Batman (1989): Why Michael Keaton is the Best Bruce Wayne

Note: This is the fourth review of the Batman serials and movies that prefigure the current Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale cycle. For many, it'll be too much information. For others, it won't be enough. Apologies all around.

Although vaguely aware that a new Batman movie was being made in the late '80s, I didn't give it much thought until February '89, when I went to Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine (ironically, the future Alfred in Christopher Nolan's version), and a trailer for Tim Burton's Batman came on. The sets, the costumes, the dark lighting, the ominous music -- everything looked perfect. "What are you?" "I'm Batman." So cool. Suddenly I didn't want to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels anymore. Suddenly I had a visceral need to see this Batman. I'm not sure why. I hadn't collected comics for 10 years and I was prepping for grad school in history. Still, opening day, I dragged my girlfriend to the first performance at the St. Anthony Main theaters in Minneapolis. I had to be there.

And?

I was a little disappointed. I still am.

The first half of the movie is well-made and stands up 20 years later. A couple with child is lost in the wilds of Gotham City -- both a play on tourists' fears in New York at the time (the mayor is even an Ed Koch look-alike) and an echo of the origin of Batman. They take a wrong turn, are robbed, their cries go unheard...except for a dark figure on a rooftop. The two crooks then count their loot on another rooftop but the conversation turns to something creepy happening in Gotham. Like to their friend Johnny Gobs:

Crook 1: Hey man, Johnny Gobs got ripped and took a walk off a roof. No big loss, right?
Crook 2: No, man, that ain't what I heard at all. I heard that the Bat got him.
Crook 1: The Bat? Aw, man, give me a break, will ya?
Crook 2: Five stories straight down and there wasn't no blood in the body.
Crook 1: No shit, it was all over the pavement.

They're ripe. They're scaring themselves before they even see Batman, and when they do see him, they freak. One shoots, Batman goes down. Still, they run. When he rises, like a vampire, they're paralyzed with fear and he takes them pretty easily. The whole scene is one of the better examples of why the bat shtick works: "Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot," etc. The way Burton shoots the scene accentuates this: like a horror film, with Batman as the horror.

Plot elements are quickly introduced. There's a new D.A. in town, Harvey Dent (Billy Dee Williams), who, with Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle), is going to clean up Gotham, particularly the syndicate of Boss Carl Grissom (Jack Palance). Meanwhile, Grissom's right-hand man, Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson), is sleeping with Grissom's girl (Jerry Hall), and Grissom knows it (but the card-loving Napier doesn't know he knows it), and, meanwhile, tabloid reporter Harvey Knox (Robert Wuhl) pursues rumors of "The Bat." His stories, mocked by his colleagues, draw the attention of photographer Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger), who seems to have a thing (yes, a sexual thing) for bats, and the two, teaming up, pursue Gordon, who will be at a fundraiser at Wayne Manor, which is where they go. A nice, neat package.

I love the way Michael Keaton plays Bruce Wayne. We usually see him as a socialite, a playboy, and I suppose you could say he is here, too (he beds Vicki Vale pretty quickly), but it's a loose, complex take on Wayne. Keaton plays him as if he's perpetually distracted, as if he's always thinking about something else. When Vicki Vale joins him at Wayne Manor for dinner and asks whether he likes the room they're in -- cold and lifeless -- he says, "Oh yeah," then looks around, puzzled. "You know, to tell you the truth, I don't think I've ever been in this room before." The '40s serials played Wayne like Don Diego de la Vega -- bored and fey -- while Adam West, Val Kilmer and George Clooney played him as straight as they played Batman. Only Christian Bale, who spends most of Batman Begins as Bruce Wayne, and who then performs the role of drunk playboy for the people of Gotham, comes close to something as interesting as Keaton's performance, but I'd still go with Keaton. It's as if this Bruce Wayne is using all his intensity, all his concentration, for Batman, leaving none for himself. You could say he's never really there as Bruce Wayne because he's not Bruce Wayne. He's Batman.

And so Boss Grissom sets up Jack Napier at Axis Chemicals, and Batman arrives on the scene and Napier winds up in the chemical sludge that turns him into the Joker. But it's here where our neat package becomes, if not untied, at least a little frayed.

Batman has Napier in his clutches, but Bob, Napier's right-hand man, puts a gun to Commissioner Gordon's head, forcing Batman to put Napier down. But why does Batman do this? We, of course, know that Gordon and Batman get together, but, in their universe, what is each to the other? More to the point, why would Bob assume that putting a gun to Gordon's head would control "The Bat," this urban legend known to kill criminals? The Bat is still a crazy vigilante here but Bob is already acting as if he's a crime-fighting institution in league with Gordon.

In fact, this is the only time Batman and Gordon hook up in the entire film and it's from a distance. Neither ever speaks to the other. So why does Gordon wind up wholeheartedly embracing Batman? Embracing the bat signal? In other words, how does Batman go from vigilante to crime-fighting institution? The characters' actions aren't logical within their own universe. Yes, Batman 1) saves Gordon from Bob, 2) figures out the Joker's death-grimace formula and 3) removes the Joker's gas balloons, but to Gordon he's still a vigilante who 1) blows up Axis Chemicals and, 2) crashes the batplane into the steps of the Gotham Cathedral. Add reckless endangerment (the chase through downtown Gotham) and kidnapping charges (Vicki Vale to the batcave) -- not to mention showing up the entire Gotham police force -- and you wonder why Gordon hooks up with the Bat. It seems to add to our sense of his incompetence.

The middle portion of the movie belongs to Nicholson as the Joker. There's that great "Mirror!" scene (later satirized in a classic "Simpsons" episode), where the vain Jack Napier realizes what he's become and, as he laughs, you can hear his mind snap. He revenges himself on Boss Grissom and his moll but, oddly, not on The Batman. His beef with Batman seems borne of jealousy -- Batman grabs his headlines, his girl and his balloons -- rather than, you know, the fact that Batman helped create him.

Batman may have the wonderful toys but Joker gets the wonderful lines:

1. Winged freak? Terrorizes? Wait till they get a load of me.
2. Can you tell me what kind of a world we live in when a man dressed up as a bat gets all of my press?
3. Jesus Marumba. A lovely beast like that running around could put steam in a man's strides.
4. Never rub another man's rhubarb.
5. This town needs an enema!

Nicholson plays the Joker over-the-top yet somehow restrained -- particularly when compared with subsequent scene-chewing supervillains. I love his dopey "Oop...oop" noise after the first comment above, as if imitating the reaction of the great unwashed.

But the plot keeps fraying. Bruce Wayne goes from avoiding Vicki Vale to (almost) telling her his secret identity. But at that moment he also discovers the Joker is the man who killed his parents. In other words, this is what his entire life has been building towards -- revenge on this man! -- but the film, rather than barreling us towards this revenge, suddenly gives us Vicki in the batcave. Alfred has brought her there without consultation. And rather than Vicki going, "Oh my god, you're Batman!," these are the first words they give her to say: "Tell me if I'm crazy, but that wasn't just another night for either of us, was it?" Talk about a downer.

Still, Batman's got a mission, right? He's going after the Joker. Except, rather than face to face, mano a man, he keeps confronting him via machinery. A remote-controlled batmobile blows up Axis Chemicals. His batplane takes away the Joker's gas balloons. Question: When he strafes the Joker in the batplane, was he trying to kill him? If so, why does he miss? More to the point: Why would he go for a distant kill in the first place? This is his life's work here! Wouldn't he want to hold him in his hands, choke the life out of him? Instead he does this. He strafes, misses, and the Joker pulls out a superlong gun from his pants that somehow shoots down the batplane.

It's at this point that Batman, which started out with such gothic potential, becomes a joke that never quite recovers.

Comments

[mathme]

Having not grown up a comic book fan (but I do like reading about the stories and did like Fox's X-Men cartoon) I don't really have any Batman or Joker preconceptions, so I just watch them on their own terms. I do like Batman as a dark figure and never thought of him as a pure "good guy." I know that the joker is homicidal maniac and that he *really* is that color. I enjoy Burton's highly stylized world and Elfman's eerie score... Nicholson's Joker is just... wow... dig it. So I'd say that the 89 batman is my favorite to watch/listen to.

Dark Knight is simply amazing, but it's a whole different sort of movie.The Joker wears makeup in this more realistic version-- that makes him seem crazier, of course, but the "staining" is a weird enigmatic aspect of the Joker's character. In many ways I like the realistic direction because it adds gravitas, and, again, think that the new run of Batman movies is great on its own terms. But for my own tastes, I like Burton's vision. In fact, I might even go so far as to say that Batman 89 and the new films are not even the same genre and difficult to compare on a 1:1 basis.

[bugsbonzai]

Keaton was good, but the first Batman series was seriously flawed. The makers could never decide on pure camp or taking the topics/characters seriously. There was great inspiration and ideas mixed with silly themes, overwrought characterization and unnecessary exposition.

The Dark Knight got it right. Nobody cares, really, HOW the Joker became the Joker. That's expository, plot driven, Freudian mumbo-jumbo that amounts to B.S. Spending 1/3 of the movie building "rational" reasons for the Joker's actions (like the Keaton version) is wasted time. We only care about the archetype that the Joker represents. That's why having Ledger's Joker LIE about his "motivations" for committing such atrocities (several times) is such a stroke of brilliance.

Superhero movies are only as good as the villains. They are the ones who define the hero, how he must act, and what he must do to defeat them. Each version of the first series forgot this on progressively greater levels until there was little discussion of these themes at all.

I enjoyed Nicholson's vaudevillian version of the Joker. But Ledger's version is pure id unleashed upon the world. No constraints of morality or mores. Batman/Wayne must answer impossible questions: how do you combat such a creature? How far do you go? How close towards the evil you are fighting must you go to defeat it? These topics are VERY prescient in today's world, especially after the last 8 years. Kudos to Christopher Nolan and the cast for their work!

[96Bravo]

As a Batman geek, I feel qualified to comment here. Yes, Keaton gave an interesting take on Bruce Wayne. Yes, Burton showed us an interesting vision of his Gotham City. And yes, Nicholson gave us a fun Joker. But none of those were the "real" thing. I mean, Keaton didn't represent the Bruce Wayne from the comics. Burton didn't represent the Gotham City from the comics (he really only represents his own vision...that's what he does best) and Nicholson certainly wasn't the Joker from the comics.

BATMAN BEGINS and now THE DARK KNIGHT represent the Batman world I've always wanted to see on the big screen.

[liberalgirl31]

My favorite Batman/Bruce Wayne is Kevin Conroy. He's played the character in Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, and Justice League. He captures Batman's dark soul perfectly just with that voice of his. He provides his voice talent to the just released to DVD Batman: Gotham Knight. He IS Batman! I also like Christian Bale, Adam West, and Val Kilmer. Michael Keaton and George Clooney are merely okay.

[coolmaiden]

Oh good call! That was a great show. I watched Mask of the Phantasm one night when I was sick (as a college freshman) and became a fan. Wish they would still rerun the originals on Boomerang.

[Marcus64]

I believe Michael Keaton's role is historical, Same with Kevin Conroy and Christian Bale's. I believe it depends on the generation, which pisses me off. Sometimes when a franchise like this strikes it's way back into the media's eye (ex. Star Wars, Clerks, Green Day Whatever, the original fans are disgusted by it's return because the original series is what they grew up with and now that it they see younger children listening to these bands or watching these movies they treat them as foreigners trying assimilate to a new culture. Thinking that they do not know true expression they or it had on people during that time and then
franticly say how they hate them. I believe that's vanity calling to them at a younger age. I believe it's also the new age of adaptation and redundant look on accepting new things. Thing they're confused about, thing's they can't keep up with or understand. So they hate it, They don't go through the process of understanding change in this world. We change everyday, we have to look to the future instead of dreading on the past.

[SkimaskBob]

Erik. These are AWESOME. Must admit that I have seen all the Batman films since Burton's '89 number, but that's mostly because I am a movie junkie as opposed to Batman fanatic. All of your reviews are spot on, and really funny. Can't wait to read the Batman Begins review and the Dark Knight review - and for that matter, cant wait to see the Dark Knight. Woot! Thanks for these, and keep up the good work.

[TheExperience]

You're definitely right about Keaton. I had my misgivings at first (the guy played "Mr. Mom"), but he's still the best.

Unfortunately, you're thinking WAAAYYY to hard about this instead of simply being entertained. It's not existential art or a thesis on the plight of humanity; IT'S A COMIC BOOK MOVIE

[BlackJAC]

According to the supplemental DVD material, what they were really casting was Bruce Wayne, and Michael Keaton looked like a guy who needed to dress up like a bat and deck muggers in order to anaesthetize himself over his parents' murder.

[psf]

true batman fans know the only real batman is kevin conroy. if you're saying "who?" you're not a batfan.

[LeaveArtieAlone]

AWESOME!!! CB RULES as the live action one though!

[bmora]

Keaton was the best Batman by far.