Back in Black

Happy Dark Knight Day everyone! I’ve been watching a lot of the previous five Bat-films this week, and thought the most fitting way to ramp myself up for the movie tonight would be to look back at where The Caped Crusader has been.

So take a look after the jump for my thoughts on the movies to date, and check back tomorrow for the conclusion of my Bat-Blog with my review of THE DARK KNIGHT.

BATMAN (1989)
In a Word: Dark
The Hero: Michael Keaton – well suited as both Bruce Wayne and Batman, he makes audiences forget all about Adam West.
The Heel: The Joker (Jack Nicholson). Jack plays baddy suitably over-the-top, less of a clown more of a killer. It set a high standard the series would take years to hit again.
The Help: Photojournalist Vickie Vale (Kim Basinger). I had a hard time believing Kim could spell camera, let alone use one. She’s mostly in the movie to scream.
The Reaction: Most of this popcorn flick still holds up, but it seems to run out of road in its final act. Tim Burton deserves high praise for making people forget about the *POW!* of the Batman from days gone by…it’s a shame he wasn’t given a completed script to work with. I’m also left puzzled as to why The Joker was killed off, since conclusively killing baddies is a big comic book no-no.

BATMAN RETURNS (1992)
In a Word: Worthy
The Hero: Michael Keaton – Hey, look who’s back!
The Heel: The Penguin (Danny DeVito) and Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer). Penguin again shakes off the campiness of previous incarnations, with DeVito bringing a nasty power hunger to the part. Pfeiffer’s Catwoman is sexy as all hell and could have carried the movie all on her own.
The Help: Millionaire mogul Max Shrek (Christopher Walken). I fully believe that Walken could read a take out menu and make it entertaining.
The Reaction: Builds amazingly well on what the first film did. It deserves high praise for giving The Penguin – usually a dull villain – such an intriguing story and viciousness. Once again though, the story seems to run off the rails in the climax with some terrible looking penguin pall bearers.

BATMAN FOREVER (1995)
In a Word: Uh-oh
The Hero: Val Kilmer – An interesting Bruce, but a weightless Bat.
The Heel: The Riddler (Jim Carrey) and Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones). Both horribly over the top with Jones especially struggling to pull it off.
The Help: Psychologist Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman) and Dick Grayson (Chris O’Donnell). Kidman isn’t really given much to do except look sultry/astonished/intrigued/panicked….on second thought, maybe that’s enough for one starlet to do in a movie. O’Donnell’s Robin is a bit beefier than the pipsqueak The Boy Wonder usually is, and a bit more annoyingly headstrong too.
The Reaction: Not nearly as good as I remember it. This was the point in the franchise that Warner Brothers started meddling with their product, and it suffered for it. Joel Schumacher tried to liven up Burton’s dark, dreary world…and while the widened pallet is visually interesting, it doesn’t make up for the campiness creeping back into the series (Robin’s “Holy Sheet Metal, Batman!” could have been the dagger in the series).

BATMAN & ROBIN (1997)
In a Word: Yuck.
The Hero: George Clooney – the third Batman in four movies was doomed from the get-go.
The Heel: Mr Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman). Freeze is a minor league villain who never should have been chosen in the first place. Ivy is neither vixen, nor vicious and is handed one of the silliest evil schemes in movie history.
The Help: Barbara Wilson (Alicia Silverstone) who will try her heroic chops as Bat-Girl. Her back story was completely changed, and she was given nothing memorable to do. After Poision Ivy, you can notch her up as “wasted character #2”.
The Reaction: Awful…the colours and commercialism have pushed characters and story aside, and the franchise was almost at an end. Ice hockey larceny, a singing goon chorus, nipples on the suits, and a badass villain turned into a moose thug. How anybody thought this movie was a good idea is beyond me.

BATMAN BEGINS (2005)
In a Word: Rejuvenating
The Hero: Christian Bale – the best at both since Michael Keaton.
The Heel: Rahs al Ghul (Liam Neeson) and Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy). Both are realistically motivated, and both seriously twisted. Finally the bad guys seem a bit more like real people, making them all the more frightening.
The Help: Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman). Serves the same role as Q does for James Bond. A welcome addition to the legend of Batman, and a great answer to the age old question of “Where does he get those wonderful toys?”.
The Reaction: Almost a decade after running the series into the ground, this reboot would be groundbreaking for every stalled franchise in Hollywood. The choice to cast solid actors in almost every role as opposed to movie stars would also prove fruitful. The best movie of the series in a walk, and a solid foundation for more movies to come.