As summer begins to draw to a close, it’s time we celebrate the film that brought the caped crusader back from the world of campy comedy and threw him head first into Gothic architecture and Prince music.
Get on your rubber suit, get excited about practical effects, and get ready to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight because Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman is this week’s VHS Classic.
First and foremost let’s get this out of the way, this is hands down the best Batman movie. It’s dark and gritty, colorful and humorous, and everyone is acting the hell out of this script. I mean they are up there giving this movie 150%.
Drawing inspiration from the highly praised graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, Time Burton’s Batman works as an origin story for both the title character and his most ruthless of enemies, The Joker. While the film doesn’t deviate far from the source material when it comes to Batman’s origins (which I am not going to explain because at this point you should know it and that’s on you if you don’t), it does play around with The Joker’s past and manages to take pieces from several comic book stories to create a new version of Joker.
What more could you ask from the film?
Do you want someone who is both good as Batman and Bruce Wayne? Done, we got Mr. Mom himself Michael Keaton who gives a great dual performance.
Oh, you need a sweeping score of triumphant hero music? Great, we got Danny Elfman to bring is uptempo flair to the music.
You’re concerned that one of the greatest villains of all time might not work all that well on the big screen? Oh my sweet sweet nerds, we got Jack Chinatown Nicholson to come in here and crush his role as Joker.
Batman is one of those movies that is perpetually good and consistently holds up every time you watch it. It might be because it looks gorgeous with its beautifully designed Gothic art style, or the stunning costumes that bring the characters to life, or the fact that actors had to actually work off each other rather than playing off a green screen and tennis balls. Whatever it may be that draws fans back to this film time and time again, one thing is for certain, Batman is a treasure that can hold its own against the flashy over the top super hero films of our modern era.
Forget about Aqua-bro, forget Man of Steel’s insane body count (Superman murders an awful lot of people in that movie), and you can get right out with the abysmal mess that was Justice League. Instead, take a couple of hours this weekend and travel back to a time where Batman owned the summer of 1989.
