Hammer Reviews: Batman Retrospective

As a child, Batman was one of my favorite superheroes, after Superman and Captain Marvel. What I always remember about Batman is that he is supposedly the "World's Greatest Detective." However, Batman is never portrayed as the "World's Greatest Detective." 6 men thus far have been Batman; Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale and Kevin Conroy. Adam West, star of the popular 1960's tv serial Batman, gave the show a camp feel with some hints of lampoon. Interestingly, this is one of my favorite Batman interpretations, simply because he is not dark, which is refreshing. Michael Keaton is the "REAL" Batman, as he was the first to portray him in a film. Keaton was Batman in Tim Burton's epic Batman (1989). This film follows the origin of Batman, and his archnemesis the Joker. In this version Joker is the man who killed Bruce's parents and Batman lets the Joker die. The next film is Batman Returns, again directed by Burton. The villains are the Penguin (one of my favorite Batman villains) and Catwoman. This one ends with Christopher Walken (playing a media mogul) and the Penguin dying, and Catwoman gazing defiantly up at the Bat-signal. This is one of the worst Batman films, as it leads Batman towards the dark path he now walks. After some backlash that Batman became too dark, Joel Shumacher took over the franchise with the 2nd best Batman film, Batman Forever. This movie attempts to take Batman back to his brightly colored origins in pop culture. With Jim Carey as the Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, this movie harkens back to the era when comic book villains tryed to defeat Batman with elaborate deathtraps and brightly colored spandex. Interestingly, this film introduces Robin to the film franchise in an astute move by Shumacher. However, the next film, Batman and Robin destroyed the Batman name, and led directly to his new dark theme in Christopher Nolan's films. In one of the spectacular examples of "didn't read the comic" Nolan made Batman Begins, the newest decent Batman film. This one explores his origin story with some mish-mashed elements from Year 1 (a comic arc). Its okay, and introduces 2 "new" villains, the completely misrepresented Scarecrow and the misinterpreted Ras-Al-Ghul. Ras-Al-Ghul "died", and Scarecrow escaped, in a Gotham that has suddenly become completely covered by a fine layer of black paint. The next film, The Dark Knight, killed Batman for me. Again done by Christopher Nolan, this one gets EVEN DARKER, as if that was possible.  This time Batman again faces down the supremely unfunny clown prince of crime, The Joker. And apparently Batman has been taking voice acting lessons from Rorschach in Nolan's films. Now to the man who portrayed Batman in the animated series of my youth, Kevin Conroy. Conroy wasn't a "bad" Batman, he was simply an extremely two-dimensional Batman (no pun intended). The show, Batman the Animated Series was only remarkable because of Mark Hamill's stint as The Joker. Hamill was probably the "best" Joker because he was genuinely funny, as the Joker is supposed to be. Both Conroy and Hamill starred in the video game Batman: Arkham Asylum. Batman: Arkham Asylum, while wildly popular, is a fairly bad game. The only thing I enjoyed about the game was Detective Vision. Otherwise it is yet another boring, grayish-brown beat-em-up. The only difference is that you play as "Batman."