Batman 89 at 35
By Scott Keith on 6 June 2024
Since I don't think you ever did a review of it, and since there's a lot of anniversary stuff going around at the moment… what are your thoughts / memories?
I was 11 when it hit so of course it was basically my entire f'n world for months on end, and I remember the merch being everywhere, the amazing NES game, it being one of the first movies to have a fast turnaround for the home VHS release, etc. Was it the same for you?
But what of the actual movie? I always say that it's got a really good first half but kinda goes sideways in the second half as all the script doctors' treatments start to clash with each other. The weirdness with the scene in Vicki's apartment (hiding the elimination of the big scene with Bruce on horseback that's in the novel), Batman suddenly outright murdering a bunch of goons in the factory, trying to figure out exactly how Joker knew to have his henchmen in the bell tower… a lot of it doesn't stand up to adult scrutiny (the hilarious Kevin Smith commentary covers a lot of other issues with it).
Yeah it definitely runs out of steam at the end and they kind of lose track of what to do with Vicki Vale and other major characters. Batman rescuing a damsel in distress is not really an interesting direction for the character, but I think a lot of it was the studio still holding onto what worked with stuff like Superman 79. I still unabashedly love it, though, and I watched it with my daughter for the first time a couple of years ago when she was going through a bit of a superhero phase and loved most of it again before we both kind of lost interest by the parade at the end.
But yeah, Batman was everywhere for me in 1989, and it ended up being the first VHS tape I ever bought with my own money, in the grocery store no less! They just had a big display of them set up. I remember when we moved to a new house shortly after getting the tape, and the cable company hadn't connected our service yet, I only had that one and Wayne's World as entertainment and I'd watch them both over and over.