A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949) – Review

Of all the stories of King Arthur one of the most adapted has to be the Mark Twain novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, a tale of a modern American who finds himself thrown back through time to 6th-century England. This particular story has seen almost every possible form of adaptation, from radio play to Bugs Bunny cartoon, but the most well-known version would be the 1949 musical adaptation starring Bing Crosby.

The movie follows the basic structure of Mark Twain’s book with Hank Martin (Bing Crosby), an American blacksmith turned auto-mechanic, who is knocked out and wakes up in the time of King Arthur. After awakening under an oak tree, Hank is surprisingly accosted by a mounted knight, Sir Sagramore (William Bendix), who accuses Hank of being a monster and then drags him to the Court of Camelot. Now, I’m not saying Bing Crosby’s attire in this movie is all that stylish but it’s certainly not monstrous, which makes this whole sequence rather ridiculous. In the book, he’s just challenged to a joust for the simple crime of being a weirdly dressed stranger but in the movie it makes Sir Sagramore come across as a buffoon.

 

The Road to Camelot sure is dangerous.

Hank is brought before King Arthur (Cedric Hardwicke) and is quickly accused of being a shape-shifting ogre and sentenced to burn at the stake, but with the judicious use of a piece of glass and the sun Hank is able to create fire and impress the local nobility. This does not sit well with Merlin (Murvyn Vye), Arthur’s scheming court magician, and between him and Morgan le Fay (Virginia Field) the two put into motion a plot to get rid of Hank. This scheme hinges on the discovery of the budding romance between Hank and King Arthur’s niece Alisande la Carteloise (Rhonda Fleming), who is betrothed to Lancelot (Henry Wilcoxon), a jealous knight who challenges Hank to a duel to the death. Due to Hank’s calf-roping skills - which all auto-mechanics apparently have - this plan fails and the jousting Lancelot soon finds himself hogtied and defeated, but the humiliation of such a noble knight causes Alisande to turn her back on Hank.

 

Hank is the winner of the Camelot Stampede.

Paramount’s musical take on Mark Twain’s novel is only slightly above being an “In name only” adaptation, we do get Hank taking a disguised King Arthur out into his kingdom so as to show the monarch the true wretched condition of his subjects, but the film completely misses the satiric elements of Twain’s story. At most this movie makes fun of monarchy, with Arthur being an inept rule who is manipulated by the likes of Merlin, but the book also questioned the ideals of capitalism and the outcome of the Industrial Revolution and the power of the church. Gone is Hank industrializing the country behind the backs of the rest of the ruling class, gone are the secret schools which taught modern ideas and modern English to the peasantry and thereby removing the new generation from medieval concepts, and gone is Hank’s continued debunking of all the alleged sorcerers and miracle-working church officials.  Talk about a film missing the point of the source material.

 

Note: This is one of the rare Arthurian stories where Merlin is the villain.

Stray Thoughts:

• In the novel, the knight who first encountered Hank was Sir Kay but for some reason it was changed to the lesser-known Knight of the Round Table, Sir Sagramore. A knight who in the book is eventually shot to death by Hank.
• In the book, it was an upcoming solar eclipse that Hank used to impress the court but in this movie that is saved for the last act when he, Arthur and Sagramore are to be executed as escaping slaves.
• This is another King Arthur movie that includes Merlin and Morgan le Fay but does not have actual magic as an element.  Even weirder is seeing Merlin and Morgan le Fay as partners in crime.
• The songs in this version are, as a whole, fairly forgettable and this is probably due to the fact that the studio was not allowed to use the songs from the original stage musical.
• Like most movies depicting medieval life the filmmaker chose weaponry and devices that did not exist in the 6th century – battlemented castles, full plate armour and a spyglass – but the film leaves out most of the devices that time travelling Hank did create, such as modern tools, weapons and even the telephone.
• I will freely admit that Bing Crosby had an excellent singing voice but as a romantic lead, he always left me rather cold.

 

It’s like watching your creepy uncle hit on your older sister.

I guess one could not expect to see the breadth and scope of Twain’s satiric story to make its way into a what was basically a light musical comedy – and I use the word “comedy” in the broadest sense of the word as there isn’t much one could quantify as funny in this film – but with the tepidly performed songs and the cheap sets and costuming there isn’t much in this adaptation of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court to recommend, at most this film can be considered a novelty piece and shelved alongside the many other lesser Hollywood versions of Arthurian stories.

Note: Funnily enough my favourite adaptation of Twain's story is the Disney film Unidentified Flying Oddball (1979).

The Night Eats the World (2018) – Review

Most zombie films deal with a small ragtag group of survivors trying to stay alive during a zombie apocalypse, from George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead to Ruben Fleischer’s Zombieland, but with Dominque Rocher’s The Night Eats the World we have a story deals with the idea of one man being alone in the land of the dead and what effect that would have on the mind.

 In Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend we had a lone protagonist in a world of the undead, though in Matheson’s case it was vampires not zombies, but what if our “hero” wasn’t venturing out in the hopes of finding a cure or other survivors?  What if he had just decided to stay inside and play with his drum kit instead? This is the basic premise of The Night Eats the World where we have our protagonist Sam (Anders Danielsen Lie), a musician living in Paris, who drops by his ex-girlfriend’s apartment to recover some tapes and ends up passing out in one of the apartment’s backrooms and thus sleeping through the outbreak of the zombie apocalypse.

 

He must be one helluva heavy sleeper.

Upon discovering the apartment trashed and bloodied it soon becomes apparent that some kind of zombie outbreak has occurred – he finds his ex-girlfriend zombified and hanging outside the apartment – but once securing himself back inside the apartment he more than just retreats from the threat of the dead but from everything else as well.

These zombies are of the fast-moving variety vis-à-vis 28 Days Later and World War Z, so his reticent to leave the safety of the apartment, is understandable, he even witnesses a family trying to escape by car being torn apart by the zombie horde, but he never really tries to make contact with possible survivors. Sam spends much of his time exploring the apartment building, one that is surprisingly occupied by very few zombies.  There is a family of three zombies he locks in their apartment and a zombified elderly man in the building's lift, and they offer no real threat, but once he’s collected food and a shotgun he basically just settles in to wait. But what exactly is he waiting for?

 

Is he hoping Brad Pitt will show up?

The Night Eats the World is not an adrenalin-fueled zombie movie with characters battling through hordes of the undead; instead we have Sam sitting around his flat figuring out how to make improvised musical instruments out of toys and wine glasses. It’s clear that director Dominque Rocher was more interested in making an introspective zombie film than that of an action movie, one that would tackle the mental fallout of being alone in the world of the dead. As time passes we see Sam become increasingly lonely and unhinged, so desperate for company that engages in rather one-sided conversations with the zombie trapped in the lift, and he even risks life and limb to capture a stray cat he sees wandering outside the apartment building. Things get so bad that at one point, after looking outside and seeing that all the zombies have wandered away, he goes into a violent drum solo to lure the zombies back.

 

He’s now bigger than The Beatles.

The zombies of Rocher’s film are unique with their silent snarling aspect and only becoming animated when prey is spotted, but their tendency to wander off as if bored is easily their strangest quality. That an apartment building the size of the one we see here results only in a few of zombies hanging around is a bit of a stretch, all the rests apparently having just buggered off, and this is probably the most unbelievable aspect of this movie, but this is most likely the case because Sam is clearly not the kind of guy who would be capable of “cleaning” an infested building of hordes of zombies.  Sam is more the sort who closes a door and pretends their not there. This facet of his character will make him a protagonist that many viewers will have a hard time getting behind but actor Anders Danielsen Lie manages to bring enough heart and pathos to Sam that we truly do want to see him somehow survive his situation. He may not be your typical zombie bashing hero but he’s probably one of the more realistic.

 

If I saw this out my window I'd just poop my pants.

Without an ensemble cast director Dominque Rocher is still able to create an engaging and innovative zombie film one that challenges the viewer’s assumptions of “What you would do to survive?” and then along with the superb directing and excellent performances the film’s visuals and a musical score all work to capture Sam’s descent into a state of unhinged apathy. The Night Eats the World may not be every zombie movie fans cup of tea but I found it’s quiet and unrelenting horror to be just what the doctor ordered.

The Battery (2012) – Review

A question that often comes to mind when watching a zombie movie is “How would I personally make out if there were an actual zombie outbreak?” As most of us aren’t Woody Harrelson or Brad Pitt the odds of surviving such an event would be greatly reduced, unless you were lucky enough to be living in the Arctic or some other sparsely populated area, and thus it’s films like Jeremy Gardner’s The Battery that gives us a little more insight into how the "Average Joe" could survive the zombie apocalypse.

 This particular zombie movie follows the adventures of Ben (Jeremy Gardner) and Mickey (Adam Cronheim) two former minor league ballplayers who have formed a partnership not so much out of friendship but out of proximity and pure necessity. Ben is the “Alpha Male” of this pairing and is basically the only reason Mickey is still alive and we learn that at one point they were trapped in a house in Massachusetts, along with Mickey's family, for three months before the place was eventually overrun by zombies and Mickey’s family was killed.  Ben is the zombie killer while Mickey tends to spend his time listening to his CD player with headphones on as if trying to shut out the unpleasantness of their zombie reality.  And just how divorced from reality is this guy?  Well, he even gets excited when a scratch lotto ticket tells him he’s one a thousand bucks.

 

Now if only society could rebuild so he can collect.

Mickey desperately wants some semblance of a normal life and this leads to many arguments between him and Ben who is the more pragmatic of the two. Since the events with Mickey’s family, Ben refuses the idea of sleeping indoors and insists that they live like a shark, constantly moving or end up dead, but this scavenging lifestyle is clearly not something Mickey is happy with and when, by happenstance, they find a pair of walkie-talkies and make contact with a group called “The Orchard” Mickey is all for tracking this group down despite being told they will not be welcomed and not to look for them.

Mickey becomes obsessed with finding this group, making brief contact with a member named Anna (Alana O'Brien) who tells him “You’ve got to let this go” and that “This place is not what you think it is” but these cryptic warnings are not enough to deter Mickey and his hopes for some return to normalcy.

 

Mickey is not a well-adjusted survivor.

Ben makes fun of Mickey’s fantasies, saying that he has made Anna into some kind of “Post-apocalyptic pixie girl with a gun on her hip, and a maybe a garter and a scar so well placed that it shows how tough she is but doesn’t fuck up her face” but that she is more than likely to be “A softball coach with a mullet and calves like canned hams.” Unfortunately, Mickey doesn’t take this to heart and his desire to sleep in a bed instead of a station wagon will lead this pair down a dangerous path. Lucky for us the film isn’t all doom and gloom and we get some rather nice moments of camaraderie as well as some laugh out loud moments, such as Ben catching Mickey masturbating to a hot zombie being a particular highlight, and with a mere $6,000 dollar budget Gardner is able to create a surprising realistic zombie apocalypse.

 

Discount zombie hordes for all your end of the world needs.

The world of The Battery could easily exist within that of AMC’s The Walking Dead, with The Orchard being another human outpost run by the likes of The Governor or Negan, but this also makes The Battery seem almost like a pilot for a spin-off series as it the film's ending leaves us with more questions than answers. Overall, I found this zombie outing to be a nice breath of fresh air, it’s low budget production giving the proceedings a certain charm, and the performances by our two leads were both engaging as well as endearing. The film’s open ending may upset some viewers but I’d rather be left wanting more than have the movie wear out its welcome. If you are a fan of the zombie genre Jeremy Gardner’s The Battery is well worth tracking down.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) – Review

The key to a successful spoof is in the complete understanding of the genre being lampooned, Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein being perfect examples of this concept, but the greatest achievement in this area is none other than Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which the Python gang set their sites on the self-importance and pomposity of the Arthurian legend. For decades Hollywood had been giving audiences lavish spectacles of knights in armour fighting over beautifully clad damsels, extolling the tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, so in 1975 it was a perfect time for five Brits and an American to take a piss out of the whole thing.

Having found success on television with Monty Python’s Flying Circus the Pythoners decided to take a stab at the big screen with a movie called And Now for Something Completely Different, which was basically a collection of their best sketches, and then the idea of a knight miming he was riding a horse while a trusted servant would knock together coconuts, to mimic a horse's clomping sound, slowly grew into a feature film. As was the case in Monty Python's Flying Circus the members of this comedy troupe assumed numerous roles – with Michael Palin playing 12 characters while animator and co-director Terry Gilliam popped up in several bizarre incarnations – but the chief roles were that of King Arthur (Graham Chapman), Lancelot (John Cleese), Sir Bedivere (Terry Jones), Sir Galahad (Michael Palin) and Sir Robin the Brave (Eric Idle) as they romped across Britain – though filmed in Scotland – in their quest for the Holy Grail.

Science Note: Do not take any of this film's information on swallows, European or otherwise, to be scientifically accurate, though their stance on moose is pretty spot on.

Though Monty Python and the Holy Grail was a departure from the random sketch aspect found on their television show, with the Holy Grail having a core central theme and not being just a collection of favourite bits, but the movie still relied heavily on that familiar sketch format. The film’s basic story was that of the Search for the Holy Grail but that was really only the framework to which the Pythoners could then attach various medieval-themed sketches. Arthur and company would confront some stereotypical rude French knights who, when asked if they wish to join the quest for the Holy Grail, claim “We’ve already got one” and Arthur's skirmish with the Black Knight “No man shall pass” as well as Sir Bedivere trying to save Connie Booth from being burned alive as a witch. Then there was Sir Robin avoiding a fight with a Three-Headed Knight by bravely running away, while Sir Galahad the Chaste was being lured into Castle Anthrax by a bevy of nubile and amorous young ladies. Arthur and Bedivere receive an uncomfortable challenge from the Knights Who Say Ni! “Bring us a shrubbery” and Lancelot’s has an over-enthusiastic rescue of someone he thought to be a lady being forced to marry against her will. We also get some nice bits of animation by Terry Gilliam that adds an extra bit of fantasy to the world on display here.

Stray Thoughts:

• I would dearly have loved to have seen the Python version of the Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot love triangle, with perhaps Terry Jones as Guinevere.
• Graham Chapman’s stolid and dignified performance as King Arthur is what grounds the comedy.
• The brutal and bloody sword fighting in this movie is more accurate than the dozen or so Hollywood films about the Middle Ages that preceded it.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail wonderfully depicts the time period as being an unpleasant and much-filled world.
• Though we do get John Cleese as “Tim the Enchanter” there is no Merlin in this Arthurian tale.

 

“They call me…Tim.”

If the film is said to have a weakness it would be in the ending as Monty Python and the Holy Grail doesn’t really have one, at least not a fully satisfactory one. The film was originally scripted to have King Arthur and his knights discovering the Holy Grail in Harrod's Department Store “They have everything here” but this idea was abandoned when the focus of the film shifted from consisting of 50% Middle Ages and 50% Modern Times to be entirely about its medieval setting. We still get a “Famous Historian” being killed by a passing Lancelot, whose wife immediately notifies the local constabulary, but that was just to set up for the entire cast being arrested by the police at the end of the film as if they were nothing but a bunch of crazed Ren fair enthusiasts.

 

Possibly under arrest for going over budget?

That all said Monty Python and the Holy Grail is still one of the funniest films ever made and though its bizarre sensibilities may not be to everyone’s taste it’s hard to deny this movie being a comedy classic, and if you don't laugh throughout this movie you may want to see a doctor as it's possible you are missing a sense of humour.

If one is looking for a laugh-filled journey through the world of Arthurian folklore there are certainly worse tour guides than the men of Monty Python, and I would stack this film up against many of the other so-called “prestige pictures” that take on the same subject matter, and if not the greatest comedy of all time it’s certainly one of the most quotable.

Excalibur (1981) – Review

There have been many movies depicting the legend of King Arthur over the years with varying degrees of success, from Disney’s animated classic The Sword and the Stone to being wonderfully lampooned in Monty Python and the Holy Grail and even Ritchie's attempt at an Arthurian franchise with King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, but most will agree that one of the best attempts at bringing the magic of the Arthurian stories to life would be John Boorman’s Excalibur, a movie that wisely took its inspiration from the 15th-century Arthurian romance Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory and its allegory of the cycle of birth, life, decay, and restoration, all of which Boorman brought dynamically to life.

 As with its source material John Boorman’s Excalibur has a very episodic structure to it, covering many of the big events in the Arthurian legend that took place over a rather long span of time, with the film opening on Merlin (Nicol Williamson) aiding Uther Pendragon (Gabriel Byrne ) on his securing of an alliance with the land’s many rival lords, only to piss it all away by getting all hot and bothered upon seeing the beautiful Igrayne (Katrine Boorman) and demanding Merlin help him seduce her. This not only ends the alliance, she being married to a rival duke who isn’t up for sharing, but it also produces an heir, one who Merlin quickly claims as payment of a debt.

 

A very expensive booty call.

The film then races along as it bounces from one key point in Arthur’s life to another, we get young Arthur (Nigel Terry) pulling the sword from the stone, after misplacing his Brother Kay’s sword, falling in love with the captivating Guinevere (Cherie Lunghi) and surrounding himself with his loyal knights; Gawain (Liam Neeson ), Sir Uryens (Keith Buckley ), Sir Perceval (Paul Geoffrey ) and the greatest knight of them all Lancelot (Nicholas Clay). With the Knights of the Round Table formed, and Camelot is built on a shining hill, things all look good with the world, that is until love comes and mucks it all up. Guinevere has her disastrous affair with Lancelot and even Merlin gets distracted by a pretty face in the form of Morgana Le Fay (Helen Mirren ), Arthur’s vengeful half-sister.

 

Can’t say that I blame him too much.

Boorman remains fairly faithful to the source material while also borrowing elements from the tales of Tristan and Iseult and the combining of Morgause and Morgan Le Fay into one character – Morgause being Arthur’s half-sister while the sorceress Morgan Le Fay being Morgause’s sister – and Sir Bedivere is swapped out for Perceval and the noble Sir Galahad is completely absent, despite him being the only actual knight worthy enough to win the Holy Grail. Much of these changes can be attributed to the streamlining of such an epic tale, and for the most part, this works, and I doubt even the most anal Arthurian scholar could be too upset by this adaptation. The film is a testament to visual storytelling and to achieve this Boorman surrounded himself with a stellar team of designers and craftsmen that truly bring the legend to life. From dark castles to lush and magical forests the world of Excalibur is fantastic and a wonder to behold, watching this film one cannot help but become immersed in this tale of love, betrayal and violence.

 

Beauty and violence go hand-in-hand in this film.

Stray Observations:

• Uther having sex with Igrayne while still dressed in full plate armour has to be one of the most uncomfortable sex scenes in cinema history.
• Polo ponies were used to make things easier for riding one-handed while wielding a sword with the other, despite the fact that such a horse could hardly support a man in full armour.
• Boorman’s decision to go with full plate armour was intentionally anachronistic, such armour not used until the 15th century, and Terry English’s designs look simply amazing and much of the film’s success is owed to him and production designer Anthony Pratt.
• The "Charm of Making" is easily one of the most iconic spells to be depicted in cinema, "Anál nathrach, orth’ bháis's bethad, do chél dénmha" and was later used to good effect in Spielberg’s Ready Player One.
• Trevor Jones provides an amazingly robust score for Excalibur but the most iconic piece that people will remember is the use of Carl Orff's "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana.
• One should never fail to mention Patrick Stewart’s awesome performance as Guinevere axe-wielding dad, Leondegrance.

 

Stewart is the ultimate badass.

This tale of the Holy Grail may lack African swallows and coconut baring knights but it does give us one of cinema's greatest portrayals of the wizard Merlin as Nicol Williamson simply nails the bizarre whimsy of this humorous as well as dangerous man of magic. Then as a bonus, Boorman has him up against the ravishingly brilliant Helen Mirren as the villainous Morgan Le Fay and the result is a dynamic duo for the ages. Now, while those two set the screen on fire the love triangle between Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot is a little less engaging, mainly because I can’t see what either Guinevere or Lancelot saw in Nigel Terry’s version of King Arthur. Terry isn’t a bad actor I just found his performance as Arthur to lack the humanity and gravitas such a character demands, and that he appeared badly dubbed for much of the performance certainly didn’t help.

 

“Here, Arthur, have a hash brownie.”

Cherie Lunghi definitely has better screen chemistry with Nicholas Clay’s Lancelot but in this shorter version – the movie was original three hours long – cut out some of their keys scenes that would have built the relationship up between the two of them a little better. Instead, we have Lancelot spouting off such romantic bon mots as “I will love you always. I will love you as my queen and as the wife of my best friend, and while you live I will love no other” which one must admit is a rather dick thing to say to the fiancé of your best friend.

 

Does Lancelot not understand the duties of a Best Man?

The film’s third act gets a little bogged down with the “Search for the Holy Grail” as our main characters step off-screen to allow the Grail Knights to run around while being utterly useless, who knew traipsing around Britain looking for a cup could be so boring, but at least this does lead the wonderful introduction of Arthur’s incestuous by-product Mordred (Robert Addie ), whose golden armour and creepy smile is enough to give any kid nightmares. As much as Nicol Williamson and Helen Mirren steal the show I have to point out that with so little screen time Robert Addie still manages to supply the film with a fantastic last act antagonist.

 

Think “Empire Strikes Back” but with a more messed up ending.

John Boorman’s Excalibur remains one of the best adaptations of the Arthurian myth and when you considered that his film came out four decades ago that is truly impressive.  It has production value that holds up against anything produced today and then you considered what a great cast of talented up-and-comers they assembled, such as Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson and Gabriel Byrne, you can’t help but admire the film. If Excalibur isn't the definitive version of King Arthur it’s easily the most entertaining and gorgeous looking one to date, and I offer Trial by Combat to anyone who disagrees with that.

 

My champion would, of course, be berserker Lancelot.

Batman Returns (1992) – Review

When 1989’s Batman made over $400 million dollars worldwide the idea of a follow-up film was a no-brainer but Tim Burton wasn’t all that interested in returning to the world of Gotham City.  Now, with big money on the line the execs over Warner Brothers were not about to take no for an answer so they offered Burton much greater creative control – including the firing of previous screenwriter Sam Hamm – and thus Batman Returns was born

 Tim Burton’s first Batman film had a definite German expressionistic feel to it, with Anton Furst’s architecture and Danny Elfman’s operatic score giving it that heavy gothic feel, but with the sequel Burton seemed to steer the film into a darker fairy tale world, more in keeping with Brothers Grimm than German Expressionism, with maybe a dash of art deco and neo-classic fascism for good measure. Yet it wasn’t just Gotham City that was going to see an upgrade for this sequel as Tim Burton brought not just one classic villain to the party but three, because overcrowding your film with bad guys never goes wrong.  First among these is the Penguin (Danny DeVito ), who is easily Tim Burton’s greatest departure from the source material, which isn't surprising once you learn that Burton has stated on multiple occasions that he never understood the tuxedo-wearing Penguin from the comics, so for this version, he’s no longer a skilled thief with a bird motif and an arsenal of killer umbrellas, now we learn that of a tragic backstory.  Oswald Cobblepot's parents were aghast at their baby's deformity – their baby having flippers instead of hands and its tendency to eat the family cat – and so they tossed him into the sewers where he was apparently raised by a group of penguins from the abandoned Gotham City Zoo.

 

“Hey guys, do any of you have opposable thumbs?”

The idea of a baby being raised by penguins is, of course, ridiculous – makes Tarzan being raised by apes seem downright sensible by comparison – but this did set the tone for what was to follow.  This was not an adaptation of the comic book but rather a dark fantasy tale that owed more to the works of the Brothers Grimm rather than it did to Bob Kane. But what did Tim Burton’s monstrous version of the Penguin want out of life? A deformed “Penguin Man of the Sewers” was not going to settle for robbing art galleries and jewelry stores, which would be too blasé for this monstrous creation, he wants to kill children.  Yeah, that is pretty villainous, and it’s later revealed that his plan was to abduct and kill all of Gotham's firstborn sons as revenge for what his parents did to him, something even his compatriots in the Red Triangle Gang find a bit questionable.

 

Aren’t evil circus performers more of a Joker thing?

Batman (Michael Keaton) discovers that Oswald Cobblepot spent much of his life as part of the Freak Show at the Red Triangle Circus, an establishment that was closed down after several children went missing, which leads to this question, “Why would this ex-circus troupe work with the man who cost them their livelihoods?” We often wonder how supervillains acquire henchman, it’s not like there can be much in the way of fringe benefits living in the sewer, and in this film, the Red Triangle Gang come across more as terrorists than crooks, willing to burn Gotham City down for no monetary reason and seem to go along with the Penguin’s evil plan to murder children because “Why not?”

 

It certainly wasn’t to sell McDonald’s Happy Meals.

The kidnap and murder of dozens of children needs a lot of planning and research so the Penguin turns to the film’s second villain, that of millionaire industrialist Max Shreck (Christopher Walken ), for help in carrying out this evil scheme. Shreck himself needs the Penguin’s help in causing enough civil unrest to force a recall so that the current Mayor (Michael Murphy ), who opposes Shreck’s plans to build an unneeded power plant, can be replaced with someone more biddable.
One can’t help but compare Walken’s portrayal of Max Shreck to his earlier Bond villain Max Zorin in A View to a Kill as they are both over-the-top cartoony madmen, and the only reason either of these characters works is that Christopher Walken is just so much fun to watch in these types of roles.

 

“Smithers, release the hounds.”

Now, the character of Max Shreck isn’t around solely to give political assistance to the Penguin – he tries to form a grassroots campaign to get the Penguin elected as Mayor of Gotham – he is also responsible for the creation of the film’s third villain, Catwoman. As with the Penguin, the comic book origins of Catwoman are ignored in favour of another more tragic backstory – she’s neither a cat-burglar nor an ex-prostitute in this movie – in this iteration Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer) is a mousy unassuming woman working as a personal secretary to the villainous Max Shreck, a man who verbally and physically abuses her. When she discovers that Shreck’s supposed power plant is actually a giant battery designed to steal Gotham’s power she is pushed out of a window to her supposed death. Needless to say, she survives this – supernatural intervention of cats or something – and she then proceeds to remake herself as a one-woman war on Max Shreck.

 

You could say she starts a “Meow Too Movement” against her employer.

Michelle Pfeiffer’s performance as the fractured Selina Kyle is easily the best element of Batman Returns and her scenes with Keaton are the film’s highlights as the two have undeniable chemistry together. The true-crime here is that this particular incarnation of Catwoman deserved her own movie – let’s not even think of the abomination with Halle Berry – and not forced to share screen time with two other villains. Now, I’m not saying Batman Returns is a bad movie, the film is too gorgeous to be called that, but it’s definitely not a very good Batman movie, and if it's guilty of anything it could be for starting the trend of crowding a comic book movie with multiple villains.

 

Wayne Manor also gets a bit of a facelift.

Stray Observations:

• What’s with this film’s Biblical motifs? First, you have baby Cobblepot being given the Moses treatment as he is sent down the river in a basket, and then later we have grown up Cobblepot planning to murder the firstborn of Gotham City. This film is nine plagues shy of being a remake of The Ten Commandments.
• The roof of Wayne Manor is equipped with multiple Bat-Signal reflecting devices each of which would tip-off any guests or passersby that Bruce Wayne is most likely Batman.
• There is definitely not enough material in a raincoat to make a full-body latex catsuit. Trust me, I’ve tried.
• Batman has an even bigger murder-boner than he did last time out, at one point he gleefully burns one of the Red Triangle Gang alive, with the Batmobile's thrusters, while stuffing a bomb down the pants of another.
• Vicki Vale’s absence is treated with about as much respect as a past Bond girl.
• How does one go about getting the blueprints to the Batmobile? I want to see that movie.
• Catwoman is surprised that the plan to frame Batman involved killing the Ice Princess, but her being a live witness would end Penguin’s run for mayor rather quickly.

 

Did this villainous team-up make sense to anyone?

Tim Burton’s Batman Returns is a very entertaining superhero movie and the performances within were all extraordinary, Michelle Pfeiffer’s depiction of Catwoman being especially remarkable, and the art direction provided by Bo Welch gave us another wonderful version of Gotham City, and all this went towards making a Batman movie that if not true to characters of the comic books was undeniably true to Tim Burton’s vision of a dark gothic fairy tale. If the 1989 Batman movie was a Tim Burton film than Batman Returns was a Tim Burton film by a magnitude of ten.
Should the film have had fewer villains, allowing more time to Catwoman and Batman action, sure why not, but you have to give Burton credit for creating a fascinating world for his characters to inhabit. Comic book purists may have issues with this film, me being one of them, but even I have to admit the film we got was an unforgettable experience.

 

“I’m Batman!”

Batman (1989) – Review

If director Tim Burton can be credited for anything it would be in proving to Hollywood that big-budget superhero movies could, once again, be a successful venture, especially after Superman IV: The Quest for Peace practically drove the superhero movie into hibernation, but with the resurgent popularity of Batman (thanks to the contemporary work of comic book writer Frank Miller in the late 80s), it was a perfect time to bring the Caped Crusader back to the big screen.

 The opening scene of Tim Burton’s Batman was a decidedly interesting opening gambit as we see what looks to be the origin story of Batman — husband, wife and kid leave a Gotham City theatre only to be set upon by a mugger — but then we get the twist reveal of Batman (Michael Keaton ) appearing and beating the living snot out of said mugger. With this, we are spared the hour-long type origin story that we got with Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie and instead we leap into the dark world of Gotham City’s greatest avenger, but in doing so the film then turns our focus on the origin story of The Joker (Jack Nicholson ), a character who Tim Burton clearly found to be more interesting than a guy dressed up as a bat. The casting of Jack Nicholson as the Joker was not only a brilliant choice to play the famed comic book villain, giving his own genius takes on the Clown Prince of Crime, but it also assuaged some of the fears and backlash that occurred when comic actor Michael Keaton was given the title role of Batman.

Note: Jack Nicholson not only got a 10 million dollar paycheck for playing the Joker but also a backend deal that netted him an extra $100 million.

One could argue that this is a Joker movie, as Batman himself is relegated to the backseat for much of the film’s run-time. In this film, we learn that Jack Napier is a narcissistic psychopath whose affair with his boss’s girlfriend (Jerry Hall ) results in him getting set up by said boss Carl Grissom (Jack Palance), which in turn leads to him being dropped into a vat of chemicals by Batman and becoming the disfigured villain known as The Joker. On the other hand, we know very little about Bruce Wayne other than that he’s a bit awkward around women and has a penchant for wearing a rubber costume and fighting crime. What little characterization we do get of Bruce Wayne is due to the quirky and subtle acting of Michael Keaton, who proved that he is much more than a Mr. Mom or Betelgeuse. Unfortunately, this film’s portrayal of Batman is decidedly less interesting and also a rather great departure from the source material. In that opening scene, we see Batman calmly walking into gunfire, confident that his Batsuit’s armour will keep him safe, and not the agile street fighter from the comics.

 

“Tell your friends about me, I’m Bulletproof!”

Tim Burton has stated that casting a “non-superhero type” actor like Michael Keaton was to give some justification for why someone would dress up like a bat; that a person built like Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn’t need the intimidation factor of a spooky bat costume.  Unfortunately, what we ended up with was a guy who could barely move under all that rubber and latex. This particular Batman couldn’t even turn his head — the cowl and neckpiece being all one stiff rubber piece, forcing Keaton to turn his whole torso if he wanted to look right or left — which made him a less than plausible Dark Knight.

 

Batman’s greatest nemesis being peripheral vision.

Then we have Batman’s rather lethal action when it comes to dispatching the criminal underclass. In that first scene, he took out the two muggers in a fairly Batman-like way — after letting himself get shot twice, of course — but after that, he is a lot less forgiving of his adversaries. He remote drives the Batmobile into the Axis chemical plant so as to plant bombs and blow the place sky high, killing the half dozen Joker goons inside.  That they were shooting at his ride — I guess — makes this justifiable homicide, but the Axis plant was a rather big building and we have no idea how many other employees would also have perished in that explosion, people who may have been forced to make the Joker’s chemical poisons. Then we have his Batwing attack on the Joker’s parade during the film’s final act, where the Batwing’s machine-gun fire and rockets brutally takes out another half-dozen or more of Joker’s henchmen. This is clearly a Batman who doesn’t seem to worry too much about collateral damage, not helped by the fact that the Batwing’s targeting system is for shit.

 

How could the Joker have survived this?

There is a lot to love about Tim Burton’s Batman, from its haunting Danny Elfman score to the timeless gothic architecture of Gotham City designed by the late great Anton Furst, and I did quite enjoy this film’s version of Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger), as well as the original creation of dogged reporter Alexander Knox (Robert Wuhl) who wants to know what Batman is taking down “After taxes,” and then there is Bob the Goon (Tracey Walter ) who adds some comic spice to the film. Finally, we get to Michael Gough who is easily one of the best Alfreds ever put to screen — we will pretend his death in Joel Schumacher's Batman and Robin didn't happen — but storywise, things tended to get a little loosey-goosey whenever Burton focused on what he thought “looked cool” rather than on what best served the story.

Stray Observations:

• Bruce Wayne’s idea of a first date is dinner at home, where he then proceeds to get the girl drunk and take her to bed. Sweet guy.
• After getting her idea for a second date rebuffed, Vicki Vale goes into full-on stalker mode. At this point, there is no connection between Batman and Bruce Wayne, so her sudden obsession with him is downright creepy.
• At seeing Jack Napier alive, as his men gun down Gotham’s mob bosses, Bruce Wayne becomes almost catatonic to the point of not even noticing a bullet tearing through his coat. Not the catlike reflexes one expects of a superhero.
• Batman gives Vicki Vale the secret to Joker’s killer chemical combination, but then she waits for her newspaper to publish her story instead of getting the information out immediately via television or radio. How’s that for journalistic integrity?
• Vicki Vale opens the package left by the Joker without calling the bomb squad; luckily for her, it was just some dead flowers, as it could easily have been Smilex gas.
• Alfred betrays Bruce’s trust by bringing Vicki into the Bat Cave, a woman that Bruce has had a total of one date with.

 

Alfred, you are so fired.

Screenwriter Sam Hamm has emphatically stated that this particular movie moment was not in any draft he’d worked on, nor was the surprising revelation that Joker had killed Bruce Wayne’s parents. In fact, Sam Hamm spent much of his time trying to convince Burton to not break with Batman canon with this piece of sloppy storytelling. Sadly, the Writers Guild of America went on strike and Sam Hamm was prevented from joining the production team over in England which allowed screenwriter Warren Skaaren to bring some of the more controversial changes to the script. Burton has since stated that much “unravelling” of the story occurred while they were shooting in England and that these changes were either due to studio interference or budgetary concerns, but I personally think it has more to do with Burton being a brilliant art director and not necessarily a great storyteller.

 

“Have you ever danced with the Devil by the pale moonlight?”

The reveal that Jack Napier was the man who killed Thomas and Martha Wayne puts into question Batman’s title of “World’s Greatest Detective” because even though he was able to figure out that Jack Napier was the man who killed his parents (simply by going over some police files and old newspaper clippings), it has us wondering why he hadn’t discovered this long ago? It’s not like Napier was some shadowy villain; he was Boss Grissom’s number one guy. The killer of Bruce Wayne’s parents always worked better in the abstract rather than the actual person — even though the comics eventually gave us Joe Chill as the killer — and that Batman was avenging all of the innocent victims of Gotham and not just that of his own parents. Having the Joker turn out to be the man responsible for the creation of Batman leads to the interesting exchange of, “I made you, you made me first,” but then things get a bit odd when the Joker replies, “Hey, bat-brain, I mean, I was a kid when I killed your parents. I mean, I say, ‘I made you,’ you gotta say,  ‘You made me.’ I mean, how childish can you get?” Is it just me or do these exchanges imply that the Joker knows which parents Batman was talking about? Which, in turn, means that the Joker has somehow figured out who Batman is. This is an example of what happens when you have multiple writers tossing random stuff into the mix without figuring out if it makes any sense.

 

"Who do you trust?" Hubba, hubba, hubba! Money, money, money! Who do you trust?”

The film’s last act is another example of the dangers of multiple writers working without a strong story editor on board. The Joker announces on television that he is going to be giving away $20 million in cash at midnight, stating, “Don’t worry about me, I’ve got enough,” but would his gang be fine with him giving away all that money? It’s one thing to work for a psychotic murderer in clown make-up, but it’s another to just toss away all that loot to a bunch of Gotham randos. In the comics, the sanity of Joker’s minions is often called into question — their life expectancy being rather short — but in Sam Hamm’s original draft, there was a very good explanation for this big money giveaway.

 

If you can’t trust a face like that, who can you trust?

Earlier in the film, when the Joker had lured Vicki Vale to the Gotham Museum of Art, she asks him, “What do you want?” And his response was, “My face on the one-dollar bill,” which seems, at first, to just be a throwaway line by a crazy person, but later during the big balloon parade sequence, the money he was giving away would later be revealed as Joker money, his face now on the one-dollar bill. That’s called “Set-up and Payoff,” but due to all the monkeying around with the script, all we got was the set-up and the payoff was left in the dustbin. Of course, that is far from the only problem with that scene — it’s a niggling annoyance compared to the other glaring hole in this script — and that would be, “Where are the fucking police?” A confessed mass murderer broadcasts the time and location as to when and where he will be and yet, for some reason, none of the Gotham City Police Department bothers to show up.

 

Were they waiting for the Bat-Signal?

Once again, this was addressed in an earlier draft of Sam Hamm’s — the Joker having drugged GCPD’s coffee supply — but without that explanation, we are left confused as to why Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle ) and District Attorney Harvey Dent (Billy Dee Williams ) still have jobs. It’s clear that Tim Burton was focused on making a gothic fairy tale version of Batman, a Beauty and the Beast meets Fritz Lang if you will, and that having a solid story structure was not a primary concern.
Now, as much as I’ve been criticizing Burton’s ability to tell a good Batman story, I must admit he made one hell of an entertaining Batman movie. His plotting might not hold a candle to the likes of comic book legends Denny O’Neil or Frank Miller, but his visual flair cannot be disputed; a flair that was wonderfully aided by concept artist Anton Furst, whose gothic architectural designs gave us one of the best-looking Gotham Cities to date, all brought to life through amazing sets and matte paintings as well as Bob Ringwood’s costuming, which brought one of DC’s legendary heroes brilliantly to life.

 

A great suit as long as Batman never has to look to his left or right.

If it wasn’t for the success of Tim Burton’s Batman, we may never have gotten the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy — though Joel Schumacher’s Batman films did their best to delay this — and Danny Elfman’s operatic score would set the benchmark for comic book movies for years to come. So, no matter how flawed Burton’s vision of Batman may seem to comic fans (many who wonder if Tim Burton had ever read a Batman comic book), there is no denying the fact that he pulled off an incredible feat by turning what many people thought to be a simple “campy” figure of a 60s television show, into a blockbuster event. 1989’s Batman was a gorgeous watershed event and well worth its place in cinema history.

Note: Prince provided several songs for this film and though good, they are the one element that really dates the film, and their inclusion seemed more about the studio’s desire for a concept album rather than if they fit tonally with the Danny Elfman score.