Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989-1997 [DVD] [1989] [2005]

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LEGENDS OF THE DARK NIGHT: THE HISTORY OF BATMAN, ON THE SET WITH BOB KANE, SHADOWS OF THE BAT: The Cinematic Saga of the Dark Knight, BATMAN: The Heroes, BATMAN: The Villains. [MORE]: BEYOND BATMAN, BATMAN: The Complete ROBIN Storyboard Sequence, MUSIC VIDEOS. In 'Batman Forever' (1995), former District Attorney Harvey Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) is terrorising Gotham City, when a new villain appears on the scene - the Riddler (Jim Carrey). Together they plot to discover Batman's (Val Kilmer) identity, using a device which can probe the human mind. Meanwhile, the caped crusader has been joined by Robin (Chris O'Donnell), whose trapeze-artist family have recently been slain by Two-Face. SPECIAL FEATURES]: RIDDLE ME THIS: WHY IS BATMAN FOREVER?, SHADOWS OF THE BAT: The Cinematic Saga of the DARK KNIGHT Pt.5 Reinventing a Hero, BATMAN: The Heroes, BATMAN: The Villains, BEYOND BATMAN, DELETED SCENES, Kiss From A Rose Video by Seal.

Anti-piracy warning - 00:12, Warner Bros Home Video clip - 00:12, Main Menu - 00:30, [SPECIAL FEATURES]: SHADOWS OF THE BAT: The Cinematic Saga of the DARK KNIGHT Pt.6 Batman Unbound - 27:00, BATMAN: The Heroes (Batman, Robin, Batgirl) - 09:18, BATMAN: The Villains (Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane) - 08:03, BEYOND BATMAN (BIGGER BOLDER BRIGHTER: The Production Design of Batman & Robin, MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE: The Vehicles of Batman & Robin, DRESSED TO THRILL: The Costumes of Batman & Robin, FROZEN FREAKS AND FEMME FATALES: The Makeup of Batman & Robin, FREEZE FRAME: The Visual Effects of Batman & Robin) - 50:34, DELETED SCENE: Alfred's Lost Love - 00:45, Music Videos (THE END IS THE BEGINNING IS THE END by Smashing Pumpkins, LOOK INTO MY EYES by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, GOTHAM CITY by R. Kelly, FOOLISH GAMES by Jewel) - 19:13. The Dark Knight" changed all that with a decree that comic heroes need to be dark and brooding, a cross between film noir and Edgar Allan Poe. A flair for amusing morbidity must have been what led Warners to the doorstep of the wunderkind Tim Burton, an art school overachiever who turned unlikely ideas like Pee Wee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice into hipper than hip hit movies. Burton brought high style and killer design skills to the 1989 Batman, a very nervous production with a confident director at the helm. Fans were concerned when Burton nominated his Beetlejuice colleague Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne, closet crimefighter, and wondered if their sacred DC comic book franchise would come down with an acute case of the cutes, Tim Burton- style. Batman pursues the two, and at the top of the dusty edifice, the two adversaries confront each other in single combat. When The Joker attempts an escape via a helecopter, Batman secures The Joker's leg to a heavy stone sculpture, causing The Joker to fall from the helecopter and plummet to his doom. Following The Joker's death, Commissioner Gordon unveils the Bat-Signal along with a note from Batman read by Harvey Dent, promising to defend Gotham whenever crime strikes again. The extras are by and large both entertaining and substantial; when John Dykstra talks about the effects for films number 3 and 4 he's very clear about the changing attitude brought about by digital tools. Most of the stars are interviewed from numerous angles, with Schumacher defending his pair of features even as Chris O'Donnell skates the issue by saying that they were spaced a bit too close together. Tommy Lee Jones is notorious for being uncooperative when asked to analyze the movies he's in; the featurette editor succeeds in turning a Jones non-remark into a button line, even though the actor basically says that "the duality of his character is obvious, and there's nothing more to say!"

Speaking of Poison Ivy, played by the wonderful Uma Thurman, I don't think I could've recommended a better actress. Her looks are versatile enough to have her pass off as a nerdy girl to an irresistible vixen whom men want to have a shot at (something some girls fantasize about growing up). The muscle man Arnold Schwarzenegger as Victor Fries/Mr. Freeze was also done very well. Like Jim Carrey, I can't see Schwarzenegger protraying as anyone else but The Terminator, but unlike Carrey, he pulled off that popular cinematic persona and reeled me in with his villainous character. O'Donnell's Robin brings up an issue strongly associated with the Schumacher Batmans, and that's their purported homoerotic subtext. Subtext probably isn't the right word, what with the constant fetishistic visuals of rubber suits (with nipples, no less), car-commercial cutaways to details of vehicles as well as costumes, and a general design philosophy that isolates these musclebound heroes in hazy dark spaces cut up with laser lighting suitable for a '70s discotheque. When street thugs are needed, Batman Forever paints them in day-glo colors like extras from a KISS music video. Critics have been going after the supposed aberrant sexuality in costumed superheroes ever since Superman comics arrived, and there's no avoiding the usual blather about men choosing to live together to fight crime and secretly preferring each other's company. Batman Forever's focus on motorcycles does sometimes remind us of Kenneth Anger, so there's something to this; but the fact is that it's just cultural baggage associated with the Schumacher films' visual style. Featurette: "The Bat, the Cat and the Penguin" (SD, 22 minutes) - This is a fairly fluffy promotional featurette made at the time of the film's production. It's where the interviews with Keaton and Pfeiffer came from, though it has some decent behind-the-scenes clips. Otherwise, it's pretty surface, and largely skippable. Anti-piracy warning - 00:12, Warner Bros Home Video clip - 00:12, Main Menu - 01:25, Feature film - 2:06:20, [SPECIAL FEATURES]: Theatrical trailer - 02:33 Unlike the Burton pictures, the Batman concept is treated as a joke. The very first deadpan line from Batman (now a dead-faced Val Kilmer, his dimpled chin doing all the acting) is a lame one-liner about getting drive-thru food. It's as if the line was planned to be used in a later tie-in TV commercial. Batman's cave, his car and gadgets no longer attempt to be even remotely plausible, and the action scenes (endless punchouts) are mostly forgettable.

Rummaging through the bonus features, I noticed an interesting clip featuring an interview with director Joel Schumacher, on the DVD Special Features for Batman & Robin. At a specific part of the interview, he actually apologized for the movie. Watch for yourself: Columbia Pictures produced another 15-chapter serial with Batman and Robin this time going after a mysterious villain named The Wizard whose identity wasn't revealed until the end. Batman was played by Robert Lowery with Robin played by Johnny Duncan.The five sections are: "Out of the Shadows: The Production Design of Batman Forever" (11 minutes), "The Many Faces of Gotham City" (9 minutes), "Knight Moves: The Stunts of Batman Forever" (7 minutes), "Imaging Forever: The Visual Effects of Batman Forever" (9 minutes) and "Scoring Forever: The Music of Batman Forever" (8 minutes). Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge. If Burton wrapped darkness around the Dark Knight, Schumacher bathes him in day-glo colors. It's like being in a nightclub version of Gotham City. Even the costumes have been jazzed up (some would say gayed up), including the beginnings of Schumacher's much-derided "Batman with nipples." Schumacher also continues this approach with the characters and casting. Gone are the demented Joker, Penguin, and Catwoman, replaced by Jim Carrey's overtly zany Riddler, and Tommy Lee Jones' scenery-chewing Two-Face. (And, oh yeah, Nicole Kidman is in here somewhere as a love interest, but it's hard to remember she's even in the movie.) Nothing seems weighty or of any real emotional consequence. Between all the razzle-dazzle, voluminous characters, and arch comedy, one hardly cares about Batman's predicament at all. I do hope this review has been helpful to you. If you’re a fan of the Batman Anthology or you own this boxset, let me know your thoughts below. Batman broke house records at Grauman's Chinese. After the first weekend the studio ran a TV spot made of four or five aerial shots of empty beaches, empty streets, empty ball parks, with the question, "Where is everybody?" The payoff was a final shot of the Chinese theater swamped by huge mobs of people coming to see Batman. Ah, Hollywood.

A strong focus on brighter visuals and "beauty" proved popular with audiences at the time of the movie's release. Legends of the Dark Knight: The History of Batman, which follows the comic book series through seven decades of changes and re-inventions For the audio, it's crystal clear and it's a beautiful thing being that most of the actors speak in low-toned voices. You do get audio options besides the usual stereo such as Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound! This means you can take advantage of getting that theater-quality audio at the comfort of your own home, enjoying the realistic beauty of how crisp the sound of the films are. Featurette Gallery: "Beyond Batman" (SD, 44 minutes) - Beginning with 'Batman,' each Blu-ray gets its own additional gallery of new production featurettes, which delve much more deeply into the production design, art and costume direction, and stunts of each film. Less controversial or surprisingly, they are nevertheless nicely done, and culled from the same batch of new and archival interview material as the "Shadows of the Bat" doc. It's also nice to see Danny Elfman getting some love here, as he really isn't represented anywhere else on this set.Shadows of the Bat: The Cinematic Saga of the Dark Knight part 4, entitled "The Dark Side of the Dark Knight"