Prepare For The Dark Knight: Batman

By Rafe Telsch: 2008-07-09 16:39:35

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The Dark Knight is one of the biggest releases of this summer, if not the year. How do you prepare yourself for such a monumental picture? By watching previous depictions of Batman in movies, of course. We’re making our way through ten feature length incarnations of the Dark Knight’s stories, from Adam West to animation. We invite you to join us for the ride as we analyze the good, the bad, and the Bat.

(And yes, we’re actually re-watching all of these old flicks rather than just relying on our memory, so we can honestly evaluate each of them in preparation for The Dark Knight).

Day Two: Batman (1989)

After yesterday’s viewing of Batman: the Movie, I couldn’t get to Tim Burton’s Batman fast enough. It’s a shame that people had to wait over twenty years for a better take on Batman. Burton’s film not only provides a better, more faithful adaptation of the character, but becomes the characterization that shapes the future of Batman in non-comic media for some time.

I know people were appalled when it was first discovered that Burton cast Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman, and with good reason. Until this point, Keaton was best known for playing a dead con-man (Beetlejuice) and being the idea man at the City Morgue (Night Shift). Keaton quickly proves fans had nothing to worry about, proving that all fans and critics should approach casting announcements with an open mind. Keaton provides the haunted side of Bruce Wayne and the driven side of the Dark Knight that were so horrifically absent from Adam West’s version of the character.

It’s not just Batman that’s darker here. Burton brings his flair for gothic atmosphere out strong in this picture, creating an otherworldly Gotham city that certainly feels like it’s being picked apart by the criminal element and decay. This is the Gotham City where Batman dwells, not that pastel city of the ‘60s.

While Batman’s origins aren’t explored in depth, this is a kind of origin story. Batman is new to Gotham City and people don’t know what to make of him. We see this through nervous thugs and an ambitious journalist named Knox (Robert Wuhl). If people thought Keaton was weird casting, Wuhl really should have come as a surprise, especially since he is mostly comedic relief and exposition for the film, and largely doesn’t feel like he belongs in the same picture as the rest of the cast.

Although Batman is new, this is really an origin for the true star of the movie: Jack Nicholson’s Joker. Until Batman, Joker was sort of a mystery figure; a psychopath without a past. Here Burton provides the nastiest of Batman’s rogues gallery with a past as a gangster, and ties together Batman and Joker’s origins. While I appreciate that parallelism on a critical level, the fanboy in me wishes they’d left the Joker’s past a mystery.

Changes to the character aside, Nicholson plays the Joker with a lot more dedication than I’d expect from a serious actor in a comic book movie. His Joker is a thing of psychotic beauty at times, completely over the top and insane. At other times he’s rational and collected, particularly in his reactions to Batman stealing his thunder. While it’s not completely the contemporary model of the character, “just as ready with a gun as with a gag” (you can pretty well rest assured you’ll wind up dead if you cross Nicholson’s rendition), there is serious villany afoot here. In fact, The Dark Knight aside (I haven’t seen it yet), I’d be willing to say Nicholson puts the best Batman villain on film to date, and certainly puts Cesar Romero’s version to shame.

That’s not to say all of Burton’s picture is good, because it certainly has a few weak moments. While Batman and the Joker are portrayed excellently, the inclusion of Vicki Vale really doesn’t make much sense other than a forced romantic involvement for Wayne, especially on repeated viewings. The closest the two have to chemistry is the scene with Vale discovering Wayne is Batman (starting the trend of telling Bruce’s leading lady in every damn movie that he’s Batman), and that ends with Bruce telling her “I have to go to work.”

The other downside to the movie is the Batsuit, which is quite bulky here. As much as I love the iconic look to it, repeated viewings reveal that a lot of Batman’s opponents must really be in awe of Batman’s appearance to move so slowly that Batman has time to trudge along. Someone on their A-game would bust this Batman down before he had a chance to recover from his triumphant appearance. Still, the Batsuit looks cool, and makes it a bit easier to buy that he’s striking fear into the heart of the criminals he’s preying on and that’s why he’s not getting trounced.

The Good: Burton nails the atmosphere of a decaying city falling prey to criminals, and his take on the characters is a lot more true to the comics. Nicholson is brilliantly over the top as Joker, setting a pretty high bar for future Batman villains. Elfman’s score remains my all time favorite non-Williams music for a movie.

The Bad: Vicki Vale is quickly tiresome and is definitely the weakest element of the movie (what prize photographer attempts to shoot from the rooftops with the damn flash on?). I hadn’t noticed it before, but Vale’s constant loss of shoes just gives me another reason to hate her. Some of the effects don’t quite hold up, particularly animation and composite shots.

The Bat: Where does he get those wonderful toys? Batman provides the definitive take on the official Batmobile (the Tumbler is cool, but it’s not the Batmobile); the Batwing is cool while it lasts; and it’s nice to see Batman finally using gas-powered tools instead of that tiresome hand-thrown batrope.

Final Rating:

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