In the wake of The Dark Knight Premier, which I’ve unfortunately been unable to see due to foreseen circumstances, I decided to watch The 1989 “Michael Keaton” Batman. This movie is bad. I’ve seen Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997), both of which are juvenile and silly, but I never got around to seeing Batman, which I heard was pretty good. It wasn’t. One of the worst scenes is towards the end where Batman in his Bat-Plane fires several hundred rounds from wing mounted machine guns at the Joker (Jack Nicholson), as well as several rockets, all of which miss. The Joker (who has been standing in plain sight in the middle of the street) then pulls a revolver with a roughly three foot barrel, out of his pants, and shoots down the Bat-Plane with a single shot.
I’ve never understood why people like Jack Nicholson, he only ever portrays one character: a crazy jerk, and I don’t understand why they liked his performance of the Joker, which is just over-the-top dumb. Admittedly, setting any scene to a Prince song is a bad setup. I’m looking forward to The Dark Knight, and Health Ledger’s grungy take on this character. Batman Begins, is a great Batman movie and a much needed restart to the series. I’m hoping that the sequel will live up to the quality of it’s predecessor.
Tags: Batman, Batman Begins, Film, The Dark Knight
