Batman (1989) Critic Reviews

The movie's problem is that no one seemed to have any fun making it, and it's hard to have much fun watching it. It's a depressing experience.Read the full review

The Joker has been demoted into a broad-scale sociopath, without a tempter's power or a mythic villain's complexity. And that's the movie's real undoing. [23 June 1989, Calendar, p.6-1]Read the full review

Batman is largely content to skim the surface and bask in the light of its visual style.Read the full review

It's a rare, beautifully made movie that offers you another world. [23 June 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]Read the full review

It's neither funny nor solemn. It has the personality not of a particular movie but of a product, of something arrived at by corporate decision.Read the full review

There's a cold intelligence at work here. Though its pleasures are plentiful enough to reward a second viewing, only Nicholson has saved Warners from a wing-clip. [23 June 1989, Life, p.1D]Read the full review

Nicholson embellishes fascinatingly baroque designs with his twisted features, lavish verbal pirouettes and inspired excursions into the outer limits of psychosis. It's a masterpiece of sinister comic acting.Read the full review

The movie fixes you in its gravitational pull. It's an enveloping, walk-in vision... As rich and satisfying a movie as you're likely to see all year.Read the full review