Ever since I saw this for the first time when I was a kid in the early 90's, I always revered it as one of the best comic book movies of all time, up there (in my opinion) with "X-Men", "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm", "The Crow", and a handful of others.
Well, I don't know why I did that. I just saw it for the first time in several years, and it was pretty boring. The visuals are beautiful to behold, the costumes and set design are nothing short of perfection, but that's about it... Much of the dialogue is rather corny, and character development is severely lacking. I particularly hated Vicky Vale, who is nothing but a blonde cardboard cutout with absolutely no background or personality and does a lot more screaming than talking; since much of the story revolves around Vale, it makes the movie a lot more boring, and I was constantly wondering why Batman was in love with such a robot. Even the Joker's character is a bit confusing, because I couldn't really fathom how such a serious, suave, gritty psychotic gangster could suddenly be transformed into this laughter-crazed lunatic with a twisted sense of humor. I thought the personality of the young Joker-to-be chronicled in "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" was much more believable as a precursor to the Joker than Nicholson's rendition of Jack Napier.
The Elfman score is good and fits in well, particularly the main Batman theme. However, the Prince music really dates the movie: if this film didn't have that music, it would have a very timeless atmosphere, which is the kind of thing that Gotham really needs, as evoked in "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" and the rest of the animated series. As it is, the Prince music is the film's only cultural artifact that makes me feel like I'm looking at Gotham in the 1980's.
Even the action sequences are rather silly and contrived, saturated with things that just "look cool" but utterly destroy suspension of disbelief due to their unfathomable lack of logic... Masters of action like John Woo and James Cameron can make the utterly unbelievable seem quite believable, but either Tim Burton can't do this or the person who designed these action sequences just plain sucks. Or maybe my expectations for this movie were just way too high and I was criticizing it far too much.
In any case, I saw "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" a few weeks ago, and I enjoyed it much more than this: it had better character development, better dialogue, better action sequences, and the visuals were superb (though it's still not quite as gorgeous as this movie).
Well, I don't know why I did that. I just saw it for the first time in several years, and it was pretty boring. The visuals are beautiful to behold, the costumes and set design are nothing short of perfection, but that's about it... Much of the dialogue is rather corny, and character development is severely lacking. I particularly hated Vicky Vale, who is nothing but a blonde cardboard cutout with absolutely no background or personality and does a lot more screaming than talking; since much of the story revolves around Vale, it makes the movie a lot more boring, and I was constantly wondering why Batman was in love with such a robot. Even the Joker's character is a bit confusing, because I couldn't really fathom how such a serious, suave, gritty psychotic gangster could suddenly be transformed into this laughter-crazed lunatic with a twisted sense of humor. I thought the personality of the young Joker-to-be chronicled in "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" was much more believable as a precursor to the Joker than Nicholson's rendition of Jack Napier.
The Elfman score is good and fits in well, particularly the main Batman theme. However, the Prince music really dates the movie: if this film didn't have that music, it would have a very timeless atmosphere, which is the kind of thing that Gotham really needs, as evoked in "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" and the rest of the animated series. As it is, the Prince music is the film's only cultural artifact that makes me feel like I'm looking at Gotham in the 1980's.
Even the action sequences are rather silly and contrived, saturated with things that just "look cool" but utterly destroy suspension of disbelief due to their unfathomable lack of logic... Masters of action like John Woo and James Cameron can make the utterly unbelievable seem quite believable, but either Tim Burton can't do this or the person who designed these action sequences just plain sucks. Or maybe my expectations for this movie were just way too high and I was criticizing it far too much.
In any case, I saw "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" a few weeks ago, and I enjoyed it much more than this: it had better character development, better dialogue, better action sequences, and the visuals were superb (though it's still not quite as gorgeous as this movie).