Rate: Batman (1989)

7/10 - The best aspect of the movie was Jack Nicholson's Joker.

I liked it. I liked how Bruce was personable and an otherwise likable character. And Batman wasn't feared by the good citizens -- nowadays everyone is afraid of him and I don't think that is what a superhero should be about. The sequal was okay but I must admit, out of all his girlfriends I ABSOLUTELY LOVED MICHELLE PFEIFFER THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh easily a 10/10. 1989 was one heck of a year to be a kid.

Michael Keaton was always the best Batman in my book alongside Val Kilmer, Michael Gough was the perfect Alfred (sorry Michael Caine), and the way Jack Nicholson portrays The Joker is pretty good for 1980s standards.

I'm not entirely certain about the Vicki Vale character. She disappeared in Batman Returns (1992) anyhow.

I disliked Vicki but Chase was beyond pathetic.

It's one of my favorite movies, ably capturing the comic book world and being dark enough for loyalty to the character--but not too dark that the whole thing becomes a gloomy, existential metaphor for the meaning of life (you know what I mean--the Nolan movies)--which is all well and fine, but, my God, do you have to do it in a comic-book movie!

As Roger Ebert wrote, ironically about Batman Returns, "No matter how hard you try, superheroes and film noir don't go together; the very essence of noir is that there are no more heroes." Exactly; the irony is, of course, that Ebert loved The Dark Knight, which is the very exemplar of trying to amalgamate noir and superheroing against each genre's will. No disrespect to the late, great Mr. Ebert, but this is a rant that I feel I must get off my chest, for the people who love the Nolan pictures without even bothering to look at, or at least remember, Burton's efforts.

There always was an innate darkness to the Batman character that was not brought out in, say, the very fun, goofy, "campy" Adam West series. But there never was a Batman--a comic-book superhero!--before the modern era, who spent the majority of the running time musing over destruction, death, and decay. Respectfully, I argue that that should be left to the philosophers, or at least to philosophical movies that don't include a man who dresses as a giant bat and swings from rooftop to rooftop. To wit, I remember when comic-book movies used to be fun.

Burton's two Batman films successfully hold the middle between darkness and fun, and they're more the successful for it. They're not gloomy, and they have a wit and a joy to them despite their superficial veneer of purpose. I must say that I miss those kinds of superhero movies. Now we are in an era when even Superman, the Big Blue Boy Scout, has to be a dark, conflicted, morally ambiguous character. That is not realism, that is sheer folly.

To end this rant on a positive note, however, three recent efforts--the first Iron Man, the first Captain America, and the remarkably good and underrated Superman Returns do keep up this tradition. Unsurprisingly, I find them the best three 2000s comic-book movies thus far. (To be honest, though, Nolan's original Batman film, Batman Begins, is also quite strong--less gloomy or nasty than The Dark Knight--and it would come right under these three.)

8 for me. Yes it is fun, and still the best batman movie made so far, but a bit too camp and cartoonish perhaps. Jack Nicholson was a bit too over the top imo.

8

Didn't care for the poor sets. 7/10

Loved it when it was released, and I still think Keaton is the best big screen Batman to date. Nicholson is still the definitive Joker as well, sorry Ledger fans. Having recently re-watched it though, as a whole the movie hasn't particularly aged well, so I give it a 7/10...still a good solid movie, but not as great as I thought initially.