Ever Danced With The Devil In The Pale Moonlight? (Batman - Special Edition (DVD))

Member Name: wampyrii

Product:	Batman - Special Edition (DVD)
Date:	05/05/01 (559 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Burton , Nicholson

Disadvantages: Miscast Keaton, Pointless Romance Bit

Welcome to Gotham city. A city of architectural madness, haunted by perpetual shadows cast from a sunless sky, strewn with debris and decay and slowly being overrun by crime. No its not in Russia, although it could very well have been. This is instead the home town of one of the most well known comic book heros and the setting for 1989’s highest earning box office smash...Batman...

Crime boss Carl Grissom(Jack Palance) holds the city by the short and curlies, orchestrating a crime spree which the city’s law enforcement agencies are far from capable of dealing with. Aided and abbeted by his chief henchman The Joker(Jack Nicholson) Grissom is aiming to take over the city and turn the whole thing in a criminal paradise...but one thing stands in his way. You see all this naughty activity has attarcted the attention of a giant crime-fighting bat which stalks the night and thwarts the evil plans of naughty people overywhere. That bat is none other than Bruce Wayne(Michael Keaton), millionaire playboy by day, fancy dress hero by night. He is Batman. However, the attempts to keep the identity of the bat hero secret come under attack when ace photographer Vicki Vale(Kim Basinger) becomes a little too interested in unmasking our hero...but instead falls in love with Wayne, setting the scene for a Clarke Kent/Lois Laine scenario which we could have done without. Batman bat(tles) it out with the evils of the city, employing all of his mst famous gadgets and a few more as well to save they day...or not...you’ll just have to wait and see...

Directed by Tim Burton, with an all-star cast and surrounded by massive hype, there was little chance of the Batman movie ever being anything other than a box office smash. However, some of the biggest grossing movies have also been monumental turkies as well...but not Batman. OK, so there are some major flaws to this movie, but overall its pretty enjoyable. It was never going to stand up to scrutiny agains
t all of the hype unless it was a groundbreaking piece of movie making which it certainly isn’t. The main fault of this movie is the casting of the lead character. Michael Keaton is abysmally miscast in the role of Batman. Whilst trying to come across as dark and brooding, Keaton just comes across as a plank, more wooden than a wooden thing, disguising itself as wood with a big sticky label saying “i’m made of wood” slapped on its back. He is abysmal and hence the movie is dragged down by his performance. Furthermore, the silly romance angle between Basinger and Keaton is completely unnecessary and takes up far too much of a movie which should have been about playing the wacky, over-the-top characters off against each other, against the dark, brooding, gothic scenery of Gotham. All camp humour, action and imagery would have made for a far better movie than trying to inject some romance where it has no place.

But those are the gripes. The good, nay superb, things about this movie, come from the performances of Jack Nicholson, the cinematography, gadgets and of course Burton himself. Nicholson’s outrageous hammed up portrayal of The Joker is absolutely fantastic. Completely psychotic, his best moment is when he pulls an infeasibly long pistol from his trousers, but the maniacal glint in Nicholson’s eye throughout just steal the show, particularly set against the performance of the plank-like Keaton. Burton has tried to play the two off against each other, both as obsessive psychotics, one on the side of good and the other for evil, which could and should have worked if Keaton had been more up to his role. As it stands it almost works, but the undertones are so subtle that it is liable to be missed by most. Keaton doesn’t come across as psychotic - just dead. The cinematography is a pure piece of Burton magic. Deep purple shadows, rolling clouds, rain, shambling gothic buildings in a metropolis strewn with steaming ma
nhole covers, debris, decay and rubish blowing in the breeze...perfect. No one is better at setting the scene than Burton. Take the excellent Sleepy Hollow for example...no one could have done it better.

So, overall were it not for the inclusion of Nicholson and Burton's directorial talents, this could have been a seriously bad movie. However, were it also not for Keaton and a silly romance, then this could easily have been a seriously good movie. Ahhh...the joy of 'what if...'. Nevertheless, the movie you are presented with is seriously good fun, and well worth watching, if only for Nicholson and the visuals. The action is good, but there is not enough of it. I wanted to see more gadgets, more action, less romance and MORE Nicholson, but as it stands there are some seriously dull sections which drag the tempo of the movie down. Its certainly worth watching if you have never seen it before, and without the hype which didn't give it a chance in '89 it will probably come across as being far better now than then. Enjoy.

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