20th Century Burton - Another Mini-Marathon

20th Century Burton - Another Mini-Marathon

Featuring Partially Educated Reviews of

Batman

Batman Returns

Mars Attacks!

and Sleepy Hollow

Plus a Bonus Review of Catwoman

Despite my disappointment at Big Fish not being as good as I remembered it, I quite enjoyed my last batch of Tim Burton reviews, so I decided to do another, focussing entirely on his earlier output that made me such a fan. A number of Burton's pre-2000 films were reviewed here, so here are the others… with one exception. When it comes to Full Educations, one rule I will have is that I don't have to have reviewed films that aren't freely available on UK DVD or Blu-Ray, though it won't categorically mean that I haven't seen them. Burton's debut feature film is one of those, as Pee-Wee's Big Adventure is quite hard to get hold of in this country. For the record, I have seen it, but not recently enough for me to feel that I can review it. From what I remember, it's OK… ish.

In 50 Words or Less: Regardless of how much of a Batman purist you are, there can be no denying that this film paved a huge portion of the way for comic book films to come. It's not perfect, but considering the period it came out in, it's still impressive.

In the review after this, I'm going to express an opinion that won't be popular. In preparation for it though, I will say right now that I am a big fan of Tim Burton's Batman films. I'm happy to accept that Christopher Nolan's films are the most faithful and also consider myself to be a big fan of those films, but Burton's films have become lumped in with the same period that produced the, shall we say, less good Joel Schumacher films. They really don't deserve to be. Though they may take liberties with the source material and even outright change some characters to be barely recognisable from their illustrated counterparts, they still stand as decent stories and excellent comic book films from a time when there were far less of those around. This one is the more simple of the two, as it's all about Batman (Michael Keaton) VS The Joker (Jack Nicholson). The film's priority is having fun and (surprisingly for a Burton film) while many of the scenes are naturally set at night, it doesn't feel like he's overly concerned with maintaining a darker tone. With a much larger focus on Nicholson than there is on Keaton, the sad past of Bruce Wayne is frequently pushed aside in favour of the more fun Joker, apparently equipped with his own collection of Prince music. Is that a correct decision? Not completely. The title of this film is Batman and yet that character gets sidelined at the first hurdle in favour of the noticeable obsession that Burton has with his villains. Keaton is a solid turn, but a real fleshing out of the character feels absent. Meanwhile, the Joker gets a huge fleshing out, giving us far more backstory than should ever be necessary for the character. Nicholson doesn't adapt into the role, but instead turns the character into more of a Jack Nicholson performance. That's not always a bad thing, but Heath Ledger's performance has really dated this one. That doesn't make it a terrible performance, as Nicholson is often what instils this film with life. I just feel like he should have tried a bit harder to do something different. For these reasons, if you're coming into Batman with fresh eyes, it won't seem as good as it did back at the time of it's release. The narrative will be familiar and the action set pieces won't entirely dazzle, but that's because this is a 26 year-old film and all those films that make it feel dated wouldn't exist without this one laying a lot of the ground work. Whether you like it or not, this film is an important one.

FOUR out of five

In 50 Words or Less: My absolute favourite Batman film... and I love a lot of the others.

Here's the unpopular opinion. This is the best Batman film ever made. Again, I acknowledge the fact that Burton's faithfulness to the canon (other than the name, the Penguin is a brand new character) is Berlusconi levels of lacking, but when it comes to simple enjoyment, this takes the top spot for me. It's got that rebellious streak that I wanted from the first film, with Burton taking full control of the vision that he wants. All of his trademarks are there: gothic architecture, playful Danny Elfman score, macabre sense of humour, yet the film still wants to do right by the characters that Burton so loves. With the feared Penguin (Danny DeVito) emerging from the sewers in an attempt to be accepted by society, he begins a crooked path towards the Mayor's office, backed by "so shady it's untrue" businessman Max Schreck (Christopher Walken). Naturally, Batman's keeping an eye on them, but also has to contend with a considerably less clean-cut vigilante in the emerging Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer). The presence of three villains often sets off alarm bells in this day and age (see a number of Spider-Man films), but Batman Returns shows how it can work. By establishing firm links between all three of them, it helps in tying in their motives. However, Daniel Waters' script is proficient to properly develop their characters separately. Despite having slightly less focus than the other two, Catwoman probably fares best and this is down hugely to Pfeiffer's outstanding performance. Anne Hathaway was good, but Pfeiffer shows how it's really done. DeVito and Walken come close to matching her though. The different take on the Penguin will (and does) jar with purists, but DeVito brings out so many different facets of this character that I can't help but feel a fascination with it. Schreck, on the other hand, is a walking stereotype, but a Walken performance is rarely unworthy of checking out. This is no exception. With all these villains though, does this affect Batman? Yes, particularly in the opening, as he barely gets a show in for the first half hour, during which it's all about setting up the villains. This is fairly indicative of the film as a whole, as Keaton once again feels like he's playing second fiddle to the villains, but this time it works better for me. He still has a lot of fairly killer lines and the dynamic between Batman and Catwoman is outstanding here. Only half of that is down to Pfeiffer. I'm not saying that Batman Returns is the best thing that ever happened to Batman on the big screen, but there's only so many times I can watch the Nolan films before I have to put them away for a while. If I want a Batman fix, it's this film that I'm usually going to bust out. Purists be damned.

FIVE out of five

In 50 Words or Less: It's a big budget B-movie about Martians killing the human race. Whether or not that sounds like your kind of thing pretty much determines whether or not you will like this film. It is my kind of thing.

Perhaps I'm underestimating the power that a B-movie homage held in the mid-1990s (I was 9 when this film came out), but giving a 100 million dollar budget to Mars Attacks! has regularly struck me as one of the strangest financial decisions the American film industry has ever made. Like it was ever going to make that one back. This is the sort of film that seems destined for a cult following, which is not a bad thing, but that rarely equates to monetary greatness. That niggle aside, I like Mars Attacks!, but I'm happy to accept that many won't and don't. A cast of A-listers gather together (often in very small roles) to create a Hollywood blockbuster version of a cheap-ass Ed Wood style alien invasion film. That becomes the film's main joke and it works, rarely becoming wearing as it's always willing to bust out yet another huge star just to keep the madness flowing. It's not it's only trick though, as there's the stabs at social and political satire too. These hold about the same level of subtlety as killing an ant with a chainsaw, but again suit the film. Everything that is thrown in here creates the film that the filmmaker's wanted to make. What that means is that your enjoyment of it will all hinge on whether or not it sounds like something you would enjoy. If it doesn't, I doubt there is anything here to convince you otherwise. This isn't up there with the greatest sci-fi pastiches ever made and if you want one that I think may well strike a chord with just about anyone, then I personally direct you towards Galaxy Quest. Mars Attacks! is always a film I will be willing to watch and I will always enjoy it. I'm just not confident enough to guarantee that you will feel the same way.

THREE out of five

In 50 Words or Less: Another Burton film that's not as good as I remember it, treading that dangerous line between homage and rip-off, but straying a little close to the wrong side. It's always fun, but inconsistent when it comes to being anything more than that. Inconsistent also being the state of the acting.

I'm starting to get a little alarmed by revisiting these Burton films because first Big Fish became a victim of fonder memories than there perhaps should have been and now Sleepy Hollow has suffered a similar (if not quite as strong) fate. This time though, I can put my finger on exactly why it is. When I first watched Sleepy Hollow, I loved it, but also held a deep disregard for the idea of watching most things created before my own birth. Now that I've grown up (a little), I've discovered the likes of Hammer Horror. This means that I now realise that, though Sleepy Hollow is an intentional homage to those types of films, some of that homage does tread perilously close to rip-off territory. The film is, of course, an adaptation of the story of the headless horseman, as quirky police constable Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp, somewhat staggeringly there are four Burton reviews, yet only one Deep performance in this post) is sent to investigate murders that have befallen the titular haven for fog. With his faith in science and his disdain for the resident's tales of the horseman, Crane is not there to make friends, but soon learns that he probably should have listened in the first place. Sleepy Hollow is good fun (a phrase that I'm apparently clinging to at the moment) and holds enough imagination and excitement to warrant a watch, but it is flawed. Depp is supposed to be annoying to the other characters, but this annoyance passes it's way to the viewer somewhat. Crane is a colossal wuss and this becomes tiresome. I'm pretty sure I'd be shitting myself every bit as much as he does, but I don't want to watch that on the screen. This also reveals the film's love of the human ability to faint, something that a number of characters (not just Crane) do often. It holds some amusement the first couple of times, but quickly becomes evident as the film's primary (and deeply lazy) method of transporting characters from scene to scene. The irritation of Depp's character isn't helped by the presence of Christina Ricci as the primary love interest because she is not good at all in the role. In fact, considering that she's often a solid hand, it's alarming just how stilted she is, as though she's far too focussed on mastering her accent and has forgotten to actually perform. No consolation prize then, because her accent isn't any good either. Maybe it's me becoming more of a film snob as the years progress, but Sleepy Hollow doesn't have the spark that it once held for me. I hate saying that because it riddles this review with negativity, but when a film you previously loved suddenly becomes nothing more than good, it can only feel disappointing.

THREE out of five

Bonus Review

In 50 Words or Less: I'm considering taking back the ZERO out of five I gave to The Counsellor. That will likely make this the worst film I've reviewed to date.

I'm not sure that anyone ever expected Catwoman to be good. It just seemed like a foregone conclusion that it would be awful. On the other hand, I'm not sure that anyone outside of the filmmaker's knew that it was going to be this bad and, if they did, they must be held accountable. Catwoman is not just a bad film. It's a film that's so inconceivably awful that if anyone involved thought they were producing something otherwise, they deserve a slow lowering into a pit of pissed off piranhas*. The film's director goes by the moniker of Pitof, instantly putting him on the same level as McG (he of Terminator Salvation fame). That's not a good start, but going on the basis of filmmaking skills, McG has the upper hand plus twelve more. It's like Pitof has bought in people who previously demonstrated some skill, then turned to them and said "You know what would be really funny? If we made a really bad film and people paid to see it, whilst we make lots of money!"

…DIDN'T DO A RIGHT FAT LOT FOR YOUR CAREER, DID IT PITOF? The awfulness of Catwoman can be summed up by a simple plot synopsis. Cosmetics company employee Patience (I had none) Phillips (Halle Berry) discovers the side effects caused by the latest product from her evil employees and is killed by a result. Resurrected by the a cat created from the worst CGI you've seen this century, she becomes Catwoman and seeks revenge against her employers, one of whom (Sharon Stone) literally has rock hard skin as a result of the use of her own product. Halle Berry famously declared the film "a piece of shit" when accepting her Razzie for Worst Actress. That's not a lie, but obviously attempts to divert from just how much she deserved that award. When Sharon Stone is delivering a better performance than you in anything other than Casino, you have to have screwed up somewhere. The film throws in characters and plot strands that are so under-developed that you almost feel like you're watching a sequel to The Room and the bizarre scenes between Berry and love interest cop Benjamin Bratt conjure up similar memories too. Finally, there's the fight scenes. Taken 2 and 3 got similar criticism last week, but when I say that they are heinous in Catwoman, I mean it in a far worse way than anything I ever threw at the Taken films. It's not that there is no justification for a Catwoman film, it's that there is simply no excuse for it to exist in the state that it does. Think Batman And Robin or Daredevil are the worst superhero films ever made? Catwoman will prove you wrong. I've said that a ZERO out of five will only go to films that I find harmful to film on a moral level. However, I want to stress that this is...

…perhaps the most emphatic ONE out of five I've given to date.

*I joke of course. No one deserves to die for making a bad film. Just suffer.

Next Time (14th May)