Gothic Gotham

Batman (1989)

Now Christopher Nolan is synonymous with the Batman film franchise but Tim Burton was the Hollywood director given the reins in the late eighties with a cast including Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson and Kim Basinger. Batman and the Joker battler over Gotham city as well as photographic reporter Vicki Vale.

What Burton always does best is bring really vividly imagined artistic worlds to the screen and that is definitely the strength of this adaptation. On the screen Gotham is a dirty, crowded and corrupt city scape inhabited by the sort of thieves and vagabonds you would expect. It is very hard to find fault with any part of the production value of the film which makes the film watchable for that reason alone.

Where the film falls down is the content, it is impossible not to draw comparisons with the recent Nolan films and this adaptation just lacks the depth of the newer films. There are times you wonder if this film is really about Batman or if the Joker is actually the main character. While the film is set just after the emergence of Batman in Gotham it is not an origin story and does well to get round what bogs down a lot of super hero film but still deliver enough back story. It is a real shame that the plot comes of as just an excuse to get a Batman film out there and make a lot of money rather than a more thoughtful effort.

4/5 an achievement in style if not story telling.