Remedial Batmanology: Batman ’89, Part One

 

 

Now that Smallville is over, David Uzumeri and I have decided to shift our focus to other mass media interpretations of comics, and we’re starting things off with one of the biggest super-hero blockbusters of all time with Part One of our review of 1989’s Batman, directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson.

I’ve never made it a secret that I really, really do not like this movie, but this is the first time in at least a decade that I’ve sat down to watch it, and unlike Smallville, there’s a lot to talk about. This column is almost twice as long as our usual Smallvillains bits, and we barely make it 50 minutes into the movie breaking it up. And while CA’s Andy Khouri has referred to it as both “trolling” and “nitpicking a movie that basically everyone loves,” I prefer to think of it as a solid examination.

So join us for the next 8 weeks as we go through the Burton/Schumacher films and (hopefully) come to some pretty surprising conclusions.

24 thoughts on “Remedial Batmanology: Batman ’89, Part One

  1. I think I know why they had Batman get shot: to be totally honest, I’ve never thought Batman was all that scary looking, and I always thought that was the weakest thing about the whole Batman mythos. I only became aware of Hitman a few years ago (thank you, Chris), but I think his flippant “Lord Vader” cracks probably reflect how most people would really react to him. On the other hand, people who can shrug off bullets are kind of intimidating, to say the least. So, nut in a funny suit? Not so scary. But a nut in a funny suit who gets up and comes after you after you shoot him point blank? Scary.

    The casino? It was some charity function, and you can get waivers for that sort of thing.

    And thank you for that last picture of the Joker, because I can ask this: what the heck is that thing on his neck (right below the jawline on the right side)? It almost looks like a little tuft of green hair that accidentally got stuck there when they were doing the makeup or something, but it’s bothered me every single time I’ve seen the movie.

  2. And for the record, while I like this, I still think you need to do a series of articles on John Glover’s hair over the years.

  3. I’m surprised in your review that there was any doubt Jack Palance would bring the ham after the Buck Rogers episode ‘Planet of the Slave Girls’ where he plays Space Osama Bin Laden in a cape with glowy Death Hands.
    This description does not actually do the level of onscreen ham justice.

  4. Spot on analysis, as usual. I would expect no less from the world’s greatest Batmanologist.

    And, oh man do I not like Vicki Vale in this movie. Does she do anything besides be a jerk to Knox and scream a lot? Maybe she ends up with Knox after she dumps Bruce?

  5. Just a thought here, but the problem of Batman not being intimidating could probably have been solved better by getting someone who was over five feet tall.

  6. I agree that a more physically imposing guy would be more intimidating, but even Peter Dinklage would be terrifying if you could use the phrase, “Bullets won’t stop it!” in connectiion with him.

    And, since I would think that Joker Studies are a prominent subfield in Batmanology, any idea what that thing on Nicholson’s neck is?

  7. Listen, I could write a furious rant debunking your furious rant point-by-point, and I could resort to name calling and thrash talking here, but I’ll try to get my point across this way:

    Batman: TAS (the same B: TAS you often praise) drew A LOT of inspiration from this movie. Obviously, the creative team behind that TV series weren’t oblivious to this film awesomeness like you guys are. You fail hard.

  8. Hater of the week, Chris? Really, Ookla, using “fail” for internet articles you don’t like stopped being funny a long time ago. And, if I may quote Uzimeri here: “This is a pretty good Tim Burton movie. It’s an awful Batman movie. It misunderstands basically every aspect of the character.” That’s pretty clearly their point. As a professional Batmanologist and annotator of Morrison’s Batman comics, don’t you think they might be just a wee bit more into the spirit of the Batman mythos than you?

  9. Hey, I think redhood40 has some good counterpoints to what you guys said, if you’re interested in debate (which you probably aren’t).

    It basically comes down to the fact that Batman’s core is simply: Bruce Wayne’s rich parents are killed, and he decides to fight crime dressed as a bat because of it. Anything else is just extensions of those 2 things. And while your Batman (and Uzumeri’s, and redhood40’s, I’m pretty sure, and mine too, to be honest) is more… thematically complete? true to comics history? other interpretations are still valid as Batman, and can even be used to tell a good story.

    I’ve never seen the movie myself, by the way.

  10. I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed more with an article you’ve written Chris. But I’m not going to hate.

    Scott: the blotch on the Joker’s neck is explained in the DVD special features. Some of Nicholson’s makeup got on his collar, so some genius decided to cover it up with shoe polish or something. This backfired, instead leaving the blotch on the actor’s neck. You get to hear one of people working on the movie talk about how much he wishes he could retouch that scene.

  11. Listen, I could write a furious rant debunking your furious rant point-by-point, and I could resort to name calling and thrash talking here

    First of all, how magnanimous of you.

    Second, I would appreciate more thrash talk, as I assume that means talking about rad skateboard tricks.

    Third, I wasn’t exactly “furious” about it — other than the logo thing, which, c’mon, is just ridiculous.

    Fourth, I get paid to write these articles and you’re leaving angry comments on someone’s blog under a handle referencing a cartoon from thirty years ago, so if I’m the one who fails, I’d hate to see winning.

  12. Dude besmirches the name of Ookla, who would not have liked Batman ’89 either.

    Also, Batman The Animated Series drew from MANY sources, including the comics and the Fleischer Superman cartoons. Sure Batman: TAS likely tried to draw on some of the excitement for the movies, but they went a completely different way. For one, their Batman never just straight up murdered a dude by throwing him off a bell tower.

  13. For the many, many flaws of this movie, the first half is BY FAR the better part of it – largely because Batman doesn’t outright bomb a factory filled with goons. But also because it’s an exercise in very efficient scripting, with all the characters, Gotham itself, and their interactions and motivations all put into place in a very neat fashion. They could’ve done a lot worse – look at the plodding mess that was the first act of Donner’s Superman.

    (plus, it’s refreshing to see a superhero movie that’s not an origin, isn’t it?)

    The second half of the movie blows that all to hell, but everything up until, say, the car chase is brilliant stuff. You can sort of tell where the original script faded away and all the rewrites started, because the movie makes a dramatic tonal shift after a while.

    And, yes, BTAS drew a lot of inspiration from this – but largely because the only way they could get the show made was to take cues from the Burton movies (Returns was in production by the time they were) since that’s what the Fox execs were familiar with. Hence Penguin looking like the DeVito version, a change they reversed almost the SECOND they got the chance with the new look episodes. I don’t think Burton’s mentioned more than a couple of times in the two definitive looks on the show – Batman – Animated and the Timm Modern Masters interview.

  14. … but, yeah… you guys have never been to a charity casino night? There’s a fine line between entertaining nitpicking and being a bit too dumb.

  15. Do I seem like the kind of guy who gets invited to black tie charity events? I worked in a comic shop for six years. I can’t even afford to buy the Ric Flair lottery ticket.

  16. “This is a pretty good Tim Burton movie. It’s an awful ________ movie” has a lot of applications. You could put “Sweeney Todd” or “Roald Dahl” or “Washington Irving” in there . . .

  17. I was 31 when this movie came out. I’d been reading Batman comics since I was 5. I had been waiting for this movie my entire life! Multiple your boyish hate times six and you won’t come close to the murderous rage this movie instilled in me. They got absolutely nothing right!

    The absolute worst:

    Vickie: “You like bats?”
    Bruce: “They’re great survivors.”

    Survivors? That’s what Batman is? That’s what Batman does? Survive?

    Gawd, I hated this movie so much that it made me retro-actively hate everything Jack Nicholson ever did. And everything he did after. And my hate has only grown with the passing decades.

    Pee Wee and Ed Wood are the only good movies Burton has ever made.

  18. My favorite quote from the Wikipedia article on Batman, Turkey:
    On 7 November 2008, former Batman Mayor Hüseyin Kalkan began looking into the possibility of suing Christopher Nolan, director of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and Warner Bros., distributor of the films, claiming the studios had been using “Batman”, the name of the superhero, without permission from the city, and “placing the blame for a number of unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate on the psychological impact that the films’ success has had on the city’s inhabitants.” No lawsuit has actually been filed.[37]

    Wow. Just, wow.
    I wonder when he’ll get around to actually suing DC comics.

    And by the way, Die Fleidermaus? I totally believed Dave, because that would have just been “awesome”. Similar to the Burton batman sleeping upside down…

    And for the record, I absolutely hated this movie. And not least because of the contributions of Prince. Really? Prince?

    I enjoyed Batman Returns much more, but only because of Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance. I still remember her performance specifically not being nominated for an Oscar for Batman Returns but rather for “Love Field”? A movie that absolutely nobody saw, and fewer people even knew of its existence? I recall Gene Siskel commenting that it was quite obvious that the nomination was for Batman Returns, but that the Academy didn’t want to give a comic book movie the honor of being noticed.
    Other than her performance, that movie sucked too. But not as hard as the first one.