Um spoilers...and please ignore how crappy this looks (especially towards the end)! I have not mastered Blogspot yet; why can't it be simple to use like LiveJournal?
Batman
Director: Tim Burton
Cast: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger
Released: 6/23/89
Oscar nominations:
Best Art Direction (won)
Batman Forever
Director: Joel Schumacher
Cast: Val Kilmer, Jim Carrey, Tommy Lee Jones, Nicole Kidman, Chris O'Donnell
Released: 6/16/95
Viewed in theaters: 6-7/?/95
Oscar nominations:
Best Cinematography (lost to Braveheart)
Best Sound (lost to Apollo 13)
Best Sound Effects (lost to Braveheart)
The Dark Knight
Director: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman
Released: 7/18/08
Viewed in theaters: 7/20/08 (Um, my first viewing)
Oscar nominations:
Best Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger (won)
Best Sound Editing (won)
Best Art Direction (lost to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Best Cinematography (lost to Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Editing (lost to Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Makeup (lost to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Best Visual Effects (lost to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Best Sound (lost to Slumdog Millionaire)
As you can see, I watched three different Batman films. Three different decades, three different directors, three different Batmans (sorry, Clooney, you didn't make the cut - there's no way you can make me watch that dreck!). Now I should preface this by saying that I'm not a Batman fan in the least; I know nothing when it comes to the world of Batman. In fact, for the longest time, I had no idea he was referred to as the Dark Knight. When I first heard of Nolan's title, I thought he was the one who came up with it (I'm being serious, people) and thought it was a catchy title and could totally see Batman being called the Dark Knight. Little did I know... Actually, they refer to him as the Dark Knight twice in Batman Forever, but I didn't remember that since it's been at least ten years since I've seen that movie. I also didn't know that Harvey Dent and Two Face were the same person. I remember Eckhart doing press before TDK was released and didn't understand why all the interviewers kept bringing up the character of Two Face and then I put two and two together. Aha! So in this review I'm going to compare and contrast the different elements of these three movies. I totally won't discriminate - oh, who am I kidding? I so have a clear favorite and you might be surprised by which one it is. Or not. Probably not.
Director: Burton v. Schumacher v. Nolan
All three movies are very different in style. Burton's has a certain athestic where you definitely feel like you're watching one of his films. There's a very gritty and almost nostalgic feel to '89. It kind of reminds me of an old mafia movie, especially with the way the men dress: trenchcoats, bowties, vests, fedoras. Watching it is almost the equivalent of watching a comic book come to life.
Then there's Schumacher who took over when Burton's movies were deemed too dark. (While I didn't find '89 scary, Batman Returns is pretty twisted and dark.) Forever is a flashy summer blockbuster. It's almost like watching a live-action cartoon. Most of the characters are caricatures with over the top performances and it's clear Schumacher chose the actors based on their attractiveness or popularity at the time. Watching this is like eating a bag filled with fun-sized candy bars: enjoyable at first, but the more you have, you start to get sick of it and want to stop and make it go away. It gets very tiring very fast.
Nolan's version is the most realistic and I mean this as a compliment when I say it's like I wasn't even watching a Batman movie (except when Bale showed up in costume). All the characters felt real, not as though they were taken from Saturday morning cartoons and there was no dialogue that sounded like it came from a balloon bubble. It's insane how well this movie did. Look at it this way: according to IMDb.com, it made more money in the first six days of its release than Batman Begins made in its ENTIRE run. As Brian Fellows would say, That's crazy! Oh yeah, you should know Begins made $205 million. Crazy! (By the way, TDK made over a billion dollars around the world.)
Gotham:
Obviously, the look and feel of Batman's hometown differs in all three films. There's a very 1930s New York vibe to it in '89. It doesn't look like a place I'd visit because of its dark and gritty appearance. I read a review that said the exterior shots of the city looks like "a diagram of an artificial city" and yeah, I have to agree. Of course, this film came out twenty years ago, so of course the special effects are going to be outdated and crappy. I'm sure twenty years from now we'll all have a good laugh over how big the cell phones are in TDK.
If Burton's Gotham looks like a place I wouldn't want to visit, then Schumacher's vision is a city I would avoid at all costs. Good Lord. His Gotham makes Las Vegas look like the small Iowa town where my mom grew up. There are neon lights everywhere and the GCI exterior just looks cheap. Forever's Gotham gave me a huge headache and can you imagine living there? Ugh! Nolan's Gotham is a real place where real people live. Of course, that's because it's Chicago, but they film it so it's not obviously Chicago and it works. No stupid and cheap made-up Gotham.
Batman/Bruce Wayne: Keaton v. Kilmer v. Bale:
In all three movies, I prefer Bruce Wayne to Batman because I cannot take a grown man in a bat costume seriously and all three actors are way better when playing Wayne. Keaton is charismatic as Wayne but it bugs me he didn't alter his voice as Batman and the delivery of the line about "dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight" to the Joker is just awful. Another thing that bugs me is the scene where he's sleeping hanging upside down. There are so many things wrong with that. First of all, Batman is human, not a bat, so WTF? And if he was a bat-human, wouldn't he be sleeping during the day? Duh! And second of all, Vicki Vale was there and saw him; wouldn't she be suspicious? It was just stupid.
Kilmer at least attempts to change his voice as Batman, but he gives off a very metrosexual vibe (perhaps it's the nipples on the Batsuit?) as Bruce Wayne as in he wouldn't want to break a nail. With Bale, you could totally see him taking some names and not afraid to pull a punch. Now his Batman voice is unintentionally funny but you have to give the guy credit for at least trying. Maybe he should've used his natural accent as Batman, though people would all be "why the f--- does Batman have a British accent?"
The Women: Basinger v. Kidman V. Gyllenhaal:
The love story in the
Batman films always seem like filler to me and they're just thrown in there to fill a quota. As photographer Vicki Vale in '89, I thought Kim Basinger looked better with her hair pulled back and wearing glasses then when she was "glammed up" in those ugly pouffy dresses. She has so much hair that it's almost her supporting co-star.
As Chase Meridian, Kidman's role in Forever is pretty much only to seduce Batman and make booty calls and come off as desperate. See, she's in love with Batman, but Bruce is in love with her (she's his psychiatrist - and whose therapist looks like that anyway? Please!) and she doesn't know her patient is the Caped Crusader. Hijinks! So of course everyone knows Katie Holmes played Rachel Dawes, Bruce's childhood friend and love interest in Batman Begins, but due to "schedule conflicts" (please, Joey Potter, we weren't born yesterday!), Maggie Gyllenhaal stepped in for her in its sequel. So here are my thoughts about TomKatGate:
I like Maggie, but I found her to be the weakest link in TDK only because I didn't really care for the character of Rachel and found any scenes with her to be boring. While I was semi-spoiled about her death (when I was walking into the theater, I walked past these guys who said, "I can't believe they did that to Batman's girlfriend!" So yeah, it wasn't that hard to figure out something terrible was going to happen to her), and while I felt bad for Bruce, I was kinda glad she was gone from the movie at that point. Oh, well, at least a certain someone's sister played her so I can write hilarious captions like this:
"Hey, didn't I make out with your brother once?"
The Joker: Nicholson v. Ledger
It's the age-old question that's been going on for decades (okay, under two years): who was the better Joker? Who do I prefer? I was a teenager when 10 Things I Hate About You came out, so who do you think? Hey, I don't discriminate...against hot Australians. Okay, I may be a bit biased with my decision. I've always been a Ledger fan (and yes, that was an awful day for me). Plus I heard that Nicholson said that he would only be cast as the Joker if only Burton billed him first? Uh, shouldn't the guy playing the MAIN TITLE CHARACTER be billed first? Dude, get over yourself!
But actor preference aside, let's just focus on the acting aspect. Now I have no idea whose Joker is more like the original one (probably Jack's since his is more like a comic-book character), but if I watched a clip from '89 without knowing who played the Joker, I would have said Nicholson in a second. His schtick is he falls in a vat of chemicals and his skin turns white (not burned as you might think) and he has a permanent smile. He kills people by using a cute array of deadly gags like hand buzzers that electrocute and acid-squirting flower pens. He's a happy clown! He likes to twirl his cane and dance to Prince. (WTF, I know).
Creepy, yes. Scary, um, not really. He plays it very campy. Now I'm going to get a lot of flack for this, but I really don't see what the big deal about his Joker is and I remember when it was announced Heath was playing the new Joker and everybody was saying he would never do Jack justice and how he was going to suck and ruin the movie. I'm sorry, but if John Lithgow (who was actually considered for the part; I bet he wouldn't have demanded to be filled first!) had played the Joker the EXACT same way as Jack did, nobody would be saying anything about his performance. And now it's funny that people are saying Heath was the better Joker (except for the stubborn Burton fanboys). Now if I saw
TDK and didn't know who played the Joker, I would have never guessed in a million years who it was. (Well, except for the three second he's not wearing make-up, then it's pretty obvious). I think the voice he used (which
Entertainment Weekly described as "Al Franken mixed with a nerdish pedophile" - thank you,
EW, I couldn't have said it better myself) was the big reason that made Ledger almost unrecognizable. In real life, Heath's voice was like buttah, but his Joker voice is so damn creepy! Now, undoubtedly, he is scarier than '89 Joker, but I would dare say that he is funnier too...and he didn't even have all those cutesy gags. I laughed when he overheard one of his goons describe him as "the crazy clown in the cheap purple suit" and tells him "Oh, by the way, my suit wasn't cheap. You should know; you paid for it." And by the fourth time he asked somebody if they wanted to know how he got his scars, all I could think of was '08 Joker at some dinner party, asking guests that same question and people thinking, Oh, God, not this schmuck again!" Also, did anyone else think he rigged those detonators on the boats so they would blow up their own boat instead of the other one?
Two Face: Jones v. Eckhart:
In Forever, Two Face is every bit the comic book caricature with his
"normal" side and his
"wild" side. Not only is his appearance and suit divided into
two, but also his headquarters and he has two, uh,
concubines, I guess: Sugar and Spice. We never see him as D.A.
Harvey Dent, although there is a quick explanation of how he
turned evil, but I didn't really understood what happened to him
physically.
In TDK, Eckhart doesn't actually become Two
Face until the third act; we see him as good guy Dent for the
first two. His Two Face makeup is definitely more gruesome
f
act, the only thing I would say is not very realistic about TDK (well, besides, some of the Joker's 24-style terrorist activities; seriously, you would need to know some serious access codes to pull off what he does in that movie), is the fact that this man is walking around with half of his FACE burned off right in the open. Even if you lived to survive that, there's no way anybody could go out in the open like that and not get infected. But that said, it is still a Batman movie. I have to give Eckhart props, because even though Heath Ledger steals the movie, he definitely held his own. Harvey Dent is also featured (in a very small role) in '89 and played by Billy Dee Williams. Burton never got to use him as Two Face, but there was some serious foreshadowing when he reads a letter from Batman at the end of the film and states, "If the forces of evil should rise again, call me." Hmmmmm....he was talking about himself! And speaking of foreshadowing, there was some of that in TDK when Fox tells Bruce that his newest weapon of choice "should do well against cats". Whoever could he be referring to?
The Riddler and Robin:
To get a good sense of Jim Carrey as the Riddler in Forever, take Ace Ventura and the Grinch and smash them together, multiply that by ten and you have the Riddler. Carrey is ridiculously over the top and I have a feeling that Schumacher was encouraging him to be as obnoxious as possible. Unlike '89 and TDK where the villains are feared, I never got that sense with the Riddler or Two Face. They were used more for comic relief, and honestly, they weren't that funny. While I wanted more scenes with the Joker when I watched TDK, the Riddler couldn't get off my screen soon enough when I watched Forever. Now I've seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, so I know Carrey is a capable actor, but man, he is awful in this. There's even a scene where he says something to Batman, then asks, "What that over the top?" YES! Yes, it was! The real person we should feel sorry for, though, in
this movie (after all, Carrey laughed his way to the bank), is Chris O'Donnell. Not
only did he have to play the useless Robin (who is Batman's answer to Scrappy-Doo),
but he is the only one from this film who went on to be in the even worse Batman and Robin - which I've never seen and never want to judging from the few clips of it I have seen.
Okay, to wrap things up, because I'm sure nobody is reading
this anymore, I actually preferred
Michael Gough's Alfred in '89 and Forever to Michael Caine's in TDK because with the former
that's the only character I've ever seen him play, so he is
Alfred to me. With the latter, I've seen
Caine in other movies and at award shows, so I just saw
Michael Caine. (Though he did have
some funny lines). Commissioner Gordon is hardly used in
'89 and Forever, but is very much
used in a great storyline in TDK and Gary Oldman is right
behind Ledger and Echkart in terms
of performance.
Why so...Sirius?
Somehow my font keeps changing and and I have no idea why and this review is going to look really messed up and I'm about to go all Christian Bale on this stupid site, so I better wrap this up. Anyway, here is my final evaluation of the movies:
Batman: See it if only for it's a classic and it did jump start the whole franchise (which is a good and bad thing). And if you don't compare Nicholson's Joker to Ledger's, he's not entirely that bad. I still think Lithgow would have make a better '89 Joker, though.
Batman Forever: This movie sucks. Don't see it if you haven't already.
The Dark Knight: This movie is awesome and if you haven't already seen it, you must live under a rock. There's a reason this movie made a boatload of money: because everyone and their grandma went to see it...multiple times!
