Every Wednesday from now untilThe Batmanhits theaters, we’re watching Batman’s theatrical films in chronological order.
Last week:the trained exploding shark.
See you next Waynesday, when Batmen real and animated fall in crazy love.
Michael Keaton in ‘Batman.'.Warner Bros. Pictures
Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) shoots models forVogueand she shoots the revolution in Corto Maltese.
Vicki is often the viewpoint protagonist.
Batman (Michael Keaton) is a mystery from her dawning perspective.
Jack Nicholson as the Joker.Everett Collection
We meet her, legs first, before we ever really see Bruce Wayne.
She is the lone civilian in a time when superhero movies still needed regular people.
Yet nothing about her is more fascinating than the doll she keeps on her vanity.
It’s a corroded little thing, dirty or just ancient, with a bare head beaten or burnt.
It looks like an undead baby newsie, with curious eyes staring downcast.
We see it when Bruce flees into Vicki’s bedroom, hunting for a weapon.
The Joker (Jack Nicholson) is in the foyer, talking, talking, talking.
Bruce doesn’t notice the toy.
We’re left to ponder its origins.
Is it a favorite artifact from Vicki’s childhood?
Or a memento from her latest war gig?
It’s Theotherterrifying doll sits just opposite, staring right at us in the vanity mirror.
It’s a mesmerizing shot, a mere 10 seconds.
It’s a horror movie hidden away in a big bland apartment as Nicholson blathers on.
The cinematic detail of theBatmansets must be credited or maybe your bored eyes want anything worth caring about.
Making this was miserable.
He was an art school kid among alpha dogs.
Who deserves credit for the film’s manic mood?
I count four men with as much authorship claim as Burton.
(It’s an innards city.)
ComposerDanny Elfman’s merry melodies move because Batman barely can.
An early shot speaks volumes.
He looks like a security guard who prefers night shifts or a moody director.
He is the Bemused Batman and is that furrowed brow channeling hisBeetlejuicedirector’s own frustrations?
A tone of hesitation comes through in dialogue.
It’s just something I have to do."
Is that a purposefully vague mission statement, or just rewrites running out of runway?
The franchise wouldn’t improve on its $400 million box office for nearly two decades.
There was so much merchandise, the film itself contains inline ads.
Joker on Batman: “Where does he get those wonderful toys?”
Everyone wanted the Batarang.
Connoisseurs sought out the grappling gun.
The Batmobile is voice-activated, which was stunning before it was normal.
“Stop,” Batman tells his car: Keaton’s finest moment.
ThisBatmandoes not have many fine moments.
But it is bad in a lost organic way that movies used to be bad.
The poor decisions feel inspired, not some algorithm guessing how best to service fans toward the next sequel.
Nicholson gives a lame performance Cesar Romero had more layers, his Jokerwantedthings but his clowning is full-bodied.
When I was a kid I loved it.
As a parent, I now feel differently.
Nostalgia is usually just a memory lapse.
Diaper changing does not connote moral authority.
It’s a kid’s movie with zero instinct for censorship.
There’s poorJerry Hall, years before she became very rich Jerry Hall, as Joker’s moll.
Her face gets mutilated.
She faints, and she’s not even the only blonde to faint.
Meanwhile, the Joker declares, “This town needs an enema!”
That 1987 techno-satire knew the enemy.
It ends in a board room high above the grungy mean streets.
The hero kills the executive who trickled down pain on regular people.
Tough for the Dark Knight to take on big business, because heisthe business, man.
Systematic overthrow of the underclass.
Hollywood conjures images of the past.
Both of those sentences are rock-solid critiques of 1989’sBatman, and actual lines from Prince’s tie-inBatmanalbum.
That song plays when Joker and his goons deface an art museum.
“You will join me in the avant-garde of the new aesthetic!”
Everything I’m saying makesBatmansound successfully pretentious.
It feels like a movie the jerks made.
Context gives their chemistry-free romance a retroactive jolt.
Ofcoursethey don’t last.
Hit and Runquotes Burton calling this production “the worst period of my life.”
you could spot his new aesthetic, here and there.
There’s a brief long shot of the Joker dangling from his helicopter.
A searchlight passes over Vicki and Batman, who are hanging off the roof.
you could see that bodies are miniatures.
(Vicki isn’t even moving; Batman swings like a Muscle Man glued to a diorama.)
It is somehow funnyandscaryandjust more effective visually than a lot of the stunt-heavy shots in that mishmashed final fight.
More of that was coming soon, but the first big-budgetBatmanis mostly inflated schtick.
The Joker throws $20 million in the air right before he tries to gas downtown.
That’s the movie in a nutshell.
Come for the money, stay for the poison.
