...Wow, with that title, do I really need to write the review?
Tim Burton's Batman is a well-shot movie with great, gothic art design, smart lighting and editing, and plenty of visual style. It has a rightly-famous score whose main theme has been synonymous with the character for more than a quarter of a century.
And, with that out of the way... I hate this movie.
Yes, part of it is that I'm a Batman fan, and watching Batman use guns to kill people who aren't even criminals before blowing up a building full of other non-criminals sets off my knee-jerk fanboy rage. But it's hardly the only problem with the movie, guys!
Jack Nicholson, following Brando's example, cut what has since become a legendary deal with the production team to play the Joker, and it's apparent they put getting their money's worth out of him at a priority over telling a coherent story or creating a compelling protagonist. I don't mean to imply he isn't sometimes entertaining to watch (even if too much of a good thing is definitely too much), but this is more his film than Batman's. He gets the origin story, the character arc, the lion's share of the screentime. Hell, he's artificially injected into Batman's backstory just to further emphasize his role as the focus of the story.
Batman himself gets the shaft. Keaton turns in a very strong performance, but that's the most that can be said for it. He always seems restrained by the suit, and he gets only a token amount of explanation or examination from a script that clearly regards him as the least interesting thing in his own movie.
Plot-wise, there's frankly little to talk about. It's more a series of vignettes than a coherent narrative. If it attempted to ape a serialized comic format, it is just a failed experiment, but comments by the director indicate otherwise.
Tonally, this movie has no idea what it wants. Dark, violent content coexists alongside the most blatant sort of Silver Age lunacy. And the fight scenes aren't great. Poor Keaton is clearly trying, but the suit keeps him from moving well, and his opponents jump out of Clown Henchman Spawn Points, with no sense of escalation or impact to their defeats.
If you just want to stare at pretty pictures and listen to pretty music, fine. But the movie that comes with them is just not very good, and only sometimes entertaining.
...Alright, that scene where the Joker shoots down the Batplane with a comically-long gun was pretty great.
A Pretty, Well-Acted, Dumb, Plotless, Mean-spirited Mess, Set to Nice Music.
...Wow, with that title, do I really need to write the review?
Tim Burton's Batman is a well-shot movie with great, gothic art design, smart lighting and editing, and plenty of visual style. It has a rightly-famous score whose main theme has been synonymous with the character for more than a quarter of a century.
And, with that out of the way... I hate this movie.
Yes, part of it is that I'm a Batman fan, and watching Batman use guns to kill people who aren't even criminals before blowing up a building full of other non-criminals sets off my knee-jerk fanboy rage. But it's hardly the only problem with the movie, guys!
Jack Nicholson, following Brando's example, cut what has since become a legendary deal with the production team to play the Joker, and it's apparent they put getting their money's worth out of him at a priority over telling a coherent story or creating a compelling protagonist. I don't mean to imply he isn't sometimes entertaining to watch (even if too much of a good thing is definitely too much), but this is more his film than Batman's. He gets the origin story, the character arc, the lion's share of the screentime. Hell, he's artificially injected into Batman's backstory just to further emphasize his role as the focus of the story.
Batman himself gets the shaft. Keaton turns in a very strong performance, but that's the most that can be said for it. He always seems restrained by the suit, and he gets only a token amount of explanation or examination from a script that clearly regards him as the least interesting thing in his own movie.
Plot-wise, there's frankly little to talk about. It's more a series of vignettes than a coherent narrative. If it attempted to ape a serialized comic format, it is just a failed experiment, but comments by the director indicate otherwise.
Tonally, this movie has no idea what it wants. Dark, violent content coexists alongside the most blatant sort of Silver Age lunacy. And the fight scenes aren't great. Poor Keaton is clearly trying, but the suit keeps him from moving well, and his opponents jump out of Clown Henchman Spawn Points, with no sense of escalation or impact to their defeats.
If you just want to stare at pretty pictures and listen to pretty music, fine. But the movie that comes with them is just not very good, and only sometimes entertaining.
...Alright, that scene where the Joker shoots down the Batplane with a comically-long gun was pretty great.