Remedial Batmanology: Batman (1989), Part Two

 

 

This week, Remedial Batmanology picks up with the second half of our review of Batman, in which we finish out the movie and actually offer up some nice things about it as well. Of course, there’s also the sticking point of Batman straight up murdering a ton of people, but… well, the music was nice?

Either way, please enjoy several shots of Michael Keaton staring slack-jawed at something off-screen.

32 thoughts on “Remedial Batmanology: Batman (1989), Part Two

  1. The script makes it pretty clear what’s happened at the courthouse:

    ” REPORTER
    So what is this affidavit you’ve
    filed? Grissom gave you all of
    his businesses?

    RICORSO
    Mr. Grissom asked me, as a personal
    favor, to take over the operation
    of his businesses until he returned.”

    Basically, the guy’s filing an affidavit saying that he’s in control of the company (and NOT Napier, who everyone official probably thinks is dead at that point – presumably, no one official knows about Joker telling everyone he’s in charge). Since what he’s presumably taking over is all the front companies, they’re plausibly legal operations (like Axis Chemical). Napier, being “dead”, can’t make a legal claim to the businesses without going through the b.s. of pleading a claim like these guys are, so Joker just expedites everything and kills them.

    (Now, if you want to go into the legalities of how you take over a corporation by way of affidavit… well, that’s something else entirely, but I’ve certainly heard of weirder.)

    I guess it all boils down to Joker not wanting to pay legal fees.

  2. Also, you missed the best / most idiotic bit of the trainwreck that is the second half of the movie, namely Joker straight out calling out Batman on how stupid the “I made you / you made me first” thing was.

    Like I said last time, the second half of the script is OBVIOUSLY a product of multiple script doctors, and someone decided to have a bit of fun with whomever came up with the idiotic line (and the whole subplot, come to think of it).

  3. Batman is one of Burton’s weakest movies, the sequel’s a lot better because of Catwoman and the Penguin really. I liked Keaton in Beetlejuice though.

  4. The sequel’s a better Burton movie, but an even worse Batman movie.

    Plus, it started the idiotic trend of filming the movies entirely on soundstages, which looks incredibly dated after the Chicago-based Nolan movies. I mean, they’re dated in EVERY way, but that’s one of the most obvious.

  5. I rank the four 80s/90s Batman movies as 2 – 3 – 1 – 4.
    So, yes, I consider the second one my favorite out of those, followed closely by the hilariously entertaining Batman Forever with all of its plot holes (why does the Riddler have a death trap for Robin, when Robin hasn’t been Robin for more than five minutes?) and overacting (I think Tommy Lee Jones still has pieces of the scenery stuck in his teeth). No, that doesn’t make either of those films good. But I’d still say that Returns is the least bad of the four.
    Reasons for that are the visuals (not counting the cyborg penguins or the rubber duckie), the circus freaks (not their violent demise at the hands of Batman), the insanely sexy Catwoman (even if she’s played more like a cross between Harley Quinn and Sylvester the cat) and the entertainment value of Christopher Walken as Max Schreck. No, the plot doesn’t make any sense. Yes, the climax with the huge rubber duckie was absolutely insane.

    But (just like Batman Forever) it was fun. Which is what I can’t say about the first Batman. Or the fourth. Danny Ocean indeed.

  6. Oh, man. I bet you and the other guy were lonely, sad little boys in 1989. I mean, more so than today

  7. Haha, who would bother trolling you? What’s to be gained? I mean, you’re not Tucker Stone.

  8. Being slightly older than Chris and David and already reading Batman comics `properly’ at the time I can also attest to detesting the ’89 Burton film (you can ask people who were in year 7 with me… I’m sure they’ll remember the ranting fondly) while still having an awesome and happy childhood.

  9. “I almost wonder if Morrison’s verison of the Joker as someone who constantly reinvents himself was informed by this movie”

    Absolutely not Chris. Morrison wrote Arkham Asylum several years previously and the circumstances surrounding its creation are discussed quite thoroughly in the fifteenth anniversary edition that came out back in 2004. As a Morrison fan and Batmanologist, you owe it to yourself to pick that up, as it includes Morrison’s original, annotated script.

  10. I hope you guys review Mask of the Phantasm on your way through the Batman movies of the nineties. Because it was the best one. I still remember the one line review on its comic book ad: “Gotham City’s savior as he was meant to be.”

  11. Oh man, Batman Returns annoys me even more than Batman (1989). The Batman DOES NOT KILL. I don’t care what rationales they come up with…dude does not just straight up blow someone up.

    People are annoyed about the “I won’t kill you, but I won’t save you” bit in BEGINS, and rightly so, but at least that fit within the overall narrative. Batman blowing up a fat clown dude doesn’t work….especially not the little grin he gives before it happens.

  12. I agree – Mask of The Phantasm’s only weakness was the way they sort of cribbed the Joker’s origin from Batman (1989), but other than that it was really well done. Made me wish the movies were like that.

    Alfred’s “My GOD!” upon first seeing Bruce as Batman still gives me goosebumps.

  13. Eh, I think you’re being a bit hard on it.

    Yes, in a post “Dark Knight” world the movie looks a bit cheesy, but it was so heads and tails better than any comic book movie up until that point. Or really the vast majority big blockbusters up until that point. It looked like nothing else.

    Yeah, it was very rooted in Batman ’66, but that’s because back in 1989 that’s the image 95% of the population got in their heads when “Batman” was mentioned. Comic books and geek culture weren’t mainstream at all in ’89…this movie was the bridge between the campy silver-age Batman that the population in general was familiar with and the violent dark Batman that had developed in the comics throughout the 80s — and really, there’s no better director than Tim Burton to handle a movie that has to balance those two extremes.

    This movie absolutely should have been a huge failure. This movie had to a) re-introduce a character that had absolutely no pop-culture cachet at the time b) then completely reinvent that character over the course of the movie, oh and while you’re at it c) create an entire new genre of movie that’s never really existed before.

    Did it get every detail right? No. But it could have, and given the odds and climate it was up against, really *should* have been much much much much worse.

  14. “Isn’t it weird how when Jack Nicholson was young, he only sort of vaguely resembled himself?”

    Because De Niro looked just like Brando?

    Snarking is too easy, especially when the target is a 20 year old popcorn flick. At least this wasn’t as dull as Superman Returns or Batman Begins.

  15. Want to torture yourself? Listen to Burton’s audio commentary on this and Batman Returns. I described it as listening to a drunken lunatic ramble on about nothing at a bar – to which a friend of mine added “a drunken lunatic who doesn’t know anything about Batman”.

    Want to commit suicide? Down a shot of your favorite liquor every time Burton says “you know” in the commentary. (Tip: Buy at least three bottles.)

  16. I don’t understand the “dull” tags applied to Batman Returns. I just don’t.

  17. If people are legit defending the Burton Batman movies by saying “well, its a popcorn flick! Relax!” Guess what, you just cosigned:
    Bay’s Transformers
    Revenge of the Fallen
    Batman Forever
    Superman Returns
    Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3
    X-Men 3
    And way too many more.
    You sure you want to use that defense?

  18. Dudes, can’t we agree to disagree? Seriously, You like Burton’s Pee wee’s big adventure(why is it a mess though?) and not his Batman films. It’s cool, c’mon.

  19. Okay, just to be clear:

    Joker fries the one mobster and his goons have guns on the rest. The mobsters agree to go along with the Joker.

    Mobsters go to City Hall to get control of Grissom’s interests and screw the Joker over.

    The Joker knew they’d do something like that (as we know from his chat with the crispy mobster) and kills them.

    Of course he has his guys dress up like mimes. He’s setting up an ambush, so he can’t have his guys just walk up, plus he’s evil and white-faced. White-faced, evil, and can walk around without drawing attention? Of course he’s going to go with mimes.

    The cops don’t stop the Joker because they’re getting machine gunned right along side the mobsters (you can see them falling down the stairs after getting shot).

    Bruce Wayne standing there slack-jawed? Okay, that’s a legitimate gripe. Definitely an insult to Batman. It fits the Burton take, though, because unlike the standard understanding of Batman, i.e., that Batman is the real person and Bruce Wayne is the disguise, in Burton’s version, Wayne is clearly the real person and Batman is just a mask (getting the attention of the Joker in the bell tower by making that quip in his Bruce Wayne voice is an example). Of course, without the mask and the toys to hide behind, he’s kind of at a loss (the best he manages while Bruce Wayne is to put a serving tray under his shirt and let himself get shot).

    I have to say, though, that if you had trouble following what was going on at City Hall, I can’t wait to see how you try to figure out what Max Shreck is up to in Batman Returns,

  20. I don’t have an opinion, I’m just checking in because there’s a fight and I want to collect the spare teeth for my special project.

  21. This guy posts a nit-picking rant tearing apart one of the most beloved characterizations of a super-hero on the big screen, and he thinks people should just sit down and applaud? Yeah, that will happen. Seriously, at some point he starts cheering Robert Wuhl over freaking Batman! WTF is that about? What is his problem?

  22. Yeah, what IS this guy’s problem? Making people all mad that a movie they saw when they were kids is actually kind of shitty. How daaaaaaaaaaaaaaare he?!

  23. I’m ashamed that I never put together the idea that Burton’s “Batman” movies were “modernizations” of Batman ’66. Probably because (a) I love Batman ’66 so very much; (b) I hate the Burton movies so very much, what with their incredible suckage; and (c) as a result, I haven’t seen either of them since they played in the theaters and try not to think about them. So I thank you for explaining one of the strange little mysteries of the Olden Tymes. Thank you, Misters Sims and Other Guy.

    From the end of the review: “Like, a movie is not dark just because you have to squint to make out what’s going on. A movie is dark when its subject matter is dark.” That describes Burton’s entire style to a T. “Darkness” is disturbing and powerful to the degree it is detailed. A realistic and detailed scene of a man getting kicked in the head is horrifying; a stylized one is exciting and a little unsettling; a cartoony one is nothing. Burton loves “darkness,” but his version of it is so removed from reality, it becomes nothing but a lighting choice that he mistakes for an emotional state. The kids, they love it, because it’s “dark” but as safe as a teddy bear filled with smaller teddy bears.

    Also: “Big Fish” sucked so hard I wanted to knife someone. Just sayin’.

  24. I agree that Burton’s concept of darkness is largely visual rather than emotional or psychological, but, in his defense, when he gets it right he’s pretty damn good at visual darkness; I saw Sleepy Hollow in the theater and I was amazed how lush the blacks and grays were.

  25. Hey, Night of the Living Dead is kind of shitty. The first Superman is kind of shitty. In 2011 I can write a book nitpicking them and how I’d rather see Thor or 28 Days instead.

    Oh and thanks… Superman’s cousin?