Is Batman 89 being forgotten?

[The Joker]

Just the other day, I kinda got into a comic book movie discussion with a female co-worker, we're about the same age, but she's married, has kids, and all that jazz, and upon me making the statement about being excited about Jared Leto's Joker after we started talking about Batman movies, she replied that even though her husband likes Heath Ledger's Joker the best, she still prefer's Jack Nicholson's Joker...

Kinda warmed my cold, black heart hearing that. 

[The Dark Knight]

Good to hear. I think Nicholson brings to mind elements of Romero with a darker shade applied. Eg. before he vandalizes an art gallery he gasses everybody inside, except for the woman he's stalking.

[The Laughing Fish]

While we're on the subject of B89 appreciation, here's this article dated from two years ago I just saw on this site's social media feed.

Why Tim Burton's Batman Is Still the Best
The man behind the bat, and Gotham, were weirder and more interesting

BY STEVE BRYANT
JUN 23, 2014

Tim Burton's Batman was released June 23, 1989, 25 years ago today, and it is the best mainstream comic-book movie ever made.

Not just the best Batman movie, but the best movie based on characters from the two major comic book publishers: Marvel, and "magazines published by DC Comics," as it says in the opening credits of Burton's film.

This is a near-heretical point of view among fanboys of funny-underwear films. Hell, it's probably a near-heretical point of view among guys named Michael Keaton, to judge from the premise of his upcoming Birdman, so please feel free to skip to the comments and batarang me with your contempt. As a friend said when I first volunteered my pro-Burton, pro-Keaton, pro-Nicholson-in-wackadoodle-whiteface opinion: "You're trolling, right?"

No, not trolling. Batman '89 is superior for several reasons, but two stand out: The Burtonverse is more richly nuanced than any other onscreen comic universe, and Michael Keaton is a better Bruce Wayne than his peers. He's the more compelling man behind the bat.

Back in '89, there was no joy in Mudville when Keaton was revealed as the Dark Knight. Here was a guy who was best known as Beetlejuice (grubby undead, lives in a train set) and Mr. Mom (feckless dad, lives in a diaper). As an actor chosen to play The Bat, Keaton didn't have what comic fanboys call a good origin story. I mean, we're talking about Bill Blazejowski here. His career was as weird as his eyebrows.

But the origin story — that essential background that provides the "why?" behind the "WTF?" — is exactly what Keaton and Burton (and scriptwriter Sam Hamm) got right.

The movie has an elegant and simple psychology: boy's parents killed, man seeks vengeance. It's a timeless storyline (see: Montoya, Inigo). And the brilliant part is that, in Burton's Batman, the audience is left to imagine exactly how Bruce Wayne grew into a weird, darkly obsessive, and deeply flawed man.

(That, by the way, is what we want from our heroes: They need to be flawed like us, but powerful beyond reckoning. Hence why we care about the infidelities of CEOs, and read Us Weekly to find out that "Stars — They're Just Like Us." The rich and famous are the closest we have to real-life superbeings, sadly.)

Keaton's Wayne is just like us. He's awkward at parties. He drives a 1978 Plymouth Volare. He invites Vicki Vale to dinner, then sits at the other end of the table. When Vale wakes up, he's doing Pilates.

But this! This is a guy who plausibly dresses up like a bat. Or, as Slaughterhouse Magazine wrote back in '89: "This Batman, you could believe, was insane."

By contrast, Christopher Nolan's Wayne is a narcissistic Boy Scout and a paragon of virtue, just like his do-no-wrong dad. There's no catharsis there. In '89 Batman, the stakes are that Bruce Wayne might be cuckoo. In 2005 Batman, the stakes are that Bruce Wayne might make Katie Holmes sniffle. Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale stripped Bruce Wayne of his dark side and turned him into a spoiled billionaire, like Tony Stark. Their movies suffer for it.

Speaking of Tony Stark: Iron Man (2008) is the only other mainstream comic film that holds a candle to '89 Batman. Jon Favreau got the origin story right, and Robert Downey Jr. was aces at being a frustratingly competent douchebag. But Iron Man has never been the most compelling hero. At the end of the day, he's a billionaire in an armored suit fighting other billionaires in armored suits. It's all very Robot Jox.

As for Spider-Man, X-Men, and The Dark Knight Rises: They're all competent movies, but each suffers from the Law of Too Many Villains. You could make a case that 2008's The Dark Knight is a great flick, but the only great part of that film was Heath Ledger. The series still falters on Bale's version of Wayne and Nolan's boring, glammed-out Gotham.

Which brings me back to my first point about '89 Batman: Burton created the most nuanced Gotham.

Look again at the details. The year on the newspapers is 1947, but the wanted poster for Jack Napier says 1989. Wayne Manor is gothic tudor, but Wayne's personal car is a Plymouth. Vicki Vale wears an '80s Parisian frock, but the other women dress like they're from the '40s. Villains use Tommy Guns. Newspapermen use flashbulbs. Gangsters dress like Al Capone's mob. This is a fully realized universe — it's almost as if a seedy 1947 existed inside a steampunk 1989.

Most superhero movies skip these details. They spend their ducats on SFX lasers and CGI villains. But it's the man behind the mask, and where that man lives, that make all the difference. 1989 Batman for the win.

Source: http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a29063/tim-burton-batman-the-best/

One of the reasons why I think Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck are the two best live action Batmen to date is because they both portray the protagonist as psychologically unstable. One is possibly arrested in development because he has no real close ties to anybody else other than Alfred, except for a few romantic relationships that end prematurely. The feeling that he has to go out there and do something about corrupt society shows how broken he is over his parents deaths, and can't move forward to live a normal life. The other carries mental scars of hopelessness, heartbreak and feeling like a failure despite all the good deeds he has done. He might live the facade of the playboy lifestyle, but the nightmares still haunt him.

In my opinion, a mortal man who could go outside every night to risk his own life would have some serious psychological  issues, no matter how well-meaning he is. The same thing can be said about Oliver Queen in the first two seasons of Arrow, and Daredevil.

[The Dark Knight]

One of the reasons why I think Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck are the two best live action Batmen to date is because they both portray the protagonist as psychologically unstable.

Agreed. I connect with that element anyway.

[OutRiddled]

Don't forget Val Kilmer, he also had that psychological aspect. 

Bale is the worst portrayal of the character, IMO. 

[The Dark Knight]

Affleck and Keaton are deeply scarred by the murder. In B89, we see Bruce laying flowers at Crime Alley, remembering the murder itself via memories and asking Alfred for archive newspapers documenting the event. Affleck wakes up in a panic after having a graphic nightmare of his parent's crypt, and visits the crypt again for real later in the film. Flashing back to the murder at the utterance of Martha goes to show how ingrained it all is. Which I think is great. As soon as Batman gets over that traumatic childhood event, he ceases to be that haunted character we all know and love. With Affleck and Keaton, more than the others, I believe Batman is their true passion in life, and they will stay up at all hours like restless spirits. Their mind always ticking over and on task.

[BatmanReturns88]

Affleck and Keaton are deeply scarred by the murder. In B89, we see Bruce laying flowers at Crime Alley, remembering the murder itself via memories and asking Alfred for archive newspapers documenting the event. Affleck wakes up in a panic after having a graphic nightmare of his parent's crypt, and visits the crypt again for real later in the film. Flashing back to the murder at the utterance of Martha goes to show how ingrained it all is. Which I think is great. As soon as Batman gets over that traumatic childhood event, he ceases to be that haunted character we all know and love. With Affleck and Keaton, more than the others, I believe Batman is their true passion in life, and they will stay up at all hours like restless spirits. Their mind always ticking over and on task.

Couldn't agree more.