Summer of Netflix Day 35 - Batman

Joel: Batman you guys. Ok, so Batman, at least in popular culture has pretty much been confined to the Christopher Nolan version of Batman in the past several years. And for the most part that’s fine. All three of his movies are impressive with at least one of them easily standing as one of the best comic book movies of all time. But just because there are great Batman movies from 2005 onward, doesn’t mean that we should disregard some of the earlier incarnations of Batman. In 1989 Tim Burton made an incredible Batman movie. It was easily the best comic book movie of it’s day and still holds up incredibly well all these years later. The dark twisted gothic noir of Gotham is beautifully stylized in a representation of how Burton would see that crime ridden city. The score is amazing. John William’s score for Superman is heralded as it should be but Danny Elfman did something truly spectacular with the music in this movie. And again, it’s difficult now not to simply cast Batman and the Joker aside as subpar versions of what we got in 2008, but take the time to truly watch the movie. The interpretation is different to be sure. But whereas The Dark Knight takes place in real world Chicago (and only called Gotham for comic book reasons) this Batman and this Joker fit right into the world that this movie creates. It’s a more stylized representation of the characters than The Dark Knight to be sure, but it ties together incredibly well, and it tells an incredible Batman story. It’s not one to be ignored just because we have something better now. It’s a different Batman, but still just as good.

Chris: Everybody has “their” Batman as in when I say Batman, you picture a certain male actor in the suit and, honestly, it all depends on when your Batman fandom kicked in and who was playing him at the time. For me, it tends to be Val Kilmer or Christian Bale. Kilmer because he was playing Batman the first time I ever saw a Batman movie in the theaters (Batman Forever) because it came out when I was 7. And then Christian Bale because he’s portrayed Batman in more movies than anybody else and those were possibly the best run of Batman movies. Not necessarily saying he was the best Batman ever but he was that character in those iconic movies. This Batman with Michael Keaton hit a great stride that the next 3 movies either tried to replicate or explore the absurdities beyond (looking at you, Joel Schumacher) and just couldn’t hit that same stride. I remember how so many people were skeptical when Heath Ledger was cast as Joker because it felt like an impossible task to live up to the performance Jack Nicholson gave. Of course, the solution was to go a completely direction. There’s a certain magic about this particular Batman movie, I’ll stop and watch it whenever it’s on or if I’m just in that mood. It’s not the best movie ever made but it did feel like every single piece fit together and collectively moved together to create high standards for not only a Batman movie but for a superhero movie in general.

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