Batman (1989) Review

What Burton got right was the world. Anton Furst's Gotham is a vertical foundry of a city, all soot and cathedral scale and no visible sky, designed as if the twentieth century had happened all at once and then stopped, and Roger Pratt lights it in blacks so deep the Batmobile appears to be assembled out of shadow. Danny Elfman's march did the rest, giving the character a theme that outlived the film by decades. Michael Keaton is a smarter piece of casting than the fan campaigns allowed for, playing Bruce Wayne as a distracted, faintly unwell man who is only fully present in the suit.

The problem is structural. Jack Nicholson is enormous fun and completely unchecked, chewing through parade floats and Prince needle drops, and the script keeps handing him scenes because he is more entertaining than the hero. Batman himself has no arc, kills people without comment, and vanishes for stretches. Vicki Vale exists to scream and be carried. As a superhero story it is thin, as a piece of design it is close to definitive.