Batman - 1989

The one directed by Tim Burton, with Michael Keaton as Batman. I loved it, and I still do. It's really great. I know most people now only think at the latest movies with Bale, but to me they don't compare to this. Keaton was a lovely, elegant, charming Bruce Wayne. The style was between gothic and comic-book, the shootings were so unrealistic, the hats and the coats were so old-B&W-movie, the action scenes were so... little, and I love it. :-D Nowadays movies like this need a lot of action scenes, where we see the characters fight a lot, run a lot, but Keaton's Batman doesn't. Yes, he fights, but it's different, he's kind of still, barely moves. When he's Bruce he has style and elegance. Alfred is lovely, but Alfred always is; here he's played by Michael Gough.
The story sees the beginning of it, when nobody knows anything about him yet. Journalist Alexander "Allie" Know (Robert Wuhl) believes in his existence, and photographer Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger) wants to help him make a great story together, because "I like bats" she says. That's a good start.
At a party in Wayne's house they meet him. I loved it when they were taking a look around, not knowing who he was, wondering where those things they were looking at came from:
-It's Japanese; -How do you know?; -Because I bought it in Japan. :-) I love the way he says that, and his expression :-)
The big boss at the time is Grissom (Jack Palance) and Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson) works for him, and also sleeps with his wife. Knowing about it Grissom sets him up to get killed. Not just the police but also Batman get there for him, and during a "fight" Jack falls down into a big thing full of liquid chemicals, not good for anybody's health. He doesn't die, although everyone thinks he did; because of that acid he has the strange face, all white with the big grin, just like the joker, that we all know.
"As you can see I'm a lot happier"says Jack when he goes to kill Grissom.  "The pen is truly mightier than the sword" he says after killing another boss, with some kind of pen.
This joker is so surreal, unrealistic and absurd, it's a masterpiece. Nicholson is superb.
When he's talking to Vicki he says "I'm the world's first fully-functioning homocidal artist" and when she asks "what do you want?" he says "my face on the one dollar bill" :lol: then she throws some water at him and he starts screaming "I'm melting" and for some reason Vicki seems concerned for him. He's clearly not, come on, what did she think he was, the Joker of the West? And later on, "dancing" together, he says "it's like we were made for each other. Beauty and the beast. Of course if anyone else calls you beast I'll rip their lungs out" :lol:
Bruce Wayne seems to be working alone in his lab, with only Alfred's help, so that means what? That he knows every subject? He knows about chemistry, he discovered pretty quickly what the joker had poisoned. What he does not know a lot about is: women. He asks Vicki her weigh without explanations, and he believes her answer! *rolling eyes* than later he tells her "you weigh a little more than 108" and I just love how she says "oh really?" :lol:
Another thing I love about Vicki is how well she screams :lol: I do, she screams very well :lol:  :-)
Here they say that it was a young Jack Napier that killed Bruce's parents, because apparently he never got bored of saying over and over "have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?", some twenty years have passed at least, and he says it now as he said it back then, so Bruce now remembers about him. At the end Jack dies, the city gets a new signal to all Batman if they need his help, and Vicki goes home with Alfred while Bruce is on patrol :-)