Batman (1989)
Film and Plot Synopsis
Batman starts with a young Bruce Wayne witnessing someone murder his parents. Once grown, Wayne finds himself a millionaire philanthropist who fights crime on the side in Gotham City. Disguised a costumed pseudo-hero dubbed Batman, Wayne secretly strikes fear into the hearts of villains. However, when a deranged clown, who calls himself 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, a hapless reporter named Vicki Vale.
‘Batman’ Movie Summary
The film then jumps to the lead character of this film, Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson). Napier is the right hand man to the lead criminal mafia boss in Gotham, Carl Grissom (Jack Palance). Unfortunately, someone decided to place their right hand where it doesn’t belong recently. When Grissom catches onto the scent that Napier’s sneaking around with his girl, he sets Jack up. Hoping the cops will nab him, Batman beats them to the punch. During the ensuing struggle, he accidentally drops Jack into a vat of Nickelodeon-slime; forever scarring Jack. Jack is now the Joker.
In a very hostile takeover, Joker kills Grissom, and takes over his organization. The clown prince of crime starts his crime spree, which is essentially to make people into him, but has the nasty side effect of causing death. Did we mention the Nickelodeon-slime scarred him mentally too? Our hero then foils one of the Jokers plans when he interrupts the Joker while he is out on dinner date with Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger), who is best known as the mother of a rude, thoughtless little pig. Soon, Bruce Wayne stumbles upon the fact that Jack Napier is the killer of his parents, erasing nearly 50 years of mythology for the sake of giving some motivation to Batman to take on the Joker.
The film culminates with the Joker attempting to gas the citizens of Gotham with giant balloons. Why? Who gives a fuck, they’re balloons, and I guess death by a giant baby balloon is pretty funny to the Joker. Batman steals his balloons with his Bat-wing; a supersonic, multitasking, crime-fighting plane that a criminal can shoot down with one bullet from a pistol.
Superhero and supervillain then battle for Vicki Vale’s affections atop of Gotham cathedral. As the Joker survives Batman’s initial attack , it’s repercussions leads to our caped-crusaider and Vale hanging from the edge of the building. The Joker attempts to make his escape via a helicopter, but Batman essentially ties him to the building. Ultimately, our protagonist falls to his death due to the credibility of the plot being stretched too far…and probably because the studio couldn’t afford to bring back Joker for the sequel. Batman and Vale also fall, but one of his many toys saves them.
In the end, the police forgive Batman for all the people he has killed in the film because he gave them a light that shines a bat on the clouds.
Additional Film Information
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Warner Bros released Batman to theaters on June 23, 1989. Tim Burton directs the film which stars Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, and Kim Basinger.