Batman (1989)
Directed by Tim Burton
Having witnessed his parents' brutal murder as a child, millionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne fights crime in Gotham City disguised as Batman, a costumed hero who strikes fear into the hearts of villains. But when a deformed madman known as 'The Joker' seizes control of Gotham's criminal underworld, Batman must face his most ruthless nemesis ever while protecting both his identity and his love interest, reporter Vicki Vale.
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14 films that influenced Batman
What critics say influenced Batman
Unlike the New York City-inspired utopia of Fritz Lang's 1927 masterpiece “Metropolis,” Furst's Big Apple is visibly corrupt and full of worms.
Only in the climax, in a cathedral belfry showdown reminiscent of the climax of Metropolis , does Nicholson seem finally to grow into the character — just in time for him to be killed off.
In the case of Batman, the far more appropriate adjective is "Expressionist", as in "German Expressionist", as in, "This film isn't merely influenced by Metropolis , it's an out-and-out copy".
There’s another striking homage during the movie’s climax, in which Batman pursues The Joker up a wooden staircase to a bell tower, much like the one Kim Novak and James Stewart climb at the end of Vertigo .
Ultimately, it’s Blade Runner for tykes, as the film falls back on preschool conceptions of film noir to suggest the city’s sickly moral infestations.
Knee-jerk comparisons to the contrary, this Gotham City is not the dystopia of Blade Runner (although Burton, in a rare bit of quoting from a source other than classic horror, shamelessly cribs from Deckard's fights with Pris and Roy Batty for the bell-tower climax), mainly because it isn't prescient.
A sequel to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Alice in Wonderland follows a grown-up Alice (Mia Wasikowska) as she's summoned back into the title fantasy world by Michael Sheen's White Rabbit - with the film subsequently revolving around Alice's ongoing efforts at ending the Red Queen's (Helena Bonham Carter) reign of terror.
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Gotham is a partly animated, partly real city not unlike the dark urban landscape seen in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil."
Across town, Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson) is a cocky criminal striking it to the boss’ squeeze, and when the boss finds out, Jack gets a permanent facelift that makes the plastic surgery in Brazil look merciful.
"Of course, he screwed up the sequel by being himself, but that does little to dilute the ideological righteousness of the first," our own Alex Jackson wrote of Burton's more prototypical Batman Returns, and while I actually prefer that film to this one, the switch from Batman's Art Deco to Batman Returns' Edward Gorey-cum-German Expressionism recalls the jarring transition from the gothica of The Bride of Frankenstein to the Caligari backdrops of Son of Frankenstein.
For example, Christopher Walken's character bore the moniker of "Max Schreck", the name of the actor who played the vampire in Nosferatu.)
"Of course, he screwed up the sequel by being himself, but that does little to dilute the ideological righteousness of the first," our own Alex Jackson wrote of Burton's more prototypical Batman Returns, and while I actually prefer that film to this one, the switch from Batman's Art Deco to Batman Returns' Edward Gorey-cum-German Expressionism recalls the jarring transition from the gothica of The Bride of Frankenstein to the Caligari backdrops of Son of Frankenstein.
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Comparisons with the Charles Bronson character in Death Wish might initially seem absurd, but a little bit of thought makes it clear that they're actually reasonable.
Here, however, during a scene in which a character brandishes some nasty weapons and tries to put some fancy movies on Batman, he dispatches the guy with simplicity and aplomb (in a moment that's reminiscent of Indiana Jones' "solution" to the sword-wielding brute in Raiders of the Lost Ark).