Why Do We Fall?

The corpse of Schumacher's Batman had gone cold, nipples presumably still erect, the Millennium had come and gone and Warner Bros were, understandably, nervous of superheroes.  The Matrix had come and spawned inferior sequels whilst Fox had dalliances with The X Men and Daredevil. Quality and success was inconsistent. It was all a bit haphazard.  For every Spider-Man there was a Hulk and every Blade a Catwoman.  Disney was yet to establish and mine Marvel Studios and Time Warner seemed to view DC as an unwanted inheritance.  Undoubtedly, there was money to be made but there was no vision, no continuity.  There was something missing and it took an Englishman to find it.

Christopher Nolan and David S Goyer set out to humanise the Bruce Wayne/Batman axis and make us care about the whole package and not just the Batarang round the back of the Joker's head.  The rumoured development of Miller's Batman:Year One looms heavy over the story as does The Long Hallowe'en and it's ideas of corruption and organised crime running Gotham whilst a surprising serial killer stalks the streets.  Loeb and Sale effectively balanced villains' origins and a surprising twist, something Nolan surely took as inspiration.  Not only were the actual comics really being used as source material but the realism and darkness of 80's and 90's Batman was being taken from the page to the screen effectively.  Burton's cartoonish realism was being usurped by a Taxi Driver cityscape easily identifiable as the industrial Northeast of the US.

Nolan seemed like a safe pair of hands for a new crack at Batman.  Despite not having an extensive filmography his ace in hand was undoubtedly Memento.  Memento was one of those films that Hollywood studios like: cheap and successful both critically and commercially.  It cost $4.5 million and pulled in five times that on a release fuelled by word of mouth and viral marketing.  Viral marketing would become a core feature of The Dark Knight trilogy and the following Man of Steel. Cloverfield would have MySpace profiles and Japanese drinks but Batman would have 'I Believe In Harvey Dent' and mysterious chanting.

Nolan's character driven approach was to be a refreshing tonic for the franchise now twitching back to life.  Nolan and Goyer chose to do something not yet seen on film; they chose to fully explain how Bruce Wayne adopted the Batman persona.  Batman Begins was to truly be an origin story. Yeah, we all know kiddie Wayne went to the theatre and watched his parents get dispatched by a mugger, but was this mugger really a pre-sheep dip Joker?  No, that was just convenient artistic license.  Lifting Joe Chill from the comics was much more satisfying.  Indirectly, Chill creates the Batman and Chill's time in jail is used to accelerate the story.  An amazing ensemble cast is presented as Bruce Wayne grows up and disappears.  The double act of Michael Caine's Alfred and Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox is a perfect antidote to Rutger Hauer's Earle and his boardroom schemes.  The corporate shenanigans are far removed from the brown slime, corruption and rain which threatens to swallow up the idealistic Lt. Gordon.  Gary Oldman has a knack of looking younger than he is but at the same time conveying huge amounts of weariness and wisdom as he stands alone against the old school Irish gangsters led by Tom Wilkinson.  He might have an Italian name but Falcone is more The Departed than The Godfather.

The time spent laying Gotham's roots parallels Bruce Wayne's training in Batman: Year One but this time Wayne is trained by the ominous League of Shadows.  But who is Bruce Wayne/Batman? Nolan chose Christian Bale and looking back there couldn't have been anyone else for the role.  Jake Gylenhaal would've been great for me but back then he was too young and inexperienced, his Donnie Darko days whored for a teen turn opposite Dennis Quaid.  Much has been made of Bale being ever so method, bulking up from Trevor Reznik a little too much and hating the suit they made him wear.  Bale is yet unleash his full tetchiness as McG will testify.  It was less The Machinist and more Equilibrium and American Psycho that made Bale the best choice, these films showed he had the physical and mental edge to compliment his undoubted ability.

Bale would need an enemy of suitable gravitas.  Despite his amazingly beautiful blue eyes Cillian Murphy wasn't quite enough.  It's clear Dr Crane was a secondary villain but who he was really working for comes as quite a surprise.  Murphy is excellent as Crane and his alter ego but Nolan and Goyer didn't make his character big enough, presumably the payback for this was to have Crane as an ever present in the trilogy.  Crane's weapon of choice inspires some excellent hallucinations and it's fitting that the action explodes in Arkham Asylum.  The hospital had become a comedy dumping ground under Schumacher but is restored to Victorian horror by Nolan.  The completion is augmented by the cameo of Mr Zsasz, a particularly nasty foe of Batman.

Batman Begins sees Bruce Wayne adopt technology and grow into the role of vigilante.  Aided by Fox we move from billionaire spelunker and adrenaline junkie to full blown vigilante.  Whilst the Tumbler is the most eye catching of the technological advancements it's not the most important.  Wayne's improvisation and eye for the theatrical leads him to delve into his am-dram days and come up with the costume.  The attention to detail is remarkable, whether deliberate or note the Batsuit is heavy and hot, yet flexible.  When Bale put the suit on he hated it, his bad mood channelled through the character to make Batman a figure of rage and vengeance.  Everything is explained from the electrically manipulated fabric to the trial and error cowls.  Fox is Bruce Wayne's Q and does provide some light relief.

The same cannot be said of Rachel Dawes.  I've flicked through comics, Selina Kyle, Vicki Vale, Leslie Thompkins, Silver St Cloud and Jezebel Jet.  All woman of various ages and connections to Wayne and Batman but no Rachel Dawes which probably explains why I find her character so irritating.

Nolan may not have been convinced he'd get another crack at Batman but Warner Bros went into marketing overdrive ensuring the critical success was matched at the box office.  Batman Begins wasn't the biggest film of 2005  (come on, there was a Star Wars and a Harry Potter that year) but it did beat Hitch and The Fantastic Four.  All of a sudden those calling cards in Gordon's evidence bag weren't just wishful thinking.

Forever is a Very Long Time

A teaser poster that's arguably better than the film

Dissatisfaction swept through the corridors at Warner Bros.  Yeah, so Batman Returns made a pile of cash but it didn't make a big enough pile of cash.  The consensus seems to be that Burton was making Batman too dark, driving him into that cul-de-sac whose residents are only ever Johnny Depp, Winona Ryder and Helena Bonham-Carter.  A bit odd considering it was this very darkness which made Batman such a success in 1989 in the first place and help make films like The Addams Family and Edward Scissorhands successful.  Still, the powers that be wanted to expand the franchise's audience and so Burton was moved upstairs.
 
In the producer's chair Burton had to find a director and settled on Joel Schumacher, he'd made The Lost Boys and Falling Down so looked like a good choice.  The news gets better as rumour has it Schumacher wanted to make an adaption of Batman: Year One.  Frank Miller's story of Batman's beginnings and his relationship with Commissioner Gordon was obviously a bit highbrow for studio execs who pushed for a more traditional sequel.  We have yet to fully embrace the notion of a prequel.  Christopher Nolan is thanking his lucky stars for that.

Batman now undertook a dramatic change, harking back to the 60s TV series and noir was replaced by nipples and neon.  It was a cynical decision to exploit toy markets and cash in on the burgeoning 60s nostalgia that swept Hollywood; a craze that would involve Austin Powers, The Brady Bunch and, horrifically, Bewitched.  Michael Keaton decided he didn't like the direction the film was going in and ignored the millions offered to him, so now we needed a new Batman for the new Gotham.  Keaton's decision is completely understandable as Bruce Wayne's vinyl clad arse introduces Schumacher's version of Batman.

Keaton had been an unpopular casting decision which came good for Burton yet none of the actors he won the part ahead of seemed to be considered for the role this time around.  Within days of Keaton's snub came Val Kilmer's casting.  Kilmer was passable in Tombstone and did a good Jim Morrison impression but if you don't count Willow his best role is the obscured Elvis in True Romance.  Hardly a good CV for someone carrying a superhero film.  Kilmer's star power would need a bit of a boost to draw the crowds so the new kid's favourite Jim Carrey was cast. presumably on the back of The Mask with Tommy Lee Jones adding a little gravitas.

Kilmer's Elvis: the second best thing about True Romance

Carrey is in his element as Edward Nygma/The Riddler bouncing around in spandex and chucking out sound effects as he attempts to suck up Gotham's brainwaves.  Apparently Carrey has ADHD and it's employed to full effect here.  The same cannot be said of Jones.  Jones looks and feels uncomfortable as Two-Face, with just seconds spent as Harvey Dent.  His costume and make up are impressive but the character lacks a true reveal in the film's opening and his motives are never really explored.  Why does he blame Batman? What are Sugar and Spice doing all day?  Billy Dee Williams was probably quite pleased Schumacher paid him off.

So Batman Forever has two larger than life supervillains.  The dynamic is different from Batman Returns where Catwoman was more antihero than villain and it was decided that the numbers needed evening out.  Wisely, Robin was removed from Batman Returns.  This sage decision was reversed for Batman Forever.  There was a reason why Christian Bale said he'd quit as Batman if they cast Robin and it's probably Chris O'Donnell.

O'Donnell represents those perpetual teenagers of 90210 becoming a Stand By Me wannabe and again is miscast.  Robin is eager to learn and aid Batman in the comics and grows to want his independence as Nightwing.  Batman Forever's Robin is antagonistic, impatient, dislikeable and more of a hindrance than a help bent on avenging a bomb induced trapeze disaster.  If you think that's bad wait until 1997.

MTV Superheroes

The supporting cast is stripped down in number or it could be that they're simply lost amongst the bizarre scenery of Schumacher's Gotham City.  The 1940s hotchpotch has been replaced by a mix of skyscrapers and masculine statues of varying and disorienting heights and inexplicable placing.  All of it drenched in pink neon.  Office blocks literally face a face of statue for no apparent reason.  Is there a hub in the midst of all this chaos? A little oasis of calm?  No, there's The Statue of Liberty, presumably dumped in Gotham City after Superman saved it during his tussle with Nuclear Man In Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.  Quite how the studio, producers or writers thought this would work is beyond me.  Amongst the pink wobbles Commissioner Gordon usurped as a figure of authority by the needless Dr Chase Meridian.  Meridian is almost an afterthought of a love interest and provides the classic damsel in distress for Batman to save in the film's climax.  Somehow, the noted psychologist is less interesting than photojournalist Vicki Vale.

Batman Forever is a confused mess, designed to help Kenner toys boost it's balance sheet and give Warner Bros a light, family friendly franchise.  There's too much going on, a nonsensical plot straddling commercial desires and reaching for MTV and the Friends generation.  Bizarrely, it got an Oscar nomination and an immediate sequel despite the shoddy CGI and disinterested leading man.  It's a sad indictment that U2 being on the soundtrack isn't the worst thing about a film.

In The Dark Knight Harvey Dent says 'the night is darkest just before the dawn.'  In 1997 we'll see just how right he was.

Batman (1966) or POW! How to Kill an Acting Career

So, here we go with my first foray into the Marvel vs DC Movie Mashup and it's all the way back to 1966.  World Cups and Harold Wilson, Blonde on Blonde and an Everton FA Cup win. But none of that really matters.  Not when you're thinking about superheroes.

I'm a child of the '80s and I know two Batmans.  One is the Dark Knight: stoic, emotionally stunted and very, very serious.  The other is a camp cowboy in grey, unflattering cotton lycra mix with speech bubbles that come out of his hands.

Batman was born in 1939 and became a leading light of the Golden Age of comic books, he was a dark vengeful detective not a superhero; a man who had put his intelligence and money to use, the perfect foil to the alien Superman.  By the late 1950s superhero comics were waning,  the Comics Code of America, war and the nuclear age had taken their toll whilst the world was becoming freer as Baby Boomers grew up.  At the same time Batman comics were very sci-fi orientated, full of aliens and gadgets.  Just as the comics took a turn back into darkness ABC commissioned a Batman TV series.  Ironically, ABC's vision of Batman was Pop Art and drenched in camp comedy, practically a parody of Bob Kane's character.

The series ran for three seasons and sandwiched between seasons one and two was a hastily put together movie starring most of the TV cast.  Sadly, Julie Newmar missed out and Lee Meriwether was drafted in as Catwoman.  The villains are the real stars and there's a level of innocence and pure fun that makes Batman brilliant.  Four TV show regulars form United Underworld, I mean who

Just one villain? Nah, I'll take the lot.

makes a superhero movie with just one villain? 

Cesar Romero plays The Joker as a pure clown and it's this gay abandon that makes the character more dangerous than other incarnations.  He's so unpredictable which compliments the scheming of Burgess Meredith's Penguin.  Bouncing between the two is Frank Gorshin's manic Riddler, a performance aped by Jim Carrey in 1995, whilst Catwoman is essentially the groups pawn, used for bait and reconnaissance.

A simple plot is stretched over 105 minutes with a clever appreciation of the Cold War and several breaches of the fourth wall.  Ignore the huge lumps of ham in the form of Chief O'Hara and the irritant Aunt Harriett and enjoy the saturated colour of the dehydrated United World Organization's Security Council.

Ready for anything

We begin with a bit of high budget tomfoolery and an exploding shark. Yep, Peter Benchley is rapidly scribbling that one down.  The vanishing yacht and the imprisonment of Commodore Schmidlapp feel like they could be investigated by Steed and Mrs Peel, instead we are whisked away to downtown Gotham and Commissioner Gordon gets handy with some Polaroids and a slide projector.  The United Underworld are loosely headed up by The Penguin and romp around in a, frankly, ludicrous submarine.  A porpoise may foil a torpedoeing of the Dynamic Duo but no submerged mammal gets in the way of the kidnap of the Security Council.  The cheeky Schmidlapp had invented a funky Dyson which helps store people in their own, individual test tubes.  Chuck in a kidnap and an infiltration of the Batcave and The United Underworld are very busy indeed but there feels like there's something missing.  The TV series had been built on cliffhangers and set piece fights yet apart 'some days you just can't get rid of a bomb' the ridiculous peril of seeing Robin about to be drowned in a giant Slush Puppy or Batman being fed into the Human Key Duplicator is absent.  We're crying out for 'Same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel' moment.  You'd have thought they could have found just one more abandoned candy warehouse in Gotham.  No matter, the brisk pace sees Batman come to an enjoyable end.  You won't see an ocean based ending again until Star Trek IV.  I'm not entirely sure if that's s good or bad thing.

After a spot of rehydration without Lucozade Sport Batman saves the day and quietly returns to the small screen.  He won't make it back to the cinema for over 20 years.

At least Batman endured, unlike Adam West and Burt Ward.  Once the series was cancelled both found work hard to come by having been so heavily identified with the thwocks and the pows.  Even a rumoured flirtation with Bond wasn't enough to keep West off the convention circuit before nostalgia saw Batman reappraised and a stint in Quahog.  The dodgy rumours of deviancy made it hard for Ward to shed his life in tights, maybe he should have taken that role in The Graduate.  Batman himself wouldn't be rid of the camp and colour until the mid 80s when Frank Miller and Alan Moore took the character back to black and a darker, dirtier Gotham.  Their work would be the template for Burton and Nolan.

Batman appeals to the kid in me, the colour, the nostalgia and the camp make it perfect easy viewing and it's unfair to compare it to the modern cinematic interpretation. 

One thing's for sure: Adam West was a better Batman than George Clooney and he didn't need nipples on his Batsuit

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Return of the Bat

It's 1992 and the fledgling decade is shaking off it's inherited neon legwarmers and trying to work out if acid house will last in the mainstream.  Amongst the day-glo and smiley faces Warner Bros held a dark card. Thanks to grossing over $400 million 1989's Batman was always going to have a sequel.

Tim Burton returns to his Art Deco Gotham City and the strange mix of the stylised 1920s and 1980s is given a dusting of snow. Many of the ensemble cast return as Burton begins to display the trait of working with his favourites.  Hence the fleeting glimpse of Peewee Herman before the opening credits.  Obviously the biggest problem is following Nicholson's Joker.  Nicholson smiled wickedly as he chewed through the original's scenes and the only real way to follow him is with two Supervillains.  The comics are trawled and Catwoman and The Penguin are chosen.

The Penguin is, physically, one of the most recognisable of Batman's foes, even if he is basically a bit crap.  Burton and his team design a grotesque monster of a man, leaning heavily towards Victorian freak show and a hint of The Elephant Man.  This is reinforced by The Penguin's back up consisting of The Red Triangle Circus Gang who are just lacking a bearded lady.  There were few actors around who could possible fit The Penguin mould and Danny DeVito is an automatic choice.  To balance the Penguin's far fetched freak show is another villain; the manipulative businessman Max Shreck.  Played by Christopher Walken, Shreck is the connection between the underworld and more 'respectable' society.  Quite how a department store manager has become so powerful is left unanswered.  Perhaps Shreck is a little nudge towards Twin Peaks and Jerry Horne.

Catwoman presented a different challenge.  Readers of the comics will know that Catwoman isn't so much a villain but more an anti-hero, the lines further blurred by the affair with Batman as well as the 'real life' shenanigans between Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle.  The camp flirtiness of the 60s TV series has been replaced and fetishised as a tormented Kyle discovers PVC and home tailoring.  A twist of fate saw Michelle Pfeiffer replace Annette Bening in the role. Very fortunate for Pfeiffer who negotiated a deal similar to Nicholson's for the original where he took a slice of the box office receipts.  Miss Orange County learnt a few things since Grease 2.  Not bad seeing that the rumour mill had her competing with Cher (?), Bridget Fonda and a rather determined Sean Young amongst others.

There's a sense of ambition about Batman Returns that was absent with Batman.  Where Batman is wholly built around The Joker and his set pieces Batman Returns has a more coherent story.  Despite problems with a writer's strike the story of The Penguin's revenge cut with Catwoman's attempts at discovery flow reasonably well.  As well as the Christmas setting there are other pseudo-religious undertones; Shreck's God Complex and The Penguin's grand plan all beginning with a Moses basket opening and a resurrection.  Okay, not resurrection as such, more feline CPR.  Burton's Batman universe is expanding and the first real tremblings of a cash cow for Warner Bros can be felt. 

Yet whilst the storyline is more grandiose and the cast is bigger and heavier there have been trade offs.  Batman Returns feels very claustrophobic due to it almost entirely being filmed on a soundstage.  Location use is sparse.  The palette has been considerably darkened.  Although in keeping with the characters Gotham is now almost exclusively black and white, the only colour coming from the occasional splash of sewer green and a little pink from Selina Kyle.  Even the circus is practically monochrome.  I'm not sure if this was deliberate or a side effect of Warner Bros' secrecy. Perhaps it was a cut in costs, that would also explain Souixsie and the Banshees rather than Prince.  With regards to music it is, at times, almost unbearable. Elfman's score is overly loud, almost to the point of distraction and constant.

And so we seem to have mixed driving forces behind the film: an expansive idea and story constrained by odd budget choices as if the producers lost faith along the way.  We could have been presented with a wonderful film that would have made the Batman franchise a juggernaut.  Instead we have a good film that, unfortunately, contains all the tools that Schumacher will use to destroy the franchise from 1995 onwards.

 Burton does what Burton does, he juggles a band of misfits around inside a black snowglobe.  You just knew that sooner or later he'd get his hands on Alice In Wonderland.  Burton retains his cartoon feel whilst losing the animation that was present in Batman.  This is best seen as the Bat-boat homes in on The Penguin's mechanical duck. 
All set amongst the impressive model work of Gotham Zoo.  The destruction of the zoo is more impressive than the Batwing's crash into the cathedral in Batman.

Naturally, I have compared Batman Returns to it's predecessor.  Technically, Batman Returns is a better, more complete film.  Although it does have flaws but these are only really looked at because the film didn't make as much money as Warner Bros wanted after Batman.  However, Batman may have punched above it's weight in a summer season devoid of superhero movies since the mid-80s.  Batman Returns should really be seen as the first modern superhero movie.  A little more faith in Burton's vision of Batman could've seen further sequels in this vein.  Instead, Batman Forever begins a long, camp death rattle that pretty much killed superhero movies until the 2000s.  You could argue that the DC films have never really recovered from Joel Schumacher if you compare their route with Marvel's Avengers franchise and it's build up especially when it was seen as a gamble for Warner Bros to let Nolan make Batman Begins.

Above all, Batman Returns is darkly gorgeous and a little under appreciated in my eyes, it contains the fledgling ideas that Batman is more than a man, an idea Christopher Nolan will hang his hat on.  For every bonkers giant emperor penguin pallbearer you have one of Catwoman's deaths and after all that fake snow has been swept up you have the knowledge that if this had been made in 1997 it would have starred Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.  Count yourself lucky.  Whilst Burton probably can't handle movies with big budgets and the associated expectations (see Mars Attacks!), Batman Returns is probably best summed up by Ty Burr in Entertainment Weekly; he wrote that "Yet for all the wintry weirdness, there's more going on under the surface of this movie than in the original. No wonder some people felt burned by Batman Returns: Tim Burton just may have created the first blockbuster art film."

Yes, I have chosen to ignore the one button in the Batmobile that does everything.