I still have such great appreciation for this film. Nostalgia aside, and even some of its flaws aside ... it's to me the best spirit of Batman seen on screen IMO. The world is dark, gothic, yet still a believable enough reality and not totally fairy tale and ridiculous like Returns or Shumacher's films. It has the best balance of all the Batman films. It's dark, psycholigcally murky ... yet its fun. It's a movie made for adults to make them feel like adolescents again, as opposed to adolescent material being made to make people feel like adults. Keaton's performance in this film is amazing. Batman is very threatning, very mysterious ... which I really like.
He's heroic, yet he gets his hands dirty and is vengeful. I like how it echoes the spirit and style of the earliest Bob Kane stories, where Batman is a dracula or spectre like creature. I prefer Keaton's innate American swagger as Batman. He's cool, calm and collected. He doesn't seem like a wanna be tough guy the way in some cases I felt with Bale's Batman. I don't know if thats a British thing. I like the Citizen Kane approach to Batman. He's distant, reclusive, neurotic, obsessive ... doesn't feel comfortable in his own skin. And it's all so layered, without being addressed in dialogue. Keaton's Bruce Wayne is the most relatable character. He's a man of extreme wealth who doesn't feel comfortable with it. And this is addressed in extreme subtlety.
- Not knowing how many bottles of champagne to open up
- Are you Bruce Wayne? "Well, I'm not sure"
- Preferring to eating in Alfred's intimate kitchen as opposed to huge dining room.
- "Some of this is very much me, some of it isn't"
- "Well he's out there right now, and I have to go to work"
He's a mean of wealth who internally fashions himself as the ordinary hard working man. He's born to privelage but goes out at night and risks his body and life fighting crime. It's done so subtely.
I also like how Keaton's Wayne is so neurotic and obsessive he's as crazy as his villains. Which I agree with. The thought of a man dressing up like a Bat to fight crime is very much insane.
I also like how his Batman feels like Death Wish in a Bat suit. Ever haunted by the memory of his parents being killed.
He's deadly when he has to be, enough to always instill fear in people ... but doesn't kill people at random the way he does in RETURNS. So he remains heroic, yet angry and vengeful.
His bat suit is CLASSIC. The first ever all black bat suit, which always made more sense to me. It's crude-ness being the first suit made the rubber really thick, and blotchy and not shiny ... giving it a meaner flat black look ... and thick enough to really be armor or gargoyle like. It's intimidating the way the eye holes form shadows to make soul less eyes. His Batman has nice gadgets, without being too techy. His Batman voice is deeper, raspier ... without being over the top and unintenionally funny. Which even though I like Bale's voice most of the times, at times is beyond ridiculous.
It's just the best world for Batman. Oppressive, dark, dirty Gotham ... while still being a functional American City. It's filmed on bigger sets than RETURNS so it has space, but remains small enough that the characters seem larger than life and mythic.
It's a world where I can picture all of Batman's world operating without having to make excuses or discounting various elements. If it had a tighter script, and slightly more focus in various areas ... it would still be the best movie of the entire franchise, IMO.
