Batman

Review by Jason Gaston

 

Thanks in large part to the sixties Batman television series, the Superfriends cartoon, and two famous appearances on The New Scooby Doo Movies, many people in the eighties considered Batman as a cornball doofus of a superhero age long gone. An up and coming director by the name of Tim Burton was about to change all of that for the next two decades.

Casting Michael Keaton, who at the time was a well-known comedic actor, as Batman, Tim Burton set out to redefine the world's concept of the Dark Knight. In 1989, Burton and Warner Brothers presented Batman, a modern age retelling of the Batman myth. In it, we learn the story of Bruce Wayne's inner turmoil after watching his parents gunned down in cold blood and his vow to fight crime as the masked Batman.

But now, there is a new criminal on the street. A fearsome and criminally insane man with white skin and green hair who murders without pity and laughs at the suffering of others. Thanks to Jack Nicholson, the Joker is born.

When you get down to it, Batman and the Joker are basically each other's creation and they dance around each other like leaves in the wind... well, all right... leaves in the wind with guns and batarangs.

Moody and atmospheric, Burton's Batman remains one of the better superhero offerings. A dark, haunting, and poetic look at a comic book icon.

Michael Keaton was perfectly cast as Bruce Wayne/Batman, flogging off the cries of militant bat-fans, but the true star of the show is Jack Nicholson as The Joker. The man absolutely steals the show and you can tell he has a good time doing it even if his performance as the Joker comes off as too self-satisfying self-serving.

This movie is a visual masterpiece, but a lack of actual story hampers the bat's return to the big screen. Even with that handicap, Batman is the certified birth of the Summer blockbuster and a pretty good movie to boot.