Gentlemen! Let's broaden our minds!

Of course, everyone knows the story of this film. The action takes place in Gotham City- a crime infested sess pool of seemingly perpetual night. For too long the people of Gotham have been terrorised by the thugs, gangs, muggers and gangsters who rule the perpetual night and always evade the inept police force. It is time for the arrival of a saviour who will finally strike back, who comes in the form of a creature of the night- a masked vigilante called 'Batman', who comes in and out of the shadows and strikes like a dagger.

Batman is really Bruce Wayne, an orphaned millionaire living off his late parents' fortune. He lives alone in his large mansion apart from his loyal butler, Alfred. As a child he witnessed the murder of his parents at the hands of muggers right before his eyes. Since that day he has sworn indiscriminate revenge against the underworld. And so, using his family fortune he constructs his secret den- the Bat Cave and his gadgets and vehicles and everything he needs to be a one man army in the fight against crime.

But just as our hero is stepping into the limelight, a new and unstable vicious gangster has risen to the top echelons of the mafia and is now ushering in a new reign of terror against Gotham. He was once Jack Napier- a small time hitman with psychosis, but a baptism in toxic waste has disfigured him for life and he is now reborn as the Joker- and is now more insane than ever!

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This was the long awaited Batman movie of the summer of 1989. Not surprisingly it was a major thing back then. Even I remember it being a major stir at the time, and I was only seven.

Part of the reason why Batman was so popular in the late 80's was thanks to Frank Miller's groundbreaking Batman comic- "The Dark Knight Returns" which came out in 1986. It was a Batman comic that was aimed at a more adult and mature readership with more dark and introspective overtones and post modernist style. It resurrected the waning interest in the Batman comic franchise and stepped up the popularity and myth about the caped crusader. That was one of the main factors in galvanising interest in making a big screen translation of the Batman comics for an eager audience.

Batman had been done as a TV series and a film back in the 60's, which was very camp and family friendly (and was actually pretty good in terms of its camp comedy). but the fan's didn't want that- they wanted Batman like it was in the comics- dark, menacing, bleak and thrilling.

Tim Burton, who had just enjoyed his earliest cinema successes with the films "Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure" (1985) and "Beetlejuice" (1988) was the most likely choice for bringing this molotov cocktail mixture of the gothic and dark and black humour, action and extravagance to the screen. And so in 1989 he released what has gone on to be one of his most celebrated cinema works.

Jack Nicholsen recieves top billing as Jack Napier/The Joker- which many have described as the role he was born to play. Just like in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "The Shining", Nicholsen shines as the manic and crazy sonuvab*tch. He just brims with personality and is wholely unpredictable and really keeps you on your toes. He has the devil in his eyes and the irrepressible enthusiasm of someone who knows exactly how to raise hell. He steals every scene he is in, whether dancing away to the music of the jehovah's-witness-fromerly-known-as-Prince or being in a room by himself conversing with the electrified corpse of his former superior.

It is the pitch black sense of humour to the Joker that makes him so endearing. He's so amazingly cool that we can't help but slightly root him on and want him to win. Which is quite something because the Joker is actually the meanest and most murderous of all the Batman movie villains so far, and it is the volatile and violent edge to his spontaneous humour that keeps him threatening.

Michael Keaton plays the dual role of Batman, and of Bruce Wayne. He does well to perform them like they are different characters. Batman is the silent but deadly, sinister and cold, vicious crime fighter, whilst Bruce Wayne is a very clean cut, articulate man of civility, who comes across perhaps as being a bit naive and secluded and in need of someone to coax him out of his shell. It's not too dimensional though.

The film isn't really about schizophrenia, it is a very neat portrayal of an unhappy man who is not so strong finding empowerment through his "power-animal" if you like. He portrays a man seeking confidence and justice through his double life, getting in touch with his superego. By becoming Batman, Bruce becomes brave and a fighter of grand physical prowess. But Batman cannot really communicate with someone face to face with the mask on. Some fans of the Batman comics have said that the film kind of smoothed out the edges to this schizophrenic characterisation and made the character a bit too noble whereas the comic book character of Batman was a far more disturbed and morally ambiguous character. I would agree with that view that Michael Keaton's Batman, just isn't insane enough. Then again none of the movie actors were, really- this might change when "Batman Begins" comes to the screen. Still Michael at least fulfills what the script asks of him as a hero and fighter and does it well.

Then we have Kim Basinger as journalist Vicky Vale, the romantic interest who chases the story of the mysterious Batman and ends up finding him and falling in love with him. Some Batman fans felt that the movie really didn't need this love interest, but she is here nonetheless. Basically Vicky Vale is there as an audience's viewpoint so we can be introduced to Batman and be reassured of his heroic credentials, despite being a sinister and rather alien vigilante.

As a character she has a certain post-feminist, feisty, socially aggressive, chic party girl appeal who I enjoy seeing around Bruce Wayne and coaxing him out of his shell. However when danger comes their way, she somehow reverts into the screaming helpless damsel with all the cliched fainting and cowering behind the hero, and even sexually pandering to the villain to distract him as Batman clobbers him from behind (works every time!)

We also have the familiar minor characters- Commisioner Gordon (Pat Hingle), head of the Gotham police who hasn't yet come to trust Batman and thinks he is a violent vigilante who is just as bad as the criminals he fights and has launched a police campaign to catch him. We have Alfred (Michael Cough), Bruce Wayne's loyal, elderly and well spoken butler who is the only one who knows Bruce's double identity.

We also have the conservative Prossecution Attourney, Harvey Dent (Billy Dee Williams), the beacon of hardline justice who has no kindness for criminals- but who ironically is destined to become the scarred villain, Two Face in the second sequel "Batman Forever" (where he is played instead by Tommy Lee Jones) and even Detective Eckhardt is here as a dirty cop affiliated with the Joker's gang.

The production of the film is absolutely five star. From the dark opening titles I knew this was going to be a proud and faultless piece of film. The opening scene is absolutely riveting as Batman fiercely dispatches two muggers. Even those minor characters are performed with wonderful engagement and authenticity, and from that point on I was hooked on the film.

Tim Burton brilliantly paints the dark Gotham City as a living biomass which isn't merely skin deep but has many layers- with its lows of the gutters and slums, its more raised platforms, factories, then the higher echelons of the church, town hall and Bruce Wayne's mansion. But every part of the city is alive with people and culture- tradition, myths, excitement and hidden lives.

The city breathes through its vents, fans and steaming drains. There is images of gas and toxic waste and forewarnings of the deadly, noxious and far reaching spread of death and terror that will follow as the Joker makes his many terrorist strikes against the city- putting deadly poisons in cosmetics, gassing the crowd at a charity carnival.

The suspense is totally arresting, the fight scenes sharp and assaulting and the pacing to it all is superb. It is a plotline composed of small victories countered by continuous dilemmas and criminal plots and devastating mass murders of innocents. Interspersed with this is the love story between Batman and Vicky Vale which is done in a way that is snappy and charming and allows us to have short moments of unwinding somewhat from the violence without getting too distracted or bored and losing sight of the overall threat.

In some ways this film was your typical 80's movie- it was a film that like the Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Die Hard films, was all about spectacle- fight scenes, explosions, futuristic cars and fluorescent fashions. I must say I found it all very exhilarating watching this conflict between good and evil, and how Batman embodied this very ruthless form of noble justice, like an urban terrorist- dangling bad guys over ledges, blowing up warehouse dens with grenades. With later films I felt the spectacle definitely became ridiculously excessive, but here it is disciplined and moderated, and still remains very solid and concrete.

And discipline is what makes this film a classy cut above the rest. In terms of cinema of the time, Batman filled the criteria for a lot of the violent 80's movies that were all about vigilanteism and high body counts. The 80's had formed the aesthetics of the modern spectacle, which has become very much a style over substance affair now.

In the 80's there was style over substance, but there was definitely a stronger ideology to spectacle cinema and indeed most forms of cinema. Just like the cinema of the 70's, the ideology of many 80's films was of assertiveness in the post-60's world where there was much social unrest and changing values. Sometimes asserting the new values that had come with the 60's, more often asserting the traditional conservative values, and often such films weren't really assertive at all because they were so rote and bullying and belligerent about it, especially in the realms of 80's Spectacle cinema's excessiveness in violence and muscles.

All that considered, Batman is a very reassuring film to watch in this regard as it follows to the letter the poetic and comforting narrative conventions of Cinema of Order. A lot of the vigilante or exploitation films of the 70's and 80's did not rely on any visual discipline or restraint to their seedy and intimidating content and imagery, resulting very much in a "shower after viewing" effect (which some people quite enjoy). But Batman was very visually disciplined indeed. It was a visual and colourful feast but it was dominated by a film noir look that kept it focused. The colours that are shown in the film- the green, the purple and orange are bright and sharp but are kept within the lines.

Tim Burton is known for being very Gothic in his style as a film-maker. His film "Beetlejuice", which he made immediately before this was definitely his prototype film for honeing his style. Tim Burton's Gothic style is on one hand that of the modern mainstream Gothic style of ominous darkness and greyness, leather, pale faces and moonlight. The kind seen in the Dracula films, Rocky Horror Picture Show and bands like Siouxie & the Banshees, the Cure and Sisters of Mercy.

But there was another type of Gothic style that Tim Burton brought into his films, which was the original more bohemian and Victorian brand of gothic which was actually a very colourful and psychedelic fashion which was strongly appropriated by the Hippies.

This blend of colour styles was a major element of the film's use of contrast. As in a lot of Cinema of Order types of film, particularly in the fantasy genre, visual contrast is used to paint the heroes and villains as antithesese of each other- poles apart. This is done here in a very psychologically clever and satisfying way. In what is essentially a Comic book Western with Gotham City and its hero and inhabitants representing civilisation, and the Joker and his goons representing the invading savages, it's interesting how Gotham City is portrayed in this conforming and bleak dark hue whilst the Joker and his men and the tools of his trade are in very bright colours. This also characterises the city as a very black hearted, cynical and hostile one.

There's also contrast to the personalities of Batman and The Joker. Batman is the moral crusader who is fierce but who can be merciful to the hoodlums he dispatches, whilst the Joker is a sadistic mass murderer. Batman is brooding and serious whilst the Joker is a barrel of laughs- indeed the Joker is the only character in the film with a sense of humour. He is a man of one liners, but they're probably some of the classiest one liners you've ever heard. "And where is the Batman!?..... he's at home!! Washing his tights!!"

Tim Burton just has a great sense of editing and complimenting the character of the Joker. We see a restaurant of people being gassed to death and we cut from one fallen corpse to another, absorbing the silence and then, just at the right second we cut to the juxtaposing smile of the chirpy Joker marvelling at it all, ready to burst into song. It's also a great delight to see Batman watching the Joker clowning around and mocking him whilst Batman keeps a face of stone and absolutely refuses to break a smile.

At first it seems like a heavy handed conservative cliche about good men being serious and reserved and evil being characterised by the obnoxious and hedonistic, and we're tempted to reject the moral cliche and prefer to root for the Joker. But in the scene where we see Bruce Wayne's flashback to his childhood, to the moment where he witnessed his mother and father being shot before his eyes by the Joker (who was a disturbed teenager called Jack Napier back then), when we see the towering, malignant grinning face of the trigger happy Joker down the barrel of a gun, from the terrified eyes of a child- to imagine the trauma of seeing amiable joy and cold blooded murder embodied in the same figure, it really adds another level to the story and explains much about Bruce Wayne's reluctance to be happy, and his hatred of the Joker's obnoxious grin, and what it really represents to him in those old mental scars.

Overall it's a very fun and sophisticated film. Some would still describe this film as being one of style over substance. For me I find it reasonably intelligent and character driven, if a little far fetched with quite a few gaps of logic, but still workable as a film overall. Of all the Batman movies, I find this one to be the most thrilling with its plethora of predicaments and the ruthless resolve of its villains which has so far been untouched in the later Batman movies. It was the most grand and ambitious of the series, without getting at all carried away.

A final note- despite its credentials as a superhero movie, "Batman" is not suitable viewing for children, due to its violence and grisly scenes. The later films of the Batman series are progressively less violent and more aimed at a family audience, whereas this film is probably only suitable for a teenage market and above. But that was what Batman's dark aesthetics were always about. And certainly I find that very refreshing, after viewing the horribly twee "Spiderman 2" recently.