(Next to Heath Ledger, of course!)įor a more in-depth take on Tim Burton's Batman, check out our original Blu-ray review HEREwritten by Peter Bracke. After thirty years, Nicholson's performance endures as one of the most iconic versions of the character put to screen. Despite the plot borrowing elements from Alan Moore's The Killing Joke and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, the character's beginnings as a twisted gangster with a personal history to our hero adds a more poignant element to their relationship.

Unlike other superhero origin stories, the focus in Sam Hamm and Warren Skaaren's script is really on the genesis of The Clown Prince of Crime and his emergence as Batman's most celebrated archenemy. Also, at the time, I couldn't care less about the controversy surrounding Michael Keaton being cast as the masked vigilante hero, but I remember fans throwing a hissy fit.īesides, although the comedic actor did surprisingly well in the role, Jack Nicholson ultimately steals the show in his portrayal of the sadistic psychopath supervillain, the Joker, which is my favorite thing about this production. Already being a fan of DC's Caped Crusader before seeing the movie, I was quite giddy and excited to see a live-action adaptation of the comic-book character from the same imagination that gave us Pee-wee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice. Of those, Tim Burton's Batmanremains my most memorable - second perhaps only to Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - because I still remember riding with cousins on the back of a compact truck to the drive-in theater. The summer of 1989 is one of my personal favorite years in movies, as that childhood period is littered with several memories of frequenting cinemas nearly every week.

Batman forever movie 1989