The Batman Movies

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"Batman Returns".

The trinity of The Bat, Catwoman, and The Penguin. Genius.

From the start where parents throw their child away, ( because it doesn't behave the way it's supposed to, because it's scary, because it's powerful ) like trying to kill Damian in "The Omen" 14 years before, and the pram follows the giant tunnels/pipes of the rain drains, like a terrible factory.

And Catwoman ripping and slashing her fluffy toys to shreds and spraying black over all the pretty pastels in her flat.
The Bat hidden in his house, inviolable. Cared for by his housekeeping, shopping, supportive manservant. No other relationship.
This is one of my favourite films.
The public relations press-conference for "promoting" The Penguin; what he is like, stained and smelly and dribbling and repugnant. God, how i identify with him. With being the horrible blot on the landscape; despite being a usually perfectly attractive woman I'm afraid that I'll look like him, act like him, am like him.
The film is agonising, tragic, and flawed but brilliant.

Just genius.

In fact, the animated series was so awesome, they effected continuity in the comics! They made Clayface and Mr. Freeze awesome, they added Harley...

Oh no dude, that's fine, really. I was just yakking on about a subject I like to yak about.

It will be interesting to see if Christian Bale, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and (gulp) George Clooney are remembered with the same fondness as Adam West in 20-40 years time.

I say put them all in a room together, last one standing is the best Bats. Actually, the voice from BTAS would have to be in there too...

Kevin Conroy.

Still my favourite Batman.

Ach. By all rights I SHOULD like the Burton films best. I LOVE Tim Burton normally. I LOVE superheroes. I LOVE Danny Elfman's score for the '89 "Batman."

But god damn it, all that just makes the fact that I DON'T like it that much worse.

I thought that the plot sucked. I never felt like Batman did anything until the end, when he killed The Joker, which in itself was a mistake for reasons so many others have got into. Then there's the cast. I didn't like it at all. Jack Nicholson was very funny, but he didn't look the part at all--he was too round, and not twisted enough looking. Plus, to me The Joker shouldn't be funny--The Joker should be a twisted, scrawney, insane little f**k who laughs at his own sadistic jokes at the expense of everyone else, not the character who the audiences like best. Michael Keaton was a terrible Batman, as well--if anything HE should have been The Joker (see "Beetlejuice" if you don't believe me--it still would have been a "funny" joker but at least he'd look a bit more like the part). I didn't like Vikki Vale. I didn't like the constant horrible Prince songs. I was deeply disappointed by the visuals, finding only a few brief shots to be visually appealing, which is a huge letdown since one of the reasons why I watch a Tim Burton film at all (or a superhero film for that matter) is for the visuals. This didn't look gothic--Batman lives in GOTHam City. Burton's movies are GOTHIC. How come this movie didn't look gothic? The special effects, sets, and costumes often looked cheesy and extremely dated. I didn't like the lighting and color pallette, either. This was all made worse because of a lack of decent fight scenes--there wasn't really one until the end, and by that point it was too late, especially since there was a 5-minute scene where Batman is chasing The Joker up stair after stair. It seemed to go on and on. The worst thing I can say about this movie was that it bored me. In the end, the only thing I liked about it was Danny Elfman's score, which wasn't even in it as much as the icky Prince songs.

I voted for "Batman Begins," which I wasn't expecting to like at all but wound up loving. It has the strongest storytelling of any of the Batman films; the acting is great; and for once Batman himself is DOING something, rather than just playing second fiddle to overly-comical villains. That said, I don't like the atmosphere or visuals of it at all--not gothic enough or noir enough, too brown, the camera too shaky. I didn't like the fight scenes. I thought that the score was disappointing and that they should have kept Danny Elfman's theme. So really all the things I wanted from a Batman film or a superhero film, it still didn't have. But that said, it worked really well for me as an individual film due to the strength of the storytelling and performances. Brief cool moments and details (such as the hallucination scenes) also helped.

I'm looking forward to "The Dark Knight"...the trailer for that one looks quite good.

I still say that the best one is "Batman: Dead End." (Look for it on YouTube.) THAT had the right feel, the right Joker, good banter, a Batman with one dark freaking voice (even Christian Bale's Batman didn't have the right ROAR when interrogating criminals). But that's an 8-minute fan film.