title: batman
year: 1989
rating: ★★★
summary: oh come on, you know this. billionaire bruce wayne leads a double life as batman, a vigilante bent on punishing the crook who killed his parents. when he finds the murderer, the vile jack napier, batman leaves him disfigured. jack comes back as the completely insane joker, determined to destroy gotham city with smylex-- a toxin that makes people laugh themselves to death.
review: okay, first of all, why on earth does anyone live in gotham city? i mean really. surely they can move somewhere else that isn't ridden with insane criminals. second of all... michael keaton? really? who on earth was like "you know who should play this awesome, muscle-bound, brooding superhero filled with internal torment and darkness? MR. MOM." according to the trivia section on imdb, "Alec Baldwin, Jeff Bridges, Emilio Estevez, Matthew Broderick, Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise, Michael J. Fox, Harrison Ford, Robert Downey Jr., Kevin Spacey, Patrick Swayze, Dennis Quaid, Kurt Russell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charlie Sheen, Bill Murray, Pierce Brosnan, Tom Selleck, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis were considered for the role of Bruce Wayne/Batman." some of those would have been even stranger choices, i think. (matthew broderick? michael j. fox? kevin spacey? tom hanks? BILL MURRAY?? WHAT IS WRONG with these people?) but come on, kurt russell as batman? that would have been awesome. he certainly had the jaw and awesomeness for it. also, when i think of daniel day-lewis as batman, i have to admit that i'm kind of intrigued. that man is an eighty-pound bucket of crazy, and i'm curious what he would have done with that.
jack nicholson as the joker, though? absolutely brilliant. brilliant. that smile, that laugh, that devil-may-care craziness that is one part amusing, two parts heebidy-jeebidy... ah, i love it. the scene in the museum and the parade are amazing. he is perfectly over-the-top insane, and even now this movie gives me the creeps. i first saw this movie when i was five, and i'm not sure how it didn't scar me for life. (then again...)
also, i am a huge fan of tim burton, and i love some of the things that he did with this movie. the ambiance of the film is so dark and surreal and comic bookish, down to the sound effects. the gunshots sound like the gunshot sounds that are written in starbursts on the page. kapow! pew pew pew! in this batman, it's subtle comic book reference instead of being cheesy and campy. (batman and robin, i'm looking at you.) love it. love. it.
not an every-month movie, for sure, but one of the classics that i'm still impressed by.
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