Updated: 5 July 1997

BATMAN I-IV

BATMAN

By far the best of the bunch. None of them has been as concise since.

In this film, you only have a few characters to develop: Bruce Wayne/Batman, the Joker, and Vicki Vale. Others, like Vicki's photographer friend, the police chief, the mayor, and Alfred, are dealt with only as far as the story demands them. Most of the development, of course, is given to Jack Nicholson, and it pays off. He's great.

The movie is dark: the setting envelopes the characters, imbuing the film with possibilities right from the start. In this Gotham, we can let our imagination go, and in this movie, we are rewarded if we do. Batman's introduction is suitably spooky. The allusions to his parent's death and the subsequent revelation of the Joker's role are both used very effectively. I like Michael Keaton. George Clooney definitely looks the part, but Michael Keaton's Batman is a complex Batman. That is a good thing, as Tim Burton knew.

I can't not mention the great soundtrack, a duel effort between Danny Elfman and Prince that still makes the film sound dark and funky and contemporary all at once.

My only wish for BATMAN is that the series would return to form--this form in particular.

BATMAN RETURNS

I have major problems with the whole Penguin storyline, but it is so completely overshadowed by the incredible Catwoman plot that I didn't find myself caring anyway.

The Penguin wasn't bad, initially. By the end of the film, however, he had become so disgusting that he was difficult to watch. Maybe we didn't have to see the nose getting bit off. I wasn't quite expecting that in a BATMAN movie, where a lot of kids were in the audience. The biggest problem, for me, was the rocket-laden penguins towards the end of the show. Really stupid. Somewhere in there, I think I see Tim Burton's dissatisfaction with the franchise. Who knows. But I'm willing to write it off because of:

The Catwoman. Michelle Pfeiffer is terrific anyway, we know this. The scenes between her and Michael Keaton--out of costume--are the very best bits of Bruce-and-Girl dialogue in the entire series. The two of them are very, very good together. Beyond this, her transformation into Catwoman is astounding. One of the reasons I go to these movies is to see scenes like this one.

Now, because the two villains were handled almost entirely separately, there was a very choppy quality to the movie. Much of the Christopher Walken plot also left me feeling as if great chunks of the film were being edited out, for some reason.

Still, the sense of atmosphere and the now-traditional completeness of a Tim Burton-created world are so far superior to the movies that have come since, that this seems a masterpiece by comparison.

BATMAN FOREVER

A huge mistake was made in this film. I don't quite think that the filmmakers are aware of who their audience is.

In making Batman "lighter" and more humorous, something essential about the whole idea of Batman is lost. Reducing his psychoses to the insipid dialogue in this film makes the whole enterprise downright cartoonish. Granted, the material's source is a comic-book, but then why make a movie of it if you're going to adapt the comic-book's style?

This is evident in an even more disturbing way. This is an action/adventure movie. There are going to be many action shots. Most of these are shot and edited so poorly that you ultimately have to give up on figuring out exactly what's happening until the action settles. When I went to see the film with some friends, the first twenty minutes were barely audible. Not that the sound was low--no, our eardrums were getting pulverized by the explosions--but by poor sound editing. Making out Tommy Lee Jones' lines was practically impossible.

We all left the movie with a sense of profound disappointment

Yes, there are good actors, I guess, although Tommy Lee Jones--who was downright awesome in THE FUGITIVE--seems like he's got a serious case of Joker-envy. But these good actors have only this script to work with. Val Kilmer and the gorgeous Nicole Kidman are reduced to uttering some of the most insipid dialogue this side of the traditional Robin-"Holy rusted metal," embarrassments. Too many characters, too little time, and no workable material whatsoever.

Except for Jim Carrey. Who ever thought that, in a film that has the actors above, Jim Carrey would be the saving grace. Not that he saves the movie, but his scenes are not only intelligible, he also looks like he's having a good time, and is appropriate for the role.

This is where any artistic merit goes down the drain and the whole enterprise becomes an exercise in crass commercialism. Bummer. They had something good going there.

BATMAN AND ROBIN

Why is this still happening? They have to be aware that they're throwing money down the toilet. The returns on these films will continue to diminish until they realize one simple thing: saturation isn't killing this series, bad writing is doing it all too thoroughly. When the movies are done well, people will flock to them, whether they're BATMAN IV, OR BATMAN XX.

There are far too many characters. You can do a piece like this with established characters, STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT being an excellent example. But when you have to create and develop from scratch, you'd better be pretty darn good. And this movie isn't.

Uma Thurman is good enough. And Arnold is OK, even if he does tend to say some of his lines the way they were written--a bad thing in this case. Chris O'Donnell is himself. He's better in movies that give him less to say. Alicia Silverstone needs the screen time instead, darn it. There is some serious mega-star potential in that girl. Alfred's role is much larger, and that is good. And then there is the new Batman: George Clooney. He looks more like Bruce Wayne than the Batmans before. But. He has this constant sort-of smile on his face that kept giving even "sad" scenes like the one where we learn Alfred is dying a bizarre twist. A "light" one. Which is what the director is going after, I guess. I haven't seen him in enough to know whether he's capable of more, and he certainly isn't stretched here. We keep coming back to the really weak script. There isn't any emotional attachment to what goes on in the film. Everything is played as with a "this is Batman, so, like, we're really going take it seriously--yeah, right" mentality that, for me, is a deadly attitude for the makers of a film to have. The first film took Batman plenty seriously, and the payoff was an outstanding film.

I have a feeling that Joel Schumacher doesn't think his audience is very bright, or is entirely below the age of nine. I know he can make a good movie. I am one of the many that thought THE CLIENT was outstanding. The story was fairly tight and the acting blew me away.

Maybe he [Schumacher] thinks he's writing for a different crowd. I think it's just a bigger crowd. Oh well.