Ushering in a new franchise, Tim Burton's idiosyncratic, chiaroscuro
vision of the Dark Knight was an enormous success, with Michael Keaton
confounding expectations as the schizoid Bruce Wayne,
playboy-come-vigilante. Of course there is the grandstanding,
film-hogging ham of Jack Nicholson's Joker, but even his "look at
the star" performance cannot swamp the baroque, melancholic
sweep of Burton's vision. Danny Elfman composed the most remembered
hero theme since Williams' Superman a decade earlier and the public
lapped it up. Overdesigned, overwrought and overbearing and all the
better for it, Burton's Batman rejuvenated the comic book adaptation
and tore the cowl off expected commercial filmmaking.
