Adorkable: Unlike the playboy personas of Bruce Wayne in other continuities, this Bruce Wayne is rather dorky in this film and is portrayed as having very little experience with dating women, as shown with his interactions with Vicki Vale. He also doesn't show much of a big ego to the public.
Aluminum Christmas Trees: There really have been cases of people being killed by laughter. Perhaps the most well documented cases are from Papua New Guinea, where until the 1970s a rare disease known as kuru was relatively common. Spread by the consumption of raw brains (the Fore tribe ate their dead relatives), the disease was eradicated by Western missionaries and doctors. The word kuru translated to "laughing sickness," presumably because the victims died laughing. Kuru is now known as a spongiform encephalopathy, a close relative of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and the mad cow disease.
This film's take on the Batmobile is by far the most iconic portrayal of the car and has gone on to influence future portrayals of the Batmobile in most adaptations and comics going forward.
While it was already heading towards being such in the comics, this film is what truly solidifed the current image of Gotham City as a dark and gothic looking city and most portrayals of Gotham City going forward have been inspired by this film to some degree. Especially the city as depicted in Batman: The Animated Series and the Batman: Arkham Series.
Several traits of the common cultural idea of Batman, such as him wearing mostly black rather than gray and blue and working alone with no sidekick, were solidified by this movie. They had been true in the comics before, but only for very brief periods usually seen as Early-Installment Weirdness.
There are people who believe "Jack Napier" is the real name of every version of The Joker, due to this movie giving him that name. While some versions occasionally use it as an alias, most continuities prefer to keep his name and history a secret.
The Princesongs are no slouch either; the album he did specifically for the film stayed at #1 for six straight weeks and went double platinum (over two million sold).
Alexander Knox, to some he's an entertaining Plucky Comic Relief and one of the best parts of the film. To others, he's an annoying overconfident idiot who ruins every scene he's in.
Whilst The Joker is widely regarded as an excellent villain played to perfection by Jack Nicholson, there's still a good bit of division over his portrayal. Complaints include that he steals the spotlight at the expense of the titular character, he's given too much of a past in contrast with his usually mysterious origins, the film places too much emphasis on his infatuation with Vicki Vale despite his typically chaste depiction, and most infamously his killing of Batman's parents. Detractors say these alterations hurt the character and his emphasized role detracts from Bruce's story, whilst fans say the differences are valid or acceptable due to his otherwise strong portrayal, and defend his large role due to the character being entertaining enough to justify the stolen focus. Bob Kane himself loved the film's choice to have Joker kill Bruce's parents and wished he'd thought of it.
Michael Keaton being cast as Batman, and now after all these years fans still divide over him, perhaps even more so now thanks to the Christopher Nolan Batman films starring Christian Bale. Some fans still insist Keaton was, is, and will always be the one truest, most honest, most perfect, definitive Batmans and that no one else will ever surpass him, hating on Bale for not sounding like Kevin Conroy. Other fans still feel and will always feel that he was miscast and prefer Bale for being a closer physical match to Batman's comic book self and for playing up both sides of the persona. Then there are fans who don't like either actor in the role, fans who like both actors in the role, and others who feel Keaton did well enough with what he had. That's not even bringing up Val Kilmer, Ben Affleck, or Robert Pattinson, which can complicate things even further as to who the best Batman is.
Jack Napier killing Bruce's parents as opposed to Joe Chill. Some like this change and think it adds a more personal level to the Batman/Joker dynamic (Bob Kane not only loved the idea, but wished he'd come up with it himself). Others dislike it for effectively turning Batman's arc into a revenge story against one specific man, as opposed to a crusade against crime as a whole as symbolized by a faceless mugger.
Can't Un-Hear It: In addition to Michael Keaton as Batman, Jack Nicholson was a favourite choice to play the Joker years before production started. Both stand among the most iconic portrayals of the characters.
Common Knowledge: Despite what many people think, Alfred doesn't just reveal that Bruce Wayne is Batman to Vicki Vale. She managed to figure it out on her own after discovering the article about Bruce's parents being killed in front of him when he was a child. However, he does let her into the Bat Cave without Bruce's permission, something that Bruce ribs him about in the next movie.
Complete Monster: The Joker, real name Jack Napier, is an insane, sadistic criminal. Murdering the young Bruce Wayne's parents, Jack is only stopped from killing the boy himself when his partner warns him the cops are approaching. After being transformed into the Joker, Jack goes on to kill the mob boss who betrayed him before killing the other Mafia higher ups to take over the Gotham syndicate. Using Smylex mixed in with everyday products, Jack causes a string of deaths of unsuspecting innocents. Jack also abuses his girlfriend, Alicia Hunt, disfiguring her and eventually either driving her to suicide or killing her outright before trying to seduce Vicki Vale immediately after her death. Taking advantage of Gotham's 200th anniversary parade, Jack tries to gas the gathered civilians with Smylex to amuse himself and takes out his frustration over Batman stopping his plans by killing his loyal second-in-command.
In what is perhaps the movie's most infamous scene, the Joker electrocutes Tony Rotelli with a lethal joybuzzer and then briefly chats with his burned, husked, and still-smoking corpse, acting as if the dead man is still alive.
Really, the Joker spends the entire movie playing skip rope with the line. Him hijacking Gotham's airwaves to taunt them about the deadly chemicals he's hidden in their products, complete with cardboard cutouts of the corpses of two women he's murdered? Horrifying. Him doing it in the form of an over-the-top, Stylistic Suck infomercial? Hilarious. Him luring Gotham's citizens to the parade so he can murder them en masse with Smylex? Again, horrifying. Him releasing the gas from the diaper of a balloon shaped like a baby? Again, hilarious.
Critical Dissonance: With a 76% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, critics have a more divided reaction towards the film. Compare that to audiences who not only made it the second highest grossing film of the yearnote behind only Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and while it lost to Last Crusade internationally, Batman actually beat it handily in the domestic North American box office, but fondly regard it when it comes to superhero movies and film in general, some even regarding it as a favorite or the definitive Batman/Superhero film!
Ensemble Dark Horse: Joker's right-hand man, Bob. He doesn't get very many lines in the movie and is shot by Joker when Batman steals his balloons, but he still manages to leave a lasting impression. His Undying Loyalty toward his boss, his overall competence, and his undeserving death by the hands of The Joker make him rather a sympathetic villain.
Fanon: While Jack Napier's partner who grabbed Mrs. Wayne's pearls is generally believed to be Bob (both actors do look similar), several fans assume him to be Joe Chill; not even the script names him. Word of God from the producer confirms it to be Joe Chill.
First Installment Wins: The 1989 Batman is widely beloved in comparison to its far more controversial sequel, Batman Returns. It's also the obvious favorite within the "classic" Batman quadrilogy.
The Joker hogging most of the screen time. Sure, it was setting up his origin story, but it would be more problematic in the later movies with their dual villains taking more time than Batman.
Use of Bizarrchitecture. Subdued and reasonable in this film, over the top by the last.
Campiness. It isn't quite as bad here due to the seriously-taken plot and the characters, but it is still a film where the Joker pulls off comedic heists and the Batwing has a pair of giant wire-cutters.
Harsher in Hindsight: Alicia seems rather like a proto-Harley Quinn. Indeed, Harley was likely inspired by her as she was created just 3 years later, including the Joker disfiguring her For the Evulz and her falling out a window (he claims she jumped out herself but could be lying).
Originally the love interest was Silver St. Cloud, but it changed to Vicki Vale because they thought the name sounded "too cheesy." Apparently it wasn't too cheesy for the writers of Gotham.
The chief crooked cop is named Eckhardt. 20 years later, in The Dark Knight, the man playing Harvey Dent — whose backstory involves investigating crooked cops — is Aaron Eckhart.
On that note, not just two, but three actors have been involved with both Batman and Star Wars. Aside from Billy Dee Williams being Lando, William Hootkins (Eckhardt) and Garrick Hagon (the father from the opening) were Porkins and Biggs in the original Star Wars, respectively!
Later, Liam Neeson, who played Qui-Gon Jinn in The Phantom Menace (first movie (1999) of Star Wars Prequel Trilogy), later played Christian Bale!Bruce Wayne/Batman's mentor and main enemy Ra's Al Ghul in "Batman Begins" (2006), directed by Christopher Nolan.
Going further, the Batwing seems to use the same targeting system as an X-Wing to hit a target that's only two meters in size. And just like the X-Wing, it doesn't work here either.
Ben Affleck was considered for the role of Robin before he was written out of the later scripts. Paralleling the concept of Dick Grayson as a potential successor to the Dark Knight, Affleck ends up playing Batman in the DC Extended Universe.
One of the actors that could have been Batman was Robert Downey Jr., the actor who would later go on to be Iron Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Furthering the Hilarious in Hindsight was that Michael Keaton, who actually did portray Batman in this film, would appear as the Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming, which also featured Robert Downey Jr. reprising his role as Iron Man.
Pierce Brosnan was also approached for the role of Batman but declined, saying he didn't want to be in a comic-book movie. More than 30 years later, he would play the role of Doctor Fate (Kent Nelson) in Black Adam (2022).
Hype Backlash: While the film is not considered to be bad and is still highly respected for its impact on the superhero genre and Batman as a whole, it has received more criticism in recent years from fans over elements such as the Romantic Plot Tumor between Bruce and Vicki, the decision to have Batman seemingly kill people (deviating from the Thou Shalt Not Kill rule he had in all comics after his first year of publication) and much of the screen time being dedicated to The Joker instead of Batman, amongst other things. It doesn't help that several decades later, The Dark Knight Trilogy and The Batman would be released, which have gone on to contest this film's long-standing status as the best live-action Batman film(s), due to being Truer to the Text to the comics (despite their Adaptational Mundanity).
It Was His Sled: While the origins of Batman weren't completely unknown to the general public at the time, they were obscure enough that the film was able to play them as something of a mystery to be solved by Vicki and Knox, with the sequence of the Waynes' murder occurring deep into the film. These days, the killing of Thomas and Martha Wayne is extremely well-known to the general public as the defining moment of Batman's life, with fourotherlive-actionmovies having depicted the killings (along with numerous other media), so The Reveal in this film won't come as much of a surprise to modern audiences. The only major difference in this film that could surprise new viewers would be the fact that there are two thugs in the alley this time, and one of them grows up to become The Joker.
Alicia is a somewhat vain gangsters' Moll, but she didn't deserve to be disfigured and then discarded and either murdered or driven to suicide by a man it's implied she really loved.
Bob may be a criminal who stuck by The Joker's monstrous actions, but it's easy to pity the guy when he's killed for absolutely no logical reason by the man he so loyally served.
Love to Hate: The Joker is this by default, but it's made more apparent by his choice of actor and his show-stealing antics.
Misaimed Fandom: In an extremely rare case where a henchman received one, we have Bob the Goon, depicted here almost as Jack Napier's/The Joker's Heterosexual Life-Partner and a sort of proto-Harley Quinn. Fans of the movie will often mention how much they love Bob, which is pretty strange as he doesn't do much that's noteworthy and in fact (except for Alicia) is the least dangerous member of the Joker's gang. It must be the look, as Bob does look like he could be the world's hippest slacker. Even portrayer Tracey Walter himself became enamored with the character, remarking in an interview that Bob's enthusiasm really shines through: "He admired what the Joker stood for." As if the Joker were ever anything more than a delusional psychopath, and Bob is executed because (or in spite of) his loyalty.
Moral Event Horizon: It's not a question of whether The Joker crosses it, but when. Perhaps the most agreed crossing point is killing Thomas and Martha Wayne when he was younger, leaving behind a traumatized 8 year-old Bruce Wayne. It's Joker's only murder that is played seriously, with no levity of retribution (like with the mobsters) or dark humor (like with the Smilex product poisoning). And once Batman realizes that the Joker is the man who killed his parents, he goes from seeing the Joker as a public menace he unwittingly created to the devil of his nightmares that needs to be killed.
The Curb-Stomp Battle in the bell tower, where Batman gets thoroughly and humiliatingly destroyed by the third thug (who resembles a burly Ray Charles) while ballet music plays in the background. It's supposed to be powerful, intense and terrifying, but comes off being more unintentionally funny due the poor staging and choreography. And when you have Batman turning around a few seconds later and dealing out a major ass-whooping to the Joker, the Dark Knight's own difficulty taking down one thug looks even more ridiculous.
Also very Narm-worthy is a close up of Batman having a freaked out Oh, Crap! look on his face when the thug has him in a headlock just before he really gets down to business. It's not pretty... nor is it as frightening as it's meant to be. And it's hard to take the Ray Charles thug seriously when he's grunting and panting like a dog in heat.
Because of the thickness of the rubber mask, Michael Keaton couldn't turn his head without the mask bunching up and sticking out in a silly manner. Thus, whenever Batman has to look around, he has to move his entire body, which ends up looking incredibly silly. It's particularly bad when he has to tilt his entire torso back to look upward.
As cheesy as the Prince songs are, there's something fitting when it comes to seeing the Joker dancing around to both "Trust" and "Partyman" like a maniac given his Psychopathic Manchild behavior.
To some fans, such as Doug Walker, the aforementioned strange movements Keaton is forced to make due to the thickness of the Batman mask have their unique charm, as if Batman moves in a purposefully uncanny, otherworldly way. If Keaton's Batman could suddenly move fluidly, he wouldn't feel quite the same.
No Problem with Licensed Games: Most games based on the movie, either on consoles or computers, were actually quite well received. The NES, Sega Genesis, and Amiga versions in particular are remembered fondly by many retro gamers.
The first film was unique and incredibly groundbreaking at the time. Comic book movies, and there weren't that many of them then, had never been so darkly elaborate before. It was also by far the darkest film take on Batman at the time. However, after both the DC Animated Universe take on the characters and the Christopher Nolan reboot proved to be exceptional adaptations in their own right, while being farDarker and Edgier - to say nothing about superhero movies taking a shift in that direction, too.
Jack Napier's mysterious partner in the mugging flashback, who seems shocked by the murder.
The thug who knocks around Batman in the bell tower.
Rotelli, the mob boss who stands up to Joker then gets killed with a joy buzzer, after which Joker has a conversation with his corpse.
Questionable Casting: Michael Keaton so thoroughly proved the naysayers wrong that, in hindsight, it's hard to remember just how bizarre it seemed at the time to cast a famously mild, unimposing comedic actor as a grim, Frank Miller-inspired version of Batman. Thousands of fans wrote letters to Warner Bros. protesting the choice before the movie's release, and Keaton himself initially thought that his being cast for the part meant that the film would be taking its cues from the TV series.
Romantic Plot Tumor: The amount of time focused on Bruce's relationship with Vicki, who is also desired by Knox and the Joker, makes this subplot come across as this to some viewers.
Signature Line: This is arguably one of the most quotable comic book movies ever:
"I'm Batman," to the point where it's almost become the catchphrase of the character across all future incarnations.
"This town needs an enema!"
"Where does he get those wonderful toys?"
"You wanna get nuts? COME ON! Let's get nuts."
"You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?"
“And where is the Batman? He's at home… washing his tights!"
The opening scene where Keaton's Batman lays the smackdown on two muggers, finishing off with his iconic "I'm Batman."
The scene after Joker's acid bath where he goes to a plastic surgeon and the Joker asks for a mirror and, with his back to the viewer, stares at it and belts out the first Evil Laugh. This was later paid homage in The Simpsons and in other works.
Similarly, the corresponding Joker reveal is just as iconic and memorable.
Joker's parade and laughing gas attack, followed by Batman foiling it with the Batwing, which he then flies up above the clouds and rise up against the full moon making it look like the Bat-Signal in an iconic Money-Making Shot.
The very last scene, with Batman standing atop a skyscraper as the Bat-Signal shines in the sky.
The first time we see the Batman, on a roof from above, it's very clearly special effects animation. May count as an homage to the character's comic-book origins, but then again it may just be really bad animation.
Immediately after this, Batman shows up in the background on a roof behind a couple of thugs with his cape held up behind him and it slowly comes down, but it's painfully obvious that it's not Keaton's arms holding up or moving the cape and that it's all just mechanical rigging.
The matte painting of the Batsignal clearly moves and ripples in each shot it's in. It is, ostensibly, supposed to look like it's being projected onto moving clouds, but the rippling effect applied to the Signal does not remotely resemble the visible texture of the clouds.
While the miniature work, like the Batwing for example, was good for its time, it hasn't stood up very well over the years.
Theiss Titillation Theory: A more subtle and family-friendly variation than most. It occurs when the Joker has taken Vicki hostage and is forcing her up to the cathedral's belltower. He removes her white high-heeled shoes (and kisses them) to enable her to climb the stairs faster; soon after that he removes her trench coat (this time just for the hell of it), leaving her in just her white dress. While Vicki's dress is very modest by most standards, it is also quite sheer and has very loose straps that slide down Vicki's shoulders a bit. It also strongly suggests pre-industrial-age women's underwear, which is fitting given the pseudo-medieval setting of the cathedral. The scene allows for just enough titillation without seeming overly sexual.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: For the 4K remaster audio track, several stock sound effects that were used due to the rushed mixing of the original audio track were replaced with new sounds, angering fans of the original audio track.
Unintentional Period Piece: The film has held up pretty well, in large part due to the 1940s style in the production design (heck, one scene shows a character reading a newspaper dated to 1947)...but the "smooth funk" songs by Prince on the soundtrack do not help, and neither do some magazine covers we see: a 1980s-font cover of Time and a very '70s/'80s-looking cover of Vogue. Furthermore, the Hell-Bent for Leather fashion sense of The Joker's gang looks more than a little cheesy today, partly because leather jackets have become not only socially acceptable, but so commonplace that they're hardly noticed anymore.
Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Ironically, the Joker looks farcreepier when he's wearing the skin-toned makeup to make himself look normal than when he's being his regular, clown-faced self.
Values Dissonance: Vicki and Bruce having a conversation about how she's drunk and he isn't immediately before they sleep together doesn't quite fly with 21st-century audiences.
Lawrence, the large, bald individual of the Joker goon squad, wears a Roman collar beneath his jacket.
Cool as the Batsuit looks in the movie, it was so stiff that Michael Keaton could barely move. The first time he tried to turn his head he completely ripped the cowl in half, then he had to develop a movement style that didn't involve turning his head. To Keaton's credit, the lack of mobility wasn't terribly noticeable until the second Tim Burton film.
As Grant Morrison pointed out in Supergods, Vicki Vale wears so much makeup in some scenes that she could pass as the Joker herself. This trait was shared by just about the entire female cast across both Tim Burton films (sans Selina Kyle during her Hollywood Homely phase).
, which became instantly influential (see the Batman: The Animated Series theme). The theme became so iconic that it was even used in the trailers for Batman Forever and Batman & Robin despite the fact that Elfman did not do the scores for those two films, nor was it used in the films themselves.
