Director – Tim Burton – 1989 – US – 12 – 126 mins
****
Batman amalgamates Blade Runner, Brazil, Star Wars and Vertigo while giving more screen time to its villain than its title character – UK release: August 11th, 1989
“What kind of a world is this where a man in a bat costume gets all my press?”, a confused Joker (Jack Nicholson) asks his aides. A fair question since Batman gives more screen time to its villain than its title character. Actually, it’s a movie that looks not unlike Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985), although it lacks that movie’s depth, with elements of Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982), three scenes from Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958) and one from Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977) thrown in for good measure. The screenplay compresses an incredible volume of action and about the right amount of necessary plot into its two hours, ensuring the audience gets its money’s worth.
Curiously, Batman (Michael Keaton) himself is simultaneously a peripheral, shadowy character in the background and the film’s main protagonist; this leaves much scope for further character development. Visually, he’s a vigilante Devil who drops in on unsuspecting criminals to mete out justice – an image at odds with the script’s paradoxical portrayal of him as a hi-tech policeman or James Bond figure.
The violence, although plentiful, is never anything more than make-believe, old-fashioned, comic book stuff; nor is it particularly excessive. But the desire to package a product for widespread international consumption and the accompanying huge box office returns gut the film of the more subversive aspects of the hero as right-wing vigilante explored in the eighties comic book The Dark Knight Returns. For all this, the movie certainly lives up to its hype; expect the money to roll in and the sequels to follow.
Originally published in What’s On In London, 1989.
Trailer: