ups, four characters in total. I’ll do my best to describe each match-up. Then it’s up to you to decide who you want to move forward by voting in the poll.

4. The voting will be left open until the next match-up is posted. At that time, the votes will be tallied and the winner of the previous match-ups will be announced on the following match-up post.

5. In case of a tie, the character whose movie made the most money at the box office will continue on.

6. Please use the Comments section below to explain your reasoning. This may sway other voters to your side. Use it to your advantage. Insightful and hilarious comments will be highlighted in later posts.

7. Have about 15 bucket loads of fun!

For everyone who just can’t wait, here’s a look at what the bracket looks like. Click to enlarge.

Now that we’ve got the pesky rules out of the way, let’s turn our attention to the matter at hand. This post will feature our first match-up – a battle royale of sorts. The NCAA recently instituted a play-in game where two schools play for the right to be included in the field of 64. We’re doing the same thing here, only this may get messy.

I wanted to include Batman in the field of contestants, but which Batman do I pick? There have been so many down through the ages, it’s hard to pick the “right” one. I’ll never please everyone, even if I try. So, you the readers get to choose exactly which Batman you’d like to see fight his way through the stiff competition that lies before him.

Adam West Batman – Corny, yes. But he’s the classic, right? He’s the beginning. He’s where it all started. Not voting for Adam West would be akin to not voting for childhood or happiness. How could you do something like that?

Strengths: Has the ability to conjure up powerful exclamations like “POW!” and “WHAM!” while fighting. Temporarily blinding his opponents with giant words appearing seemingly from nowhere, West is able to apprehend the criminal contingent of Gotham.

Weaknesses: He’s encumbered by the lack of coolness from the technology of his time period. He just doesn’t have some of the cooler gadgets we see later on as Batman progresses throughout the ages.

Michael Keaton Batman – We all remember fondly when Keaton was Batman, battling the likes of The Joker and The Penguin all the while keeping those stellar eyebrows in tip-top condition. Credit to Keaton, he brought a sense of coolness to Batman as a character. That goes a long way in my book.

Strengths: Has the coolest Batmobile. It looks the closest to being comic book-like without looking completely ridiculous.

Weaknesses: Seems oddly encumbered by his sturdy but at times immobile Batsuit.

Val Kilmer Batman – When Val Kilmer was still a movie star and as thin as Ice Man, he took on the role of the Caped Crusader. Is his overacted stoic portrayal of Bruce Wayne/Batman enough to push him over the top?

Strengths: An icy, icy glare.

Weaknesses: Just about everything. Come on, Kilmer flat-out sucked as Batman. If he makes it through, I’ll be upset.

George Clooney Batman – After all the people who came before him, movie star extraordinaire George Clooney single-handedly destroyed the ‘Batman’ franchise. Well, maybe it wasn’t all his fault. The movies had just become ridiculous with endless amounts of cheesy villains, but man, Clooney was awful.

Strengths: Batsuit nipples.

Weaknesses: Batsuit nipples.

Christian Bale Batman – With Christopher Nolan’s visionary take on the franchise, Christian Bale was able to create a more realistic, down-to-Earth Batman that still kicked a whole lot of ass.

Strengths: Gruff-talking Batman voice and complete disregard for reckless endangerment.

Weaknesses: He’s pouty and may rely far too much on Morgan Freeman to keep him supplied with an endless array of weapons.

Now, it’s up to you to throw up a steel cage in your mind. Place each of these Batmen in there and let them duke it out for a right to continue on in the tournament. Again, please use the Comments section to explain why you choose the way you do, and your thought process of getting to that point.

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