That Michael Keaton's career basically flatlined in the mid-'90s is a shame.
Some people say that roles dried up because he walked away from a third Batman movie and others say that he was never a huge megastar to begin with and simply went back to his regular level of success. I keep thinking that if he had accepted the role of Jack on Lost, that would have revived his career, at least for the time he was doing the show.
I suspect he just kinda aged out of the kind of leading man roles that were going around at the time. He also has kind of an unconventional look that has fallen out of favor for Hollywood leading men. It seemed like Dustin Hoffman stopped getting big leading roles around the same time.
But, between
Birdman and
RoboCop, I'm super happy to see Keaton in movies again! One of the most underrated actors of his generation and
Batman certainly proves it. I especially love the scene where he's trying to tell Vicki Vale that he's Batman and then the Joker interrupts. "Look, you're a really nice girl and I like you a lot. But for right now, shut up. I have something I gotta tell you."
As I recall, there were some complaints from parents (and merchandisers) that RETURNS was too dark and weird for kids. In particular, there was a bit of stink over the fact that McDonald's had done Happy Meals for a movie that wasn't entirely suitable for small children.
I remember being a kid back then. I was 9 years old. No way would my mom let me see a PG-13 movie, especially something as dark as
Batman Returns. That movie was such forbidden fruit at that age, especially because my best friend had seen it and had all the toys. My mom was willing to let me get the
Batman Returns Happy Meal toys, but what I really wanted was the plastic cups because they had actual characters from the movie on them. Unfortunately, my mom wouldn't let me get the cup with Catwoman on it because her outfit was too provocative. (I ran into a similar problem a couple years later with the
Star Trek: Generations action figures. Mom wouldn't let me get Lursa & B'Etor because they showed too much cleavage.)
I didn't understand why the studio was so insistent that they add more vehicles in the sequels to sell more toys. A lot of the toys weren't movie accurate anyway, so why bother?
Speaking of toys, does anyone else remember that Wayne Manor/Batcave playset that they kept re-releasing with a new paint job every couple years? There were at least 4 of them, each with a different paint job & sticker theme to match a different property. They did ones for
Batman (1989), Batman Returns, the animated series, &
Batman Forever. (They didn't do one for
Batman & Robin because they sold the license to a different toy company that made all of their figures in a slightly larger scale.)
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.
Agreed. It's especially bad when you can clearly see LA's Library Tower in the background of a few shots in
The Dark Knight Rises, mostly towards the end of the big police chase after Bane's stock market caper.
I feel like Nolan's depiction of Gotham City is commensurate with his interest in Batman & in the franchise as a whole.
Batman Begins was a
Batman movie that was refreshingly focused on Batman! The Burton/Schumacher movies seemed more focused on the villains.
Batman Begins was the first film to really explore Bruce Wayne in depth and show his emotional journey to become Batman. But as Nolan continued with
The Dark Knight &
The Dark Knight Rises, it seemed like he was more & more embarrassed by Batman and really just wanted to make a series of gritty police dramas with Commissioner Gordon.
What I enjoyed about the DK trilogy is that each movie felt more like an action drama than some over the top comic book hero flick.
See, that's actually my least favorite part of those movies. I like the fact that Tim Burton wasn't afraid to embrace the fantasy of the genre.
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.
I'd agree that Raimi's
Spider-Man trilogy had a certain operatic sense missing from most modern superhero movies. Visually, his films were much more grounded than the Burton/Schumacher
Batman movies but the emotional stakes were painted in very loud, broad strokes. I felt like maybe that was the problem with Mark Webb's
Amazing Spider-Man movies. Much as I loved Andrew Garfield & Emma Stone as Peter & Gwen, their relationship was merely "cute." Whereas, in Raimi's movies, it felt like the world would end if Peter & Mary Jane didn't get together!
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.
I think a lot of people are genuinely terrified of Nicholson in real life and do fear that he might kill them on a whim at any moment!
Because of Nicholson's performance, now, it seems, superhero movies live and die on the strengths (or weaknesses) of their villain characters.
There's something to that, although I think the Marvel Studios films have started to swing the pendulum the other way. Apart from Loki & possibly the Red Skull, the Marvel movies have had some pretty weak villains. Often they're one of the weakest parts of the movie (Aldrich Killian, Malekith the Accursed, Ronan the Accuser, Zemo). Meanwhile, the quippy heroes get most of the best lines.
Yes, I think Nicholson's Joker is second to no-one as far as creepy and dangerous goes.
"Beautifying" his girlfriend's face with acid
A minor quibble I've always had with that scene. I don't think Burton should have showed us what she looked like. I think he should have just showed Vicki Vale's reaction and let our imaginations come up with something far more horrible than anything he could show us.
There's also the 1940s serials.
Man, the 1943 serial is SO RACIST! It's such a piece of WWII anti-Japanese propaganda. Check the following video around 9:17. "...Since our wise government rounded up the shifty eyed Japs..."
The only thing I really liked about Batman & Robin was watching Uma Thurman chewing up the scenery while looking hot. Otherwise what a mess.
Warner Bros. was on a weird streak in the late 1990s of adapting old 1960s TV shows into terrible movies whose only redeeming feature was the leading lady in a sexy outfit.
1997-- Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy in
Batman & Robin.
1998-- Uma Thurman as Emma Peel in
The Avengers.
1999-- Salma Hayek as Rita Escobar in
Wild Wild West.
Highlander 2. Ugh. Saw that opening night because the trailers looked interesting. Hadn't seen the first one so I decided to rent the VHS on my way home from work that day, watch it during dinner and then catch the 9PM show of Highlander 2. Wow. The people who'd seen the earlier one and had vague memories of the first one were annoyed with no. 2--imagine having watched the first one just before. Most nonsensical movie experience of my life (except for movies intended to be nonsense). Hard to believe they made more (I never watched any of them).
Highlander 2 is one of those sequels that feels like it was made by a bunch of people who had only seen the first movie once, and were probably drunk at the time. What's weird is that it was directed & produced by the exact same guys and written by one of the same screenwriters!
As has been mentioned,
Highlander: Endgame is actually one of the better films in the series. Although, I like the production values of
Highlander 2. And it certainly has an Urban Gothic aesthetic that was probably inspired by Burton's
Batman.
