Batman (1989) - 30th anniversary - Review Thread

I watched Batman (1989) on the big screen. I’ll preface this by saying that Avengers: Endgame is still dominating real estate at theatres so I had to watch it in a small auditorium. Whether that affected the presentation or not, can’t say for sure. I’m also gonna assume it was the 4K that’s coming out in June.

PICTURE QUALITY

One of the charms of Batman (1989) is the British film and cameras that were used. The movie looks foreign which adds to its aesthetic 40’s noir mixed with 80’s hip. Watching it on the big screen in presumably 4K it looks off. There’s a lot of motion blur when the camera and the objects are moving, as if the lens is struggling to focus. Two examples are the scene in which Knox is walking through the newsroom as he gets mocked by his colleagues and the scene at Wayne’s charity ball.

Curiously, none of the action scenes suffer from this problem. Did they use different equipments for those and/or a better crew led by Derek Meddings (of James Bond fame) and Peter MacDonald (of Rambo fame)?

There’s also a noticeable change in film quality (from less British to more American) in the climax in which Batman fights The Joker at top of the cathedral. In the past, people have complained about that scene being too dark. Here it’s brightly lit, but it isn’t artificial. It’s natural looking as if that’s how the scene was always supposed to look. If y’all recall, the scene features Commissioner Gordon ordering his men to turn spotlights on outside the cathedral and that’s the source of lighting for the scene. Although the logistics of those spotlights, from the ground level, perfectly shining on top of the cathedral is pure nonsense.

A pleasant surprise of watching the movie on the big screen is noticing little things that you may have missed in home viewings. Knox has a picture of Popeye on the board behind his desk. Eckard awkwardly nroaming around in the background when Bob puts a gun to Gordon’s head. Remember the scene where Joker is cutting photos? It starts with a shot of a desk stacked with pictures of a guy with a creepy grin. On that desk there’s a folder that says “chemical tests” or something like that. Basically it’s photos of Joker experimenting with his Smile-x gas. When the mimes show up at City Hall there’s a overhead wide shot that let's you see everything they’re doing. Right after, when Joker kills the monster, you clearly see the cops not reacting.

Nice touches like those allow you to re-appreciate the movie. This isn’t Christopher Nolan over-explaining everything. The visuals can tell the story.


SOUND MIX

If this is what the 4K blu-ray is gonna sound like, hold on to your VHS copies. They tried to “modernize” the mix at the expense of Danny Elfman’s score. The music switches back & forth between the center speakers & side speakers depending on the need of the sound effects. Some scenes the music is the focus while the sound effects step aside. Other scenes the music is drowned out by the sound effects. The scene where the Batmobile breaks into Axis Chemicals, the mixer went all out of the gunfire and explosions.

There’s also strange additions and subtractions. When Bruce Wayne suits up, they add swooshing sounds. When the Batwing crashes they add noises of it shutting down. Remember when the mimes shoot up City Hall? Remember that very distinctive sound of the bullet hiding Bruce Wayne’s jacket? They removed it. Bastards!

On the plus side, they did turn up the volume on Joker’s boombox that he takes to the art museum and Vicki’s apartment. You can clearly hear the music that’s playing.

Speaking of which, in the art museum scene, they may have digitally enhanced Joker’s gas that kills everyone. It’s very purple and very in-your-face. Also, all the smoke and fog throughout the movie really pop out as well.


OVERALL,

While the presentation wasn’t ideal (and puts into question whether the 4K blu-ray is worth getting), it was still fun to watch all of our favorite scenes on the big screen. Some of the Joker scenes suffer from the motion blur, but fortunately, all the big Batman scenes avoid that issue. The rooftop fight. The Axis Chemicals scene. The art museum/street chase/alley fight. Driving Vicki Vale to the Batcave. The batcave scene. The batwing scene. The cathedral. The ending. There’s sound mix issues with some of those, but that could just be a nitpick on my part. The cathedral sequence, all of it, is the highlight of this whole presentation. No big issues with the picture and sound. If y’all wanna show Nolan fans why you prefer Tim Burton, this the part to show.