Batman

Gotham City is a grim, shadowy, you-should-only-excuse-the-expression Metropolis, so architecturally gloomy that even the sunniest city streets have all the charm and ambience of dark alleys. But a champion has appeared in recent weeks: a looming caped figure costumed like a bat, who appears out of nowhere to beat up muggers and harass crime bosses like the sinister Carl Grissom (Palance).

Grissom is not as big a threat as the minion he declares his "number-one-guy," the dapper Jack Napier (Nicholson). Napier would stand a good chance of taking over Grissom's rackets someday, if he hadn't already aroused his boss's ire by seducing the missus. So Grissom sets him up for a fall, if not precisely the fall that ensues when Batman drops Napier into a vat of acid.. Emerging a white-faced, green-haired, homicidally insane clown known as the Joker, Napier embarks upon a reign of terror against the town that, in his words, needs an enema.

Meanwhile, what's going on with billionaire Bruce Wayne (Keaton)? Well, he has a butler, Alfred (Michael Gough). And a new girlfriend named Vicki Vale (Basinger). And a bat-suit. And a cave. Yes, he's the mysterious vigilante who's been beating up on all those crooks, thanks to the tragic childhood murder of his parents by a low-life street thug. That thug asked them, "Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moon light?" Which just happens something Napier likes to say, whenever he's about to kill people. Could there possibly be a connection?

Before this film's release, most of the world knew Batman was the purple-clad buffoon he had been in the campy '60s sitcom, a fellow talented at fighting ridiculous criminals who was nevertheless (by design) more than a little dim in the social graces. (Offered a kiss by Catwoman, he even says, "Some people do it all the time, I hear.") Under the circumstances, the pressure to render him just as big a dufus in his big-screen comeback was intense. One proposed take would have featured Bill Murray as Batman and Eddie Murphy as Robin, a cast certainly intended to pitch the material as farce, even as Tim Burton's subsequent, initially controversial decision to cast another comic actor (and a very physically-unimposing comic actor at that) seemed to portend. How surprising it was, when the choice of Michael Keaton proved an exercise in deliberately casting against type! Especially when, against all odds and with the help of brilliant production design and not one but two memorable soundtracks (one by Prince and one by Danny Elfman), it largely worked?

No, I haven't danced with the devil in the pale moonlight. What are you, crazy?

Purists who know these characters from the comics still have plenty of room for complaint. Forget such touches as identifying the pre-whiteface Jack Napier as the murderer of Bruce Wayne's parents (though that's clumsy as hell, and a fine specimen of that grand sin, storytelling-by-amazing coincidence). Forget also that this Batman ultimately disposes of a factory mass-producing poison gas by blowing it up, a move that would probably turn Gotham City into the next Bhopal. Forget too Batman's odd strategy while rescuing Vicki Vale (here as in the comics the dullest of Bruce Wayne's many love interests); though the movie clearly establishes that the Joker's thugs cannot break into the Batmobile to get at him or the civilian he's rescuing, he still leaves the car and takes her with him, for no apparent reason other than the need to expose himself (and his charge) to further attacks. Finally, forget that this Batman is no superb athlete, but a guy in a clanky suit of armor, who mostly marches forward and punches things, because he's so immobile in that silly-looking cocoon that he cannot even turn his head.

The real problem is that Batman is largely impotent in the face of the character the movie's really interested in, Jack Nicholson's Joker. And nowhere is this more evident than in the climactic scene where his aerial assault plane strafes the Joker, who stands on the ground waiting for it. The Batman's plane dives from cloud level, peppering the street with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, taking out much of the Joker's gang in what may be the least intrepid act ever committed by any character we were ever encouraged to consider a superhero. The Joker, beckoning a take-your-best shot, taunting his enemy with a defiant, "Come on, you gruesome son of a bitch," doesn't flinch a millimeter as every single round misses him. Then the villain pulls a revolver with a really, really long barrel out of his pants and nonchalantly brings down the Batwing with a single shot. A fine visual gag, but one with strong Freudian implications regarding the difference between a guy who has working equipment and one who's merely shooting blanks. Nor is this an accident. In this movie, the Joker's the real thing, and the Batman's just a brooding rich guy who can afford to buy "all those wonderful toys."

As a result, this often very entertaining pop phenomenon is only a mediocre Batman film. It is, however, a fine Joker film, one that works because its true star is given ample room to chew the scenery, deserving special kudos for the moment when the clown prince of crime reprises the line Jack Palance's crime boss Grissom had earlier spoken to the pre-transformation Jack Napier. "Remember," he says, in a dead-on imitation of Palance's earlier delivery, "you ... are my ... number one guy!" It's one Jack famous for sneering his lines, imitating another Jack famous for sneering his lines. What's more, one Jack gets to kill the other, take his job, shtup his wife, and steal his best line ... all while playing a guy who's also named Jack. How delicious. As porn for film geeks, you could do worse.