It wasn’t until Christopher Nolan took over that we got a real sense of who Bruce Wayne is and why he does what he does.Įverything about Batman Returns is better than its predecessor, in my opinion.
Unfortunately, Batman himself gets lost in the shuffle, and it is this lack of interest in the main character that plagued all of the early Batman movies. Burton loves freaks and making the audience sympathize with them, and he succeeds here in spades, particularly with the Penguin. His signature style is everywhere, including the story development with very sympathetic portrayals of Penguin and Catwoman. But the film feels somewhat unfocused and steered by committee rather than the work of a director with a vision.īatman Returns, on the other hand, feels much more like a genuine Tim Burton movie.
Danny Elfman created what is possibly the best superhero theme of all time (with the exception of John Wiliams’ Superman theme – truly unbeatable). The score, on the other hand, is magnificent. As beautifully grotesque as Gotham City is, it also feels distant and false and so the stakes are not very compelling. The movie works okay, but it’s nothing exceptional beyond its design and its place in history (I still remember how sensational the promotion of the movie was). There is absolutely no chemistry between her and Keaton, which only makes the Batcave scene all the more impossible to watch. And the casting of Kim Basinger (to say nothing of the inexcusable scene of Vicki Vale in the Batcave) kills any believability in the romantic side of the story. There is a really static feel to a lot of the shots, unlike Batman Returns which has more dynamic camera moves. On the other hand, the story is thin and uneven and unfolds at a halting pace. Jack Nicholson is brilliant and pretty much any scene he is in works great, and Michael Keaton is an interesting choice who balances an understated Batman with a quirky Bruce Wayne. The filmmakers do an excellent job with smoke, shadows and fog to create the oppressive atmosphere of the ultimate noir city. The first Batman is a visual feast, with Gotham City existing in some sort of parallel world where the fashions of the 1940s never went out of style. It’s only by a side-by-side comparison that I can truly point to what I think makes it better than its predecessor. I will say that neither one is particularly great, but I always preferred the second one. The gothic mentality behind the world, while still rooted in a sense of realism, helped inform many of DC’s global fans’ first impressions on the Dark Knight's Gotham.With the recent release of Birdman I’ve had an interest in revisiting Michael Keaton’s Batman movies, the first of which turned 25 last year.
#Batman forever movie 1989 series
The series debuted on August 10, 2021, and five more issues will be released monthly.Ĭontinuing the twisted adventures of DC’s Dark Knight from Tim Burton's seminal classic Batman movies, Batman ’89 brings in screenwriter Sam Hamm (Batman, Batman Returns) and artist Joe Quinones (Dial H for Hero) to pull on a number of threads left dangling by the prolific director.
It presents a continuation from the film more in line with Tim Burton's vision, ignoring the events of Joel Schumacher's films Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997) in a new branched timeline. Batman '89 is a DC Comics limited comic book series created by screenwriter Sam Hamm and artist Joe Quinones that is set in the Burtonverse, serving as a sequel to Batman Returns (1992).