Batman (Blu-ray)

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"You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?"
--Jack Nicholson, "Batman"

For those high-def fans who loved the first of Tim Burton's "Batman" films but didn't care as much for the second one and probably loathed the next two after that, Warner Bros. have an answer. It's the 20th Anniversary Blu-ray Book edition of "Batman," complete with hardcover Digibook and bonus digital copy. Of course, if you already own the multi-disc "Batman" Blu-ray anthology, this new edition is superfluous. But for those folks who want the one movie only, this edition makes an attractive proposition.

When I was a kid in the early Fifties I'd read the occasional Bob Kane "Batman" comic book, preferring the dark look of the superhero and his exploits to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's more sanitized "Superman" of the day. In the Sixties I generally hated the corny "Batman" TV series that trivialized the "Batman" idea and made everyone and everything in the stories the objects of ridicule.

Then I heard good things about Tim Burton's 1989 motion picture, "Batman," and my wife and I stood in line on opening day. It didn't disappoint us. Sure, Nicholson's Joker was over-the-top, but for the most part, the characters were back where they belonged--in serious film noir. Not that the series wouldn't slip back into schlock before "Batman Begins" resurrected the franchise once again, but this one provided all the right ingredients its fans had always hoped for.

There are any number of reasons why "Batman" works so well, not the least of which was Burton's decision to make it as dark and realistic as possible, while still maintaining a comic-book sensibility. It isn't an easy task to convince anybody but the most die-hard superhero fan that a crime-fighter in a bat suit could really be swinging from one building to the next in a fictional Gotham City. But Burton manages the feat by making us believe in the characters, believe in their ambitions, and believe in their plights. He helps us suspend our disbelief by creating a noirish atmosphere reminiscent of the best Hollywood films of the forties and fifties and the best graphic novels of the Eighties and beyond: dark, shadowy rooms; dark, rain-swept streets; dark, smoke-filled alleys. Even Wayne Manor has a dark, brooding aspect to it.

Next, there's the matter of Michael Keaton in the starring role. Michael Keaton? When I first read he was playing the part, I could hardly find it credible. I thought it was a joke. After all, wasn't he the fellow from "Night Shift," "Mr. Mom," "Johnny Dangerously," and "Beetlejuice," all comedic roles? Was this to be another farce like the old television show? Why not Don Rickles as Batman? Made as much sense. Then I watched the movie and found Keaton almost perfect. No, he didn't fit my mental picture of Bruce Wayne; not enough muscle and not a firm-enough jaw. I mean, the only part of Batman's face we see beneath the mask is the square jaw, so I expected someone more rugged--someone more like Adam West. Yet Keaton brings to the role far more than a superhero's physique. He is a genuinely complex and tortured soul beneath the cape, a character whose motivations are always in question, if never disparaged. In short, Keaton proves a far better dramatic actor than anyone might have thought, and it is his portrayal as much as anything else in the movie that makes us accept the "Batman" universe as a part of the everyday.

Countering Keaton's Batman is superstar Jack Nicholson as the psycho nut job Jack Napier, The Joker. "So much to do, and so little time." Because of his status in the Hollywood hierarchy, Nicholson received top billing, an odd circumstance given the movie's title but an understandable one considering Nicholson's marketability. Needless to say, Nicholson plays his character as broadly as possible and, depending on your point of view, either steals the show or ruins it. Like most viewers, I've always rather liked Nicholson's creation, the flip side of Bruce Wayne, both masked, one good, the other evil; even if I think Burton gives Nicholson too much screen time, which takes away from the otherwise semi-realistic tone of the picture. "Do I look like I'm joking?" Then, too, it's The Joker and his shenanigans that almost sink the movie in the last half hour of bedlam, as things get more and more exaggerated. "Batman" fans live with it.

The movie's supporting cast do their part as well. Kim Basinger as Vicki Vale, the photographer on Batman's trail and the eventual love interest for Bruce Wayne, is sexy and convincing. Robert Wuhl as Alexander Knox, a reporter out to unmask the flying bat, is appropriately cheeky and lightens the mood of the proceedings. Pat Hingle and Billy Dee Williams look good in their roles as Commissioner Gordon and District Attorney Dent, but they go largely unused in the film. Jack Palance as crime boss Carl Grissom is on screen for only a few minutes, but he is the only actor to come close to upstaging Nicholson. And Michael Gough as Alfred the butler is the perfect gentleman's gentleman.

Burton's ingenuity, Keaton's and Nicholson's star turns, and the excellent supporting cast would go for naught, however, if it weren't for Anton Furst's production design and Peter Young's set decoration, which combined for an Academy Award; Roger Pratt's cinematography; and Danny Elfman's original music (but maybe not Prince's song contributions). One look at and one listen to this movie's opening sequence alone, and you know it's "Batman," a unique work of considerable influence and imagination. Silly touches aside, like the overambitious Batmobile and Batplane, this movie is the yardstick by which we have measured all subsequent "Batman" films.