Batman (Tim Burton, 1989)

Tim Burton's Batman remains till this day the best Batman that we have seen. And the reason for that is that Tim Burton respected fully the fact that Batman is a comic character and a comic book and he made the film looking like a dark version of a comic that it moves. For me Jack Nicholson represents the best Joker also that we have seen till this day. No matter how many things have been said about Heath Ledger's Joker for me Joker is a character who laughs when he causes pain. He is a sick clown and that's exactly what Jack Nicholson is in that movie. He balances between a character of real life and a comic book character. He finds everything funny to the point of being a sadist. He is scary as much as he is too ridiculous for his own good. Tim Burton's Batman is a movie that sees Batman as a freak, an outcast. And that's exactly what he is. Away from the superhero with the righteous heart of Christopher Nolan, Tim Burton's Batman is a character who hides behind his mask. Tim Burton's Batman is a character who can't live in the light, who is incapable of living a normal life. As Tim Burton put it, Batman is the battle between two freaks. And we all know that when it comes to freaks Tim Burton is the best director to picture them. Batman is a movie that understands pretty thoroughly that its reality must be that of a comic book. The images of Gotham City are images that "answer" to the world of comics. There is nothing realistic about that city, there is nothing that connects that city with real life images. Tim Burton's Batman is the closest that a film has ever been in making a comic to moving pictures.

There is no question that the movie clearly has that darkish, sardonically humorous quality. Joker might be a killer but he is a clown. He is a person who doesn't understand that he is making a fool of himself. And the truth is that maybe Batman is the central figure, but the real protagonist of this movie is Joker. And so we have a movie where the villain is the main figure. The villain is the one that takes most of our time. Tim Burton understood that if he was to make Batman he would have to make it look cartoonish. He would have to make it look "phony". He would have to make it look like a big, grandiose lie. And of course we fall for that lie. We follow Tim Burton's mysterious and unorthodox ways and we take plenty of satisfaction by them. Tim Burton's Batman is the one and only movie that respected the Batman mythos. It's the only movie that saw a comic book that needed some action. It's the only movie that didn't try to make Batman and Joker look human. And of course we don't need a movie to make Joker and Batman look human because they aren't humans. They are comic book characters.