BATMAN
A film review by Chuck Dowling
Copyright 1997 Chuck Dowling
Batman (1989) *** out of ***** - Cast: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Jack Palance, Pat Hingle, Billy Dee Williams, Michael Gough, William Hootkins, Jerry Hall. Written by: Sam Hamm and Warren Skaaren. Directed by: Tim Burton. Running Time: 126 minutes.
About a year before the release of "Batman", the hype began. But by the time the film was released, you had basically seen the entire movie, in clip form. Unfortunately, it seemed to work much better as a series of clips.
We are introduced to Gotham City, a strange town which seems to both exist in reality and not exist in reality at the same time. Everything in the town is dark, gloomy, and bleak. Gotham's new district attorney Harvey Dent (Williams) vows to end the stranglehold of the crime boss of the town (Palance). But also at the same time, a new player enters the game. His name is Batman.
Batman's normal persona is that of millionaire Bruce Wayne (Keaton). He is forced to bring Batman into the public eye to confront the Joker (Nicholson), who once was a henchman of Gotham's crime boss, until Batman dropped him into a vat of chemicals. Now the Joker is trying to basically kill people in various ways, with no real rhyme or reason to his plan.
No matter how many times I see the film, one thought always stays with me: the film has never looked like it was finished. The editing is erratic, the sound sometimes in non-existant, and the effects look like they needed serious enhancement in post production. For example, look at the Batmobile. Sure it's supposed to be cool and speedy, but really look at it when it's on screen. You'll never see it going faster than about 5 miles per hour. That's an obvious flaw to me. Also, everything obviously looks like a movie set, even though the production design won an oscar. I could just imagine the camera panning back at any moment to reveal the crew standing there. Things like that spoil the illusion that is supposedly being created. And they really needed to decide how this city was going to be perceived. Obviously there is no city in the country resembling Gotham, so they needed to make Gotham a world of its own. People and places resemble the 1940s, but use 1980s expressions and concepts. It doesn't mix.
And I don't much like having to buy stupid ideas or concepts "because it's a comic book movie". For example, (and I know I'm nitpicking a little but darn it all, it bothers me) the Joker really doesn't exist for much longer than a week or so. But immediately he has a whole gang with "Joker" jackets and "Joker" cars, all in "Joker" colors with a big "Joker" logo on them. It's absurd, you're a homicidal maniac alive for about a week, but you take the time to get a fleet of cars painted purple and green and get specialized jackets for your gang? I know it's just a movie, but come on, it's too silly.
Also on the negative side, the soundtrack contains numerous oddly-placed songs by Prince which were obviously dubbed in after the film was completed. Prince is awful, as are these songs, and they just don't gel with the look and feel of the film. Danny Elfman's score is a mixed bag. The actual theme and anthem are good, but just the normal background music gets annoying. And there are too many unnecessary characters, namely Robert Wuhl's reporter and a crooked cop played by William Hootkins. Like I said, some better editing was needed.
But, even after all that (and it's a lot, I know), I'll admit that the film is still entertaining. Despite what everyone said before the film opened, Keaton makes a fine Batman. Nicholson's acting is SO over the top that it reaches a new level of silliness, but it fits the character perfectly and therefore is fine with me. And had it not been for the success of this film, there wouldn't have been 1992's "Batman Returns" which is my favorite of the series. [PG-13]
-- Chuck Dowling Visit Chuck's Movie Reviews at http://users.southeast.net/~chuckd21/ Over 1,600 movies rated and/or reviewed! Movie news, film related links, and reader's reviews.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews