The Comic Book Flick of the Century!!!

It in 1989 when I watched the Batman movie, just as the fad of T-shirts, skateboards, bumper stickers, and all kind of other merchandise was hitting the country, and to a lesser extent the world. This movie also got me a lot more interested in the campy 1960's Batman TV series, with all its ZAP!, POW!, BAM! and KABLAM! fight scenes, even though this movie was nothing like that.

Tim Burton blessed the world with an astonishingly beautiful plot about a dark knight and the hordes of criminals that he battles. He managed to get the feeling of the movie by getting rid of the campy side of the previous Batman series and replacing the lighthearted routineness and comic lines of the TV show with a Gothic, Gritty, and Ghostly atmosphere that infects both Gotham and its inhabitants. He also got rid of the loudmouthed Robin.

The movie's biggest strength, however, is the storyline. Batman is a dark knight mysterious even to the police, because he uses a special mask and Bat-suit to hide his own identity. He's mostly seen at night, terrorizing criminals, especially thieves and armed robbers, who go after innocents in the dead of night. He's constantly active because of the ongoing corruption in the Gotham City Police Department, whose Commissioner Gordon is hard pressed to stamp out.

Among the organized mobsters corrupting the GCPD are Carl Grissom and his right hand man Jack Napier, both of whom have connections to members of the GCPD who they bribe. Jack increasingly wants to be the boss of the crime family, and is increasingly at odds with Grissom, whom he suspects is trying to kill him. One day, he agrees to a special operation to infiltrate Gotham Chemical Plant to steal some documents, only to learn that he's been set up. The police are on to him, and unfortunately so is Batman.

The strange set of circumstances that turn him into the homicidal Joker is best noticed by watching the movie. It is after the violent transformation that the Joker takes center stage, and Jack Nicholson is absolutely brilliant as the homicidal Joker. He is both deceptive and brutal as the vengeful enforcer seeking to take over the entire city, starting with the entire underworld.

Nicholson did his homework portraying a character both funny and insane at once you'd love to hate him. It is after this tragic transformation that the story really develops. I for one identified with him to some extent because like Batman, the newly insane Joker has no superhuman powers; he relies on his underlings to assist him, and can even be amusing at times. Still, it's worth mentioning that the climax involves the Joker using a deadly chemical weapon called Smilex to try to kill the good people of Gotham City- and Batman coming in to stop it- a stark sign of the Joker's two-faced personality. And there's more; The Joker throwing a feathered pen with a sharp needle at the end into a rival mobster, the Joker selling deadly chemicals laced into beauty products, and the use of Smilex gas to kill everybody in a museum except one... the list could go on, and but that's just a few example's of the Joker's twisted personality.

It's not only the Joker who is gothic. Tim Burton didn't have super-fancy computer graphics to work with in 1989 when he created Gotham city as a dark, chilling place with spire-shaped buildings, dark alleyways, a perpetually cloudy sky, and church towers the size and height of the World Trade Center. Thus Burton brought Batman to its roots to some extent by taking it away from the campy feel of the 1960's TV series. That means no more 'ZAP!' 'POW!' 'BAM!' 'KABLAM!' and any of that usual stuff we saw in the TV series. Also the movie is not as PC as Batman & Robin was, and it doesn't even pretend to be insensitive to any type of people, except for the black man (Billy Dee Williams) who plays top DA Harvey Dent.

Other than Jack Nicholson, we have Michael Keaton as Batman- a dark, brooding Batman. A viewer may at first think that Keaton's wooden and non-emotional (even as Bruce he doesn't smile much), but then he will learn that Keaton's portraying a character who's been long since desensitized and used to violence and disaster to show much emotion (that actually happenes to some people who've suffered terrible trauma in their lives). He's awkward with women as can be expected and even has some trouble getting along with the local politicians.

Kim Basinger plays news photographer Vicki Vale, whose curiosity gets the better of her more than once. Despite her flaws, her presence actually helps us get to the essence of Batman's inner psyche in a way I won't note here. After all, the movie revolves around him mostly, (and around the Joker to a lesser extent) which will always count as the movie's greatest strength.

It is on this basis that I reviewed the other end of the spectrum, namely , Batman & Robin which is clearly the worst comic book flick ever made, and actually made the 60's TV series look like a masterpiece, as is this 1989 one.

Cast:
Jack Nicholson- Jack Napier/Joker
Michael Keaton- Bruce Wayne/Batman
Kim Basinger- Vicki Vale
Pat Hingle- Commisioner Gordon
Michael Gough- Alfred Pennyworth
Billy Dee Williams- Harvey Dent

Directed by Tim Burton