Description: After witnessing his parents brutal murder as a child, millionaire-philanthropist Bruce Wayne pledges his life to fighting crime disguised as Batman. His long-time nemesis, The Joker, has sinister plans for the citizens of Gotham City. His greed is matched by his obsession with photojournalist Vicki Vale. But Batman is there to counter the Joker's every move. With the fate of Gotham and Vicki in the balance, will good or evil prevail?
Amazon.com essential video: Thanks to the ambitious vision of director Tim Burton, the blockbuster hit of 1989 delivers the goods despite an occasionally spotty script, giving the caped crusader a thorough overhaul in keeping with the crime fighter's evolution in DC Comics. Michael Keaton strikes just the right mood as the brooding "Dark Knight" of Gotham City; Kim Basinger plays Gotham's intrepid reporter Vicki Vale; and Jack Nicholson goes wild as the maniacal and scene-stealing Joker, who plots a takeover of the city with his lethal Smilex gas. Triumphant Oscar-winning production design by the late Anton Furst turns Batman into a visual feast, and Burton brilliantly establishes a darkly mythic approach to Batman's legacy. Danny Elfman's now-classic score propels the action with bold, muscular verve. --Jeff Shannon
I Didn't Know That The Joker Was Such A Prince Fan!! This movie is 20 years old, but still as great as ever. For someone who never reads comic books, Tim Burton really give Batman the proper respect and setting he deserves. Gotham City really looks like a dank and dark place where you can tell crime flourishes in the streets. From the darkness of the surgeon's office where the Joker went after being burned, to Wayne Manor, this is Gotham City. You have to have the right setting to really sell the story, and this story is incredible.
Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton both proved the naysayers wrong as they excel in their role as the Joker and Batman. At first glance, it just seems that Nicholson is too old to play the Joker, until it is established that he is at least 10 years older than Wayne in the movie. He really is great Joker. He can really play crazy, and at the same time have a little humor-the perfect Joker. Keaton IS Batman. That is all I can say about that.
A million people have reviewed this movie and they can tell you that they love it, and they are right. It still holds up and hasn't aged at all.
Terrific movie This Batman movie from 1989 is awesome. It is very entertaining and well balanced between action scenes and slower-moving scenes. The atmosphere of the movie/Gotham City is very dark, which is something that works very well, in my opinion. It gives the movie a feeling of darkness and mysteriousness and evil. Michael Keaton does a great job playing Bruce Wayne/Batman. He is overshadowed somewhat by the performance of Jack Nicholson as The Joker. Nicholson's performance is classic, and in my opinion, the best acting he's done in his entire career. The Joker in this movie is a psychotic killer who doesn't hesitate to poison Gotham City, whether by Smilex gas or contaminated hygiene products, and doesn't think anything of bumping off his own right hand man. This is the first movie ever made where the true nature of The Joker is exposed, which is more accurate to the comic book Joker. Nicholson's Joker is a balanced mixture of dark humor and evil, which is what a true Joker should be like. His wardrobe and makeup are outstanding. The Joker gets more and more evil and dark as the movie progresses. For fans of this iconic villain, you don't want to go without seeing this movie and the legendary performance of Nicholson.
Other strong performances are by Kim Basinger as Vicki Vale, Robert Wuhl as Alexander Knox, Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon, Billy Dee Williams as Harvey Dent, Jack Palance as Boss Carl Grissom, and Michael Gough as Alfred. A very entertaining movie that is often compared to The Dark Knight, and usually loses, though I prefer this movie to The Dark Knight. One of the best things in this movie is the score by Danny Elfman. The music fits the scenes so well and has become a timeless, classic score over the years. I highly recommend this movie as well as buying the score.
One of the great comic book movies looks as good as it can on Blu-Ray The film:
Disclosure - Batman was the first movie that really knocked my socks off as a kid. I saw it several times in the theater, and it ignited a decade long love of comic books for me (that ended when I moved out on my own and didn't have the money any more). So reviewing this film is an exercise in taming my nostalgia.
It is a very good movie. It's got some very good performances, especially Keaton and Nicholson. The story overall is strong, intertwining the origins of the two principals. It gets a bit flabby in pacing at the end, and about 10 minutes could have been cut. The ending is easily the worst bit, as Batman suddenly becomes rather homicidal, in contradiction to well-established characterization in 50 years of prior stories. Some of the effects work doesn't stand up very well today, with obvious model shots and some pretty bad animation which would now be done by CGI. Actually, what strikes me now is how "low budget" it seems at times, if you're looking for it anyway (and the vision is generally so powerful that you might not - but then I've seen this film a good 20 times).
Overall, the fractured vision of Tim Burton and designer Anton Furst, married to a tenuous grip on reality (which was completely gone by the sequel, unfortunately), makes this compelling viewing. It's not as good perhaps as the new Nolan movies. But it's a classic. It inaugurated the boom of comic book movies that we are still enjoying/suffering through today. Kids 8 to 80 should enjoy this film. It's well worth owning as a home video.
The Blu-Ray:
This video transfer is very faithful to the original film. Which is to say, it's drab, dark, monochromatic, and not at all the kind of thing you want to demo your shiny new HDTV with.
Don't get me wrong. This looks better than the previous two DVD editions. When a scene is lit reasonably well, you can see pretty good detail in hair, facial wrinkles, and wet pavement. But the overall dynamic range of the image, from dark to light, is pretty flat. This is a very dim-looking movie. The audio is a competent Dolby TrueHD 5.1 channels mix.
Extras are comprehensive, but they are all in SD, and they are all recycled from the previous 2 disc collector's edition. There are LOADS of cast interviews, production featurettes, and one large documentary which is a 70 minute cut from the one that spanned all four "original" movies. All told I would guess there are about 3 hours of featurettes, most of which are pretty worthwhile for Batman fans. Irritatingly, most of them do not have a "play all" option. So you're forced to navigate a large menu full of small type and try to remember what you've already seen. Argh.
Burton's commentary is very entertaining. He only trails off one or two times in the 2 hours of the film. He starts to repeat himself a bit by the last half hour, but overall it is very engaging, loaded with information, and has plenty of honest opinion from the director.
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If you own the 2 disc collector's edition on DVD, I'm not going to say this is a strong recommendation. It's just not that much of an upgrade. All of the extras are the same, and the transfer isn't one of those revelatory HD experiences.
If you don't already own it, and you're looking to expand your comic book film collection, then definitely go ahead and pick this up. It laid the groundwork for all the films we've gotten since. It's easily the best of the original 4 Batman movies.
the original is always the best!! This is one of my favortie movies of all time so of course, i had to get it! Blu-ray quality was pretty sweet even for a film as old as this one; digital copy is always nice to have for the computer at work. The only thing that i was kind of upset about was that there was no deleted scenes which i always like to watch. Overall it was a good purchase and you cant beat a brand new special edition blu-ray for $19.99!
less is more I was originally only going to give this three stars, then I saw the Batman 4-movie box set. So, I gave this one-movie version one extra star each for NOT being packaged with Batman & Robin or Batman Forever.
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