Review of Batman (1989) by Donald Z — 09 Aug 2014

Tim Burton's visionary take on Batman still holds up, and serves as a reminder that the same character can be successfully revisited by very different filmmakers, though it had been many years since the live action TV series and it would take several years more before Christopher Nolen's own masterpiece.

As the first film in a series of Batman movies that eventually led to too much campiness and ridiculousness, "Batman" is surprisingly light on campy humor. Instead, it is darkly gothic, letting most of the humor remain with the Joker, here played by the fantastic Jack Nicholson. Michael Keaton as Batman is perfect and is especially good as Bruce Wayne in scenes with MIchael Gough as Alfred and Kim Basinger as Vicki Vale.

What really works, though, is Burton's direction and artistic vision. He uses Gotham, the special effects, the makeup, and scenes like the laughing reporter and the Joker's television commercials to bring the comic book to vivid life on the big screen. He does so in this movie more consistently than Richard Donner did with "Superman "in 1978, giving "Batman" an edge as one of my favorite comic book movies of all time and a well-deserved 5-star rating.