"Batman" - "Love That Joker!"

SPOILERS ahead.

These next two articles are completely random. My internet and TV went out a few days ago, so I had to find a movie to watch. When you own as many movies as I do, picking one can be an ordeal. For whatever reason, I ended up picking Batman and Batman Forever. These are my two favorites of the early Batman movies. Most people would agree with the first film, but would call me crazy when it comes to Forever (I’ll defend that choice in the next article). Looking back at the 1989 movie, I was surprised by how dark it was, and I loved Nicholson’s Joker even more than before because it was the perfect mix of goofy and homicidal. Nothing against the more serious Nolan movies (which I love), but Tim Burton’s first Batman movie made me remember that a Batman movie could be dark and fun.

Batman Was Actually Pretty Gritty Before the Gritty Reboot.

As a rule, I can’t stand when a movie, especially a remake/reboot, is referred to as “gritty.” Thankfully, that term has been overused to extinction, but it was certainly applied to Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. At the time, it made sense to focus on the grittiness of the new portrayal of Batman. After all, Joel Schumacher’s abomination, Batman & Robin, was the last time we had seen Batman in a feature film. That film was such a goofy mess that the series had to steer hard into more realistic territory. 

Because of Schumacher’s more light-hearted, neon bright movies, people tend to forget that Tim Burton’s movies were fairly goofy, as well. But Burton, especially at the height of his powers, is the master of balancing goofy and dark whereas Schumacher’s films just ended up being plain goofy.

Batman has plenty of goofiness going for it, mainly thanks to all the Joker’s shenanigans, but the overall atmosphere of the film is quite dark. According to IMDb trivia, the look of the film was influenced by Brazil and Metropolis, and it shows. There’s this futuristic yet retro look to the sets (all the sets are amazing, by the way). It makes everything feel just beyond reality, which is the type of world in which Batman and his rogues gallery would exist. 

While a lot of the sets have a sanitized look to them, there is still plenty of grit to be found. The chemical plant comes to mind, as does the general look of the streets of Gotham. Despite the inherent silliness, this is still a shitty world. 

And shitty worlds have gangsters. Gangsters who kill people, sometimes for no reason. Of course I’m mainly talking about the Joker, but his early kill as Jack Napier sets everything in motion. In this version of Batman, the Joker killed Batman’s parents years ago in a robbery gone wrong. But the way it’s presented doesn’t make it seem like much of an attempted robbery. Jack guns the Waynes down seemingly for fun since he and his accomplice don’t appear to get any valuables from them. Jack even lingers to tell a young Bruce his favorite murder catchphrase. 

Once Jack becomes the Joker, the indiscriminate killings escalate. His ultimate goal, aside from revenge, is to gas as many Gothamites as possible. He even kills his own men for little to no reason (Bob the goon deserved better!). And he gets pretty fucking brutal with some of his murders. Grissom’s death scene is flat out disgusting, though it is cartoonish since it’s done with a joke handshake buzzer.

Despite where this series of films ended up (Batsuit nipples and dozens of ice puns), it actually began in a place closer in tone to Nolan’s “realistic” films than one might think. Though Burton’s version is certainly the more comic of the two. But I’m glad all the different versions of Batman exist, even the failures. Just like how comics can be very different in tone, so can their adaptations. Usually when I pick a movie from my collection, I have a certain mood in mind. Do I want to watch a comedy? Something serious? Since the Batman franchise is so varied, there’s a film to match nearly any mood: a Batman for all seasons. Tim Burton’s version just reminded me of this and why I fell in love with this character in the first place.

“Love that Joker!”

One of my favorite things to nitpick about superhero movies is how they go about planning and designing things. I wonder how Bruce Wayne went about having his Bat Cave built and how he developed self-driving technology in the 1980s. I don’t need to know these things or even see them; I just like the ridiculous idea of Bruce Wayne considering the best lighting configurations for the parking spot in his Cave. When you turn that attention to a villain, especially the Joker, it becomes even funnier.

Revisiting Batman, I was pleasantly surprised to see a few scenes of Joker putting his plans together, and I saw plenty of insanity that made me wonder how Joker went about getting things done. 

For instance, we see the Joker actually cutting out pictures from magazines at one point while looking for inspiration for his project (the experimentation and alleged suicide of his first project, Alicia, is another horrifically dark element of the film). We see him physically go to the chemical plant to essentially perform a supervisor’s job of making sure things are going well. And you know he put in a lot of work making that commercial.

That’s just the stuff we see. Where did Joker get all of his clothes? Where did he get his goons’ leather jackets monogrammed? Who did he get to paint his logo on a helicopter? Where did he get a helicopter? Who designed his logo? Did he learn to cut together a commercial? And how to hack a TV network? Where the fuck did he get parade balloons? How did he get access to all that previously unreleased Prince music? 

Even without getting to see the majority of the behind the scenes stuff done, it was still nice to see the Joker handling a lot of the legwork himself rather than just sitting around making speeches and commanding goons.

Why Do I Own This?

This was the first superhero movie I fell in love with, and I'm glad I have it to revisit from time to time.

Random Thoughts 

Not sure that "Gotham City" at the beginning is necessary…

The first image of Batman is clearly animated.

There is not enough uproar about the fact that we never got to see the Billy Dee Williams version of Two Face.

"What are they seeing up there?"

"They're drinking Drano."

A chemical plant is a terrible place to have a shootout.

And man, those tanks must be paper thin.

So did Joker have to hold off on that gangster meeting until the monogrammed leather jackets for his goons were done?

"I'm of a mind to make some mookie." Huh?

I don’t mind the Prince music, but it definitely feels tacked on rather than natural.

The Gotham state flag is the same as the Indiana state flag. Just pointing that out because I’m a Hoosier.

"Check his wallet!" Are you fucking serious? You really think Batman packs a wallet, Bob?

Speaking of Bob, I actually had his action figure as a kid. Not sure why he even had an action figure…

I like Keaton as Batman largely because he would have been a good Joker, as well. It adds to the idea that they’re pretty similar: both a bit crazy and enjoy theatrics. They even say the same exact thing when they enter Vicki’s apartment. The main difference is simply that one is “good” and the other is “evil.”

I think I like “Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?” more than Ezekiel 25:17 when it comes to cool shit to say before killing someone.

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