Burton/Keaton Batman movie

[suarezguy]

The '89 film had great visuals and some good acting (especially Keaton) but too little focus on Bruce Wayne and Nicholson was a bit too camera-mugging. BR on the other hand (I did see it first) had such great visuals, music and characters that the somewhat weak plot doesn't bother me.

BR is my favorite, Batman Begins is next and the other Nolan films are good but agreed that Burton had a much better Gotham City.

Batman never killing wasn't so firm back in 1989; he strongly considered if not planned to or tried to kill Joe Chill in 1987's Year Two and Joker in '88's A Death in the Family.

 

[davejames]

Well again, I think it just goes back to Burton treating the character in a much more psychologically honest way. A guy who runs around dressed as a bat to avenge his parents' death is not only going to be a little bit unhinged and psychotic, but probably won't also get too bent out of shape if some murderous thug gets killed somewhere along the way.

And anyway, it was such a fantastical, over the top movie that I found it hard to take the deaths in it all that seriously.

 

[Timby]

BR is my favorite, Batman Begins is next and the other Nolan films are good but agreed that Burton had a much better Gotham City.

I actually prefer the Gotham of Begins, which is just the right mix of real-world and nightmarish hellscape that Bruce Wayne feels the need to save. The Burton films feel shot on backlots.

The Gotham of The Dark Knight / Rises is comparatively disappointing; Dark Knight makes no attempt to hide that the film is shot in Chicago and its suburbs to the point that the CBOT, which served as Wayne Tower and the heart of the monorail in Begins, is just another building, and the Gotham in Rises is just this weird, confusing mish-mash of Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and New York.

 

[Commander Richard]

The Burton films feel shot on backlots.

Yeah, that's something that really stood out when I re-watched the movies. What's worse was watching the batmobile drive through whipped cream.

The Gotham of The Dark Knight / Rises is comparatively disappointing; Dark Knight makes no attempt to hide that the film is shot in Chicago and its suburbs to the point that the CBOT, which served as Wayne Tower and the heart of the monorail in Begins, is just another building, and the Gotham in Rises is just this weird, confusing mish-mash of Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and New York.

I was okay with Chicago in TDK but I didn't like that Nolan didn't even try to hide the fact that it was Manhattan in Rises.

Gotham may not be a great show but I do like its version of Gotham City. They did a pretty good job of tweaking New York to give us a city that's 'real world', yet stylized with just the right amount of grit and grey.

 

[One Lucky Red Shirt]

keaton is the best batman. Burton's batflicks were very entertaining. flawed, yes, but what isnt? besides the superman films, the first 2 batfilms were ahead of their time pre-2000. loved keaton and Nicholson in batman. very fun and a good time. a little over the top but not too over the top. kinda like gene hackman as lex. very well done.

i do agree that at times the burton bats seem like sound stages at times. but nevertheless very well done. loved the look of gotham.

 

[Ovation]

This thread and a recent tour of the Warner Brothers studio (with lots of Batman memorabilia on hand from all the movies) inspired me to watch this. Just finished and I quite enjoyed it. Clearly a product of its time (absolutely nothing wrong with that), I enjoyed it the way I enjoy any film from an earlier era of filmmaking--by trying hard to imagine the context of the time in which it was made (easy enough for me as I'm an historian so it comes naturally--and, unlike a noir from the 40s, I was a (young) adult in 89 and remember that time quite clearly). Probably at least 15 years since I last saw it in its entirety so I'd forgotten a number of things. While it certainly has a different tone from the Nolan films (which I really like), it has its place as a fine bit of entertainment--just for a different mood.

 

[davejames]

Yeah it's definitely a very different style of superhero movie from what we tend to get now with DC and Marvel.

Personally I think today's movies could stand to be a bit more operatic and stylized (the last one that really did it well was Raimi's Spider-Man), but I realize audiences have probably moved on from that by now.

 

[JD]

I find it kind of funny that Burton added even more supernatural or crazy stuff to the characters, mainly Penguin and Catwoman, while Nolan pretty much avoided any supernatural and really crazy stuff.

 

[Greg Cox]

To put things in historical perspective: back in 1989, BATMAN seemed like a much more serious and dramatic take on Batman than the Adam West TV series, which was then the standard for comparison.

True story. When BATMAN first opened, I saw the movie twice, with two completely different sets of friends--who had radically different responses to it.

My comics-reading, convention-going, hardcore fan friends loved the movie--and were vastly relieved that it wasn't a campy spoof like the the TV show. But my friends from work were confused by it . . . because they'd been genuinely expecting a comedy. "I don't understand. Why wasn't it funny--like the TV show?"

It's easy to forget nowadays just how deeply the Adam West version was lodged in the general public's mind before the Tim Burton movie came out . . . .

 

[JD]

I think for some people it's still the first thing that comes to mind when you talk about Batman and comic books. It's a fun show, but it's really a great example of what modern comics and most of their adaptations are like.

 

[Greg Cox]

It's finally been eclipsed by today's new wave of big-budget superhero movies, but it's hard to underestimate just how big a shadow the BATMAN tv show cast over popular perceptions of comic book superheroes. For decades, it was pretty much impossible to read a mainstream newspaper or magazine article on comic books that didn't begin with some variation on "Zap! Bam! Pow!" or "Holy [FILL THE THE BLANK], Batman!"

Kind of like the way everything third STAR TREK article used to begin with "Beam us up, Scotty" . . ..

 

[Warped9]

The '89 Batman was HUGE when it was released. I was 30 and at the time it really did impress as the first genuinely serious take on Batman in the visual medium.

But not that long after I was really impressed with early '90s animated Batman--that was fantastic--and for me it eclipsed the Burton films. Suffice to say I wasn't much impressed with BR and it was really downhill from there.

I really like the Nolan trilogy as a whole, but some measure of atmosphere was lost after the first film. The Gotham in BB didn't feel like a backlot (as it does in the Burton films) and had nice mix of real world and elsewhere to it. TDK and TDKR lost that in varying degree.

 

[davejames]

Yeah as much as I love TDK, it's really Ledger's performance and the great action sequences that I respond to the most, more than how Batman himself or his world is depicted.

Every time Keaton appears on screen as Batman in his movies, he truly looks and feels iconic to me in that costume, which I just never really felt with Bale's Batman for some reason. And the same goes for Keaton's Batmobile versus the Tumbler as well.

 

[The Old Mixer]

The Burton costume wasn't terribly practical for moving around in, but it was well-shaped for striking Batman poses.

The problem for me with TDK is that it feels too serious and grounded to be a superhero film. You're getting all invested in the story and then the guy in the not-rubber suit with the ridiculous voice shows up and takes you out of the film.

And I imagine that a lot of the people who consider the Burton film to be "campy" aren't old enough to remember the West-dominated public perception of Batman prior to that film.

I talk of the Burton film in the singular because BR did nothing for me. The '89 film I saw four times in the summer of its release, a couple of those times dragging other people along because they just had to see it! BR I walked out of wondering what the hell I'd just watched.

 

[Galileo7]

The '89 Batman was HUGE when it was released...
But not that long after I was really impressed with early '90s animated Batman--that was fantastic--and for me it eclipsed the Burton films. Suffice to say I wasn't much impressed with BR and it was really downhill from there.
I really like the Nolan trilogy as a whole, but some measure of atmosphere was lost after the first film. The Gotham in BB didn't feel like a backlot (as it does in the Burton films) and had nice mix of real world and elsewhere to it. TDK and TDKR lost that in varying degree.

Agree.

Yeah as much as I love TDK, it's really Ledger's performance and the great action sequences that I respond to the most, more than how Batman himself or his world is depicted.
Every time Keaton appears on screen as Batman in his movies, he truly looks and feels iconic to me in that costume, which I just never really felt with Bale's Batman for some reason. And the same goes for Keaton's Batmobile versus the Tumbler as well.

Agree.

 

[Warped9]

And I imagine that a lot of the people who consider the Burton film to be "campy" aren't old enough to remember the West-dominated public perception of Batman prior to that film.

I was 30 in 1989 and I definitely remember the Adam West version. The camp in the '89 film isn't nearly on the same level as the Adam West series, but it's most certainly there. I will say it's more apparent now than it was in '89, but back then Burton's film stood in stark contrast to the '60's television series.

I will add I've never been a fan of the Burton era Batmobile or those that followed. It fit the film somewhat stylistically, but it looked unwieldy as hell. While not perfect I like the Tumbler much better.

I still have a soft spot for the '66 Batmobile even as impractical as it is. If I won the mother of lotteries I'd love to have one in the garage.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z8jZD0qTqOw

 

[M'rk son of Mogh]

• The dialogue is pretty unsophisticated by today's standards. This isn't a movie that would pass muster if it came out now.

• 
  
  What you call "unsophisticated" I call "infinitely quotable".
  
  That's the big difference between movies then and now that I'm missing a lot. How easily my friends and I can quote them and how memorable the dialogue is.
  Nolan gave us the clunky "He's the hero Gotham or something or whatever" and "why do we fall so we can get back up" nonsense, while my friends and I will enter a room constantly and shout "Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds!" among MANY others.
  
  It may not be realistic, but the dialogue is just fun. Which, on average, tends not to be these days it seems.

 

[gblews]

To put things in historical perspective: back in 1989, BATMAN seemed like a much more serious and dramatic take on Batman than the Adam West TV series, which was then the standard for comparison.

True story. When BATMAN first opened, I saw the movie twice, with two completely different sets of friends--who had radically different responses to it.

My comics-reading, convention-going, hardcore fan friends loved the movie--and were vastly relieved that it wasn't a campy spoof like the the TV show. But my friends from work were confused by it . . . because they'd been genuinely expecting a comedy. "I don't understand. Why wasn't it funny--like the TV show?"

It's easy to forget nowadays just how deeply the Adam West version was lodged in the general public's mind before the Tim Burton movie came out . . . .

Yes, I think the TV show nearly ruined the character and did poison the atmosphere for "serious" movies and shows about comic book superheros for years to come. Although I think things began to turn around with Superman '78, it took Batman '89 to turn things around for Batman, as you say.

Nicholson really drove Batman '89 over the top. He was HUGE at the time, one of the biggest box office draws of the day. As great as Michael Keaton was as "Batsy" (as Joker called him during their final fight), Jack's presence and iconic performance took the movie to dizzying heights. I don't get those who say that they thought Nicholson was just "being himself". The man was a veteran actor, an Oscar winner and multiple nominee, so why would THIS guy turn in a performance where he was just "being himself"? There really had not been a performance of a villain like this before -- a character who found murder manically humorous.

Because of Nicholson's performance, now, it seems, superhero movies live and die on the strengths (or weaknesses) of their villain characters. Batman Begins suffers mightily because of this.

Like others, I didn't care for BR, except for the gorgeous Michelle Pheiffer, but Batman '89 was a milestone in superhero movies.

 

[davejames]

The problem for me with TDK is that it feels too serious and grounded to be a superhero film. You're getting all invested in the story and then the guy in the not-rubber suit with the ridiculous voice shows up and takes you out of the film.

Yeah the big problem for me is Nolan explained so much, and removed so much of the magic and mystery behind the character, that it just never really felt like I was watching an iconic superhero in action-- but more just a troubled rich guy running around in some military special ops gear.

 

[Amaris]

• The dialogue is pretty unsophisticated by today's standards. This isn't a movie that would pass muster if it came out now.

• 
  
  What you call "unsophisticated" I call "infinitely quotable".
  
  That's the big difference between movies then and now that I'm missing a lot. How easily my friends and I can quote them and how memorable the dialogue is.
  Nolan gave us the clunky "He's the hero Gotham or something or whatever" and "why do we fall so we can get back up" nonsense, while my friends and I will enter a room constantly and shout "Gentlemen, let's broaden our minds!" among MANY others.
  
  It may not be realistic, but the dialogue is just fun. Which, on average, tends not to be these days it seems.

• 
  
  Yes, this. I also like to comment to one of my friends (who always has the latest technology to show off), "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"
  
  Batman is endlessly quotable, and just a heck of a lot of fun.