Batman

Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: June 23, 1989

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

69	METASCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 21 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

100

Ron Pennington

This Batman is a stunning achievement, especially through the incredible and unique visualization of director Tim Burton. The film may be disappointing to those expecting a campy cartoon, however, although the more dramatic stylization of this version is its strongest asset. Read full review

100

Hal Hinson

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 full review

100

Mick LaSalle

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

100

Rick Groen

In short, Batman is terrific - funny, smart and sensitive too, the perfect cinematic date. Read full review

Hal Lipper

Batman is perfect summertime fare. Its secret is levity hidden in a dark and troubled soul.. [23 June 1989, p.6]

Ryan Murphy

The most memorable aspect of Batman is the film's attention to florid detail. At times, Burton's strange touches upstage the simple good-vs.-evil parable. [23 June 1989, p.H4]

Desson Thomson

The Batblast of the summer. Read full review

EmpireAndrew Collins

Jack Nicholson as The Joker helpfully provides all the colour. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

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 full review

Mike Clark

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]

Dave Kehr

Burton's direction rises to a Wagnerian hysteria (an impression backed by Danny Elfman`s roaring orchestral score) as the two mortal enemies fight it out on the brink of a zillion-foot drop. Burton achieves a genuine majesty at that moment-though he would need one or two more like it to make Batman a genuinely memorable film. Read full review

Carrie Rickey

If Batman did nothing else but restore pulp-art shadow to the icon sanitized in his pop-art TV reincarnation, it would be an achievement. Tim Burton's Batman, starring a subdued Michael Keaton as you-know-who and a supercharged Jack Nicholson as the Joker, handily accomplishes that mission. Read full review

Stanley Kauffmann

It's relatively easy to convey the claustral in interior scenes, but [designer] Furst and the director Tim Burton do it even when the setting is a great flight of steps before the municipal building or the huge square where Batman and the joker confront each other. [31 July 1989, p.24]

Pauline Kael

It has so many unpredictable spins that what's missing doesn't seem to matter much. The images sing. [10 July 1989]

David Sterritt

It would be a lot better if it didn't lean exclusively on bone-crunching action for its climactic thrills, and the story continues long after its ideas have started to sag. [29 June 1989, Arts, p.10]

James Berardinelli

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

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Non Credited)

Despite its interesting, grim tone and undeniably striking visuals from director Burton and production designer Furst, the film fails to synthesize its strengths into a compelling whole. Read full review

Jonathan Rosenbaum

The main problem is that Burton operates best on a modest scale; saddled with a blockbuster, he doesn't know how to animate all the dead space. Read full review

Roger Ebert

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 full review

Vincent Canby

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 full review

Sheila Benson

Nicholson's Joker will be the pivotal point for many. It's his energy, spurting like an artery, that keeps the picture alive; it's certainly not the special effects, the editing, which has no discernible rhythm, or the flaccid screenplay. Read full review