Superheroes: Batman & Robin
Contrary to its reputation as a garish, headache-inducing day-glo nightmare, Batman & Robin is, in fact, a sensitive, heartfelt examination of power, frailty, family, humanity’s custody of the earth, the ties that bind and the mysterious ways of the human heart.
Superheroes: Batman Forever
Batman Forever does something that Batman and Batman Returns were unable to do: it makes Batman a proper protagonist, with goals and desires of his own. Not merely reacting to events, Bruce/Batman is after something in Forever. His various allies and antagonists, seductions and betrayals are all thematically consistent and relevant to his struggle. This does not mean that the finished movie is without flaws.
Superheroes: Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is in interesting entry in the world of long-form cinematic Batman stories for a few different reasons. First, it manages to do what the Burton movies were unable to — make Bruce/Batman the protagonist of his own story. Second, it’s primarily a detective story as opposed to an action story. Third, at least half of the story is told in flashback, a parallel-action setup ambitious for a movie thought of as primarily for kids. Lastly, the story it tells is rather emotional and internal — Bruce/Batman broods a lot in this movie, even by his own standards. The action sequences feel perfunctory and tacked-on. The two that come to mind — a truck chase and the explosive finale — are poorly motivated and don’t advance the plot in any meaningful way.
Superheroes: Batman Returns
Like Batman, Batman Returns presents three protagonists, almost the same protagonists as the previous movie — a deformed freak of a gangster (this time the Penguin), a blonde who’s crazy about bats (Catwoman subbing for Vicki Vale), and Batman himself. In addition to its three protagonists, it offers an antagonist from outside the traditional Batman world — a ringer, if you will, in the form of businessman Max Shreck.
It would be great to report that Batman Returns takes all of these worthwhile, interesting characters and weaves them into a single, unified story, but it does not. Instead, it presents two separate stories, each compelling in its own right, and kind of sutures them together like the irregular chunks of vinyl of Catwoman’s bodysuit. As this is an unusually complicated narrative with three separate, competing plot strands which actually take place in utterly different genres, let’s separate out each character’s storyline and examine them one at a time.
Superheroes: Batman (1989) part 1
Batman has an interesting agenda: the screenplay wants to keep its title character mysterious and elusive for as long as possible. Both Batman and Bruce Wayne are presented as cold, remote and unreachable. "Why won’t you let me in?" asks Vicki Vale, as well she might. Bruce Wayne takes a long time to emerge as a protagonist in Batman, and Batman takes even longer. For the longest time, Bruce/Batman is pursued, tangled with and drawn out, with the effect being to turn him into a kind of mythological figure, or even a fetish object.
Superheroes: Batman (1966)
(For those interested, my earlier thoughts on Batman can be found here.)
WHO IS BRUCE WAYNE? Bruce Wayne is tall, handsome, wealthy and dumb as a post. He lives with his ward, Dick Grayson, who is shorter, not quite as good looking, and also dumb as a post. Wayne refers to himself as a "capitalist" for the benefit of a woman he believes to be a Russian journalist, but as far as the narrative is concerned, Wayne is born rich, a playboy, and does nothing with his life but bear the name of the Wayne Foundation — a wealthy, carefree philanthropist. There is no mention anywhere of the murder of Bruce’s parents when he was eight years old, no mention of any demons or psychological issues that might compel a man to dress up like a bat to go out and fight crime. Like a lot of things in Batman, Bruce Wayne dresses up like a bat to go out and fight crime because the plot demands it.
The Dark Knight part 4
At the end of Act III, Bruce, despite his best efforts and his bravest sacrifices, has pretty much screwed up everything in Gotham City. In the act of cleaning up the Mob, he’s created the Joker, and in the act of making his act legitimate (shades of Michael Corleone) he’s created Two-Face. By upsetting the status quo, he’s gotten his girlfriend killed and turned her new boyfriend insane. In Act IV, he will do his best to defeat the Joker — and fail, forcing him to face the consequences of the decisions he’s made.
The Dark Knight part 3
At the end of Act II, Bruce Wayne was ready to reveal himself to be Batman, only to have his decision yoinked away from him by Harvey Dent. At the beginning of Act III, Bruce is forced to continue on as Batman in order to capture the Joker, the key representative of the new breed of criminal class Bruce has created by trying to clean up Gotham. Although there is some question as to whether Bruce’s heart is really into giving up Batman — which Rachel will address later in Act III.