11. Alicia Silverstone
Appeared in: Batman and Robin
As a huge fan of Batgirl (and a fan of Batman and Robin), I hate that Alicia Silverstone is down this low on the list. She’s an amazing actress and pop-culture icon who could have brought a comic-accurate version of Batgirl to life, but she was dealt a bad hand by Joel Schumacher’s Batman and Robin.
First of all, let’s just say that even though there are many questionable aspects of the 1997 film, Silverstone’s performance isn’t one of them. She does what she can with the role, but there isn’t an awful lot to work with.
For starters, the movie rewrote the character’s origins so that she was actually Barbara Wilson, the niece of Alfred Pennyworth (the likely reason being that Commissioner Gordon wasn’t as big a part of those Batman movies). She was quickly relegated to one of the many supporting roles in a movie with too much going on, at which point we then discovered that she was recklessly competing in life-threatening motorcycle races – which may or may not explain Alfred’s decision to prepare a suit for her and reveal Batman and Robin’s true identity to her.
Even with the odd domino mask, Silverstone looked the part. She’s also one of the many enjoyable aspects of a frankly ridiculous movie. It’s just a shame she wasn’t given the chance to play a more comic-accurate Batgirl.