Rating:  -
THE FILM:
It may be only the third-best Batman movie of all time, but every superhero film that has come after it owes something to Batman '89. By now you've read a lot of reviews of this film and you know what's good about it, so I won't bore you with that here. Instead I'll balance them, and not with vitriol or hatred but with a cold dose of reality.
Jack Nicholson is really the star of the show, and he's far more exciting than Batman is in this movie. There are elements of the Joker that seem a bit too cartoony here, but nevertheless he's unquestionably evil and undeniably insane. It's one of Nicholson's favorite roles and deservedly so. Billy Dee Williams is a great Harvey Dent, but he's given nothing to do. That one will bug me forever.
Michael Keaton and Kim Basinger are wonderful in their roles despite being woefully miscast. Keaton looks as much like Batman as Kim Basinger does, but the guy really sells the character and while I would have preferred another actor in the role, I definitely like his work here. Burton said he didn't know how to put a big tough guy in a batsuit and not have it come off cheesy. In a lot of ways he was probably the wrong director for this film, but on the other hand in 1989 there were still a lot of people who could only think of Adam West when somebody said Batman, so Burton's job was to demolish and then rebuild the public perception of the character and his mythos. Despite his lack of experience and technical expertise, Burton may well have been the only guy in 1989 who could have accomplished that. I may prefer Christopher Nolan's Batman films, but I also recognize that without this movie, the ones I like more would never exist.
In some respects, the film hasn't aged well. It's plagued by badly-lit matte paintings, obvious miniatures, and mostly lackluster cinematography. Anton Furst's beautiful set design is mostly responsible for making the movie as visually striking as it is, a feat made more remarkable by the fact that Burton has no idea how to shoot it. And that is, really, at the core of the film's weaknesses. Burton was young, relatively inexperienced, and didn't really know how to make this kind of movie: what passes for action sort of plods along, the matte work is dodgy and at least one shot early in the movie marks some of the worst post-production ever seen in a major motion picture. Danny Elfman's now-classic score is really all that propels the film. It's a great score and arguably Elfman's best work. I think it would be a completely different film without that music.
THE BLU-RAY:
I bought this blu-ray because I don't have the two-disc DVD set, and my old single-disc, snapper-case edition is almost unwatchable - not for the film itself but the presentation was that bad. As I said above, the film's visuals are striking on the one hand and poorly executed on the other, making for a frustrating experience, and while the blu-ray edition finds the colors more vibrant and the picture much clearer, it can't fix the problems inherent to the movie itself. Still, this edition looks at least as good as the film did onscreen in 1989 and I haven't seen it this way in twenty years.
If you already own the two-disc collector's edition that Warner's put out a few years ago I'm not sure you need to bother with this edition, unless you really love this movie and want to have the booklet, or are trying to update your entire collection to blu-ray. If you don't have that 2-disc DVD, this blu-ray is definitely worth the money. Its best selling point is the extensive catalogue of special features, and since I don't own the 2-disc DVD set, this blu-ray was a treat for me if only for that. And nostalgia. There was definitely nostalgia involved.
THE VERDICT:
It's a really great blu-ray release of a pretty good movie. The film, however, has a strong place in the history of cinema and is largely responsible for all the superhero movies that come out every summer. It's for that reason that it deserves this release. Someone else said you won't use it to show off your hi-def TV. I second that. But if you're like me, you'll put the thing in to see how it looks and end up watching the whole movie. It's still the best of the 90's Batman movies; the only one that's still watchable. Not a masterpiece by any means, but a flawed classic.
Rating:  -
Beautifully remastered and tons of special features. This is the Batman I grew up so of course it is my favorite. The new ones are great but this one just takes me back to my youth. Chuck your old copy and get this masterpiece.
Rating: -
This movie is 20 years old, but still as great as ever. For someone who never reads comic books, Tim Burton really give Batman the proper respect and setting he deserves. Gotham City really looks like a dank and dark place where you can tell crime flourishes in the streets. From the darkness of the surgeon's office where the Joker went after being burned, to Wayne Manor, this is Gotham City. You have to have the right setting to really sell the story, and this story is incredible.
Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton both proved the naysayers wrong as they excel in their role as the Joker and Batman. At first glance, it just seems that Nicholson is too old to play the Joker, until it is established that he is at least 10 years older than Wayne in the movie. He really is great Joker. He can really play crazy, and at the same time have a little humor-the perfect Joker. Keaton IS Batman. That is all I can say about that.
A million people have reviewed this movie and they can tell you that they love it, and they are right. It still holds up and hasn't aged at all.
Rating: -
Batman (1989) is a terrific movie. It is very entertaining and well balanced between action scenes and slower-moving scenes. The atmosphere of the movie and Gotham City is very dark, something that works very well, in my opinion. It gives the movie a feeling of darkness and mysteriousness. The street scenes in Gotham City portray an atmosphere of a city with lots of crime and chaos. Michael Keaton does a great job playing Bruce Wayne/Batman. His portrayal of Bruce Wayne is as a mysterious guy with an alter ego that he's concealing for most of the movie. He is overshadowed somewhat by the performance of Jack Nicholson as The Joker. Nicholson's performance is classic, and in my opinion, the best acting he's done in his entire career. The Joker in this movie is a psychotic killer who doesn't hesitate to poison Gotham City, whether by Smilex gas or contaminated hygiene products, and doesn't think anything of bumping off his own right hand man. This was the first movie ever made where the true nature of The Joker is exposed, which is more accurate to the comic book Joker. Batman: The Movie (1966) and the 1960s TV series didn't allow Cesar Romero to portray the Joker in a psychotic way. Instead, Romero's Joker was made into a funny thief. This was completely fine for the campy TV series, and Romero was an outstanding Joker. Nicholson's Joker, on the other hand, is a balanced mixture of dark humor and evil, which is what a true Joker should be like. His wardrobe and makeup are outstanding. The Joker gets darker and more and more evil as the movie progresses. For fans of this iconic villain, I highly recommend seeing this movie and the legendary performance of Nicholson.
Other strong performances are by Kim Basinger as Vicki Vale, Robert Wuhl as Alexander Knox, Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon, Billy Dee Williams as Harvey Dent, Jack Palance as Boss Carl Grissom, and Michael Gough as Alfred. It's a very entertaining movie that is often compared to The Dark Knight, but usually loses. Personally, I prefer this movie to The Dark Knight. One of the best things in this movie is the score by Danny Elfman. The music fits the scenes so well and has become a timeless, classic score over the years. I highly recommend this movie as well as buying the score.
Rating: -
The film:
Disclosure - Batman was the first movie that really knocked my socks off as a kid. I saw it several times in the theater, and it ignited a decade long love of comic books for me (that ended when I moved out on my own and didn't have the money any more). So reviewing this film is an exercise in taming my nostalgia.
It is a very good movie. It's got some very good performances, especially Keaton and Nicholson. The story overall is strong, intertwining the origins of the two principals. It gets a bit flabby in pacing at the end, and about 10 minutes could have been cut. The ending is easily the worst bit, as Batman suddenly becomes rather homicidal, in contradiction to well-established characterization in 50 years of prior stories. Some of the effects work doesn't stand up very well today, with obvious model shots and some pretty bad animation which would now be done by CGI. Actually, what strikes me now is how "low budget" it seems at times, if you're looking for it anyway (and the vision is generally so powerful that you might not - but then I've seen this film a good 20 times).
Overall, the fractured vision of Tim Burton and designer Anton Furst, married to a tenuous grip on reality (which was completely gone by the sequel, unfortunately), makes this compelling viewing. It's not as good perhaps as the new Nolan movies. But it's a classic. It inaugurated the boom of comic book movies that we are still enjoying/suffering through today. Kids 8 to 80 should enjoy this film. It's well worth owning as a home video.
The Blu-Ray:
This video transfer is very faithful to the original film. Which is to say, it's drab, dark, monochromatic, and not at all the kind of thing you want to demo your shiny new HDTV with.
Don't get me wrong. This looks better than the previous two DVD editions. When a scene is lit reasonably well, you can see pretty good detail in hair, facial wrinkles, and wet pavement. But the overall dynamic range of the image, from dark to light, is pretty flat. This is a very dim-looking movie. The audio is a competent Dolby TrueHD 5.1 channels mix.
Extras are comprehensive, but they are all in SD, and they are all recycled from the previous 2 disc collector's edition. There are LOADS of cast interviews, production featurettes, and one large documentary which is a 70 minute cut from the one that spanned all four "original" movies. All told I would guess there are about 3 hours of featurettes, most of which are pretty worthwhile for Batman fans. Irritatingly, most of them do not have a "play all" option. So you're forced to navigate a large menu full of small type and try to remember what you've already seen. Argh.
Burton's commentary is very entertaining. He only trails off one or two times in the 2 hours of the film. He starts to repeat himself a bit by the last half hour, but overall it is very engaging, loaded with information, and has plenty of honest opinion from the director.
***********
If you own the 2 disc collector's edition on DVD, I'm not going to say this is a strong recommendation. It's just not that much of an upgrade. All of the extras are the same, and the transfer isn't one of those revelatory HD experiences.
If you don't already own it, and you're looking to expand your comic book film collection, then definitely go ahead and pick this up. It laid the groundwork for all the films we've gotten since. It's easily the best of the original 4 Batman movies.
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