Product Description

Jack Nicholson is the Joker, who emerged from a horrible accident as a maniacal criminal. Michael Keaton is the Caped Crusader, who emerged from a childhood trauma to become a masked crimefighter. Kim Basinger is Vicki Vale, the talented photojournalist desired by both men. And Batman is the movie, the all-out spectacular directed by Tim Burton, set to songs by Prince and a music score by Danny Elfman, and an Academy AwardO winner* for Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (Anton Furst and Peter Young).

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:Commentary by director Tim Burton
Documentaries:Legends of the Dark Knight Shadows of the Bat: The Cinematic Saga of the Dark Knight Parts 1-3 Beyond Batman Documentary Gallery
Featurette:On the Set with Bob Kane Shadows of the Bat Pts. 1-3 Batman: The Heroes and Villains Gallery
Music Video:Partyman by Prince Batdance by Prince Scandalous by Prince
Theatrical Trailer

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11884 in DVD
• Brand: KEATON,MICHAEL
• Released on: 2009-02-10
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 126 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Thanks to the ambitious vision of director Tim Burton, the blockbuster hit of 1989 delivers the goods despite an occasionally spotty script, giving the caped crusader a thorough overhaul in keeping with the crime fighter's evolution in DC Comics. Michael Keaton strikes just the right mood as the brooding "Dark Knight" of Gotham City; Kim Basinger plays Gotham's intrepid reporter Vicki Vale; and Jack Nicholson goes wild as the maniacal and scene-stealing Joker, who plots a takeover of the city with his lethal Smilex gas. Triumphant Oscar-winning production design by the late Anton Furst turns Batman into a visual feast, and Burton brilliantly establishes a darkly mythic approach to Batman's legacy. Danny Elfman's now-classic score propels the action with bold, muscular verve. --Jeff Shannon

DVD features
Released on DVD the year the Batman franchise was resurrected with Batman Begins, the first four of the Warner Brothers live-action films receive slick reissues, all with a Wayne Manor-sized amount of extras. The 40-minute feature on the history of Batman is deft and conclusive--they talk to all the right people. The three-part documentary on the making of the first film is even better. Every time you think you are not going to hear new interviews, there pops Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. Everyone seems to have had a grand time on the set, and those vibes continue more than a decade later; even Sean Young is good-natured when interviewed about a last-minute injury that led to Kim Basinger being cast as Vicki Vale. Candid comments from producers Peter Guber and Jon Peters also help. Tim Burton's free-following commentary only mentions the footage you are seeing briefly; it's more of a two-hour riff about his memories of filming and a must-listen for his fans. There's lots of other stuff including an unfilmed storyboard sequence introducing Robin. The film itself is upgraded by a remastered print and a new DTS soundtrack. --Doug Thomas

Customer Reviews

Tim Burton's Vision of Batman...at Last with Special Features!
The worldwide success of Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins" has prompted Warner Bros. to finally release Tim Burton's 1989 "Batman" with an extra disc of special features...and this is an event worth cheering about!

A groundbreaking cinematic achievement (and one of the most expensive films ever produced, to that time), "Batman" was a tremendous gamble, and the story behind the ten-year struggle to bring it to the screen is fascinating! It is a tale of visionaries, beginning with Michael Uslan, a young student/Batman fan, who not only convinced his university to include comics in their curriculum, but, fired up by Richard Donner's "Superman", knew a Batman film could be just as powerful, and took the idea, with Batman creator Bob Kane's blessing, to Hollywood; of Peter Gruber and Jon Peters, who listened to Uslan, after every studio had passed on it, saw the potential, and decided to gamble; of Sam Hamm, who had a "Batman" script in his head, praying to get the chance to write it; and, most importantly, of Tim Burton, whose dark, quirky sensibilities made him THE director to film it, despite only two feature films to his credit.

This remarkable story, with archival footage and new interviews, is the highlight of disc two, but there is much, much more! Did you know that Robin was scripted to make an appearance in the first film? That Sean Young, not Kim Basinger, had been cast as Vicki Vale? That the Batmobile, designed by Oscar-winner Anton Furst, could actually do 95 mph (and that Tim Burton drove it, once?) That the room where disfigured Jack Nicholson received his unsuccessful plastic surgery was actually a studio prop room? Each chapter is a revelation!

Not that there aren't a few disappointments in the presentation; there is no chapter with deleted scenes (although a few moments are shown that never made it into the finished film...a little girl, seeing Batman, asks, in all seriousness, "Is it Halloween?", which causes him to pause, and grin); the 'History' of Batman, despite a wealth of photos and clips from the comics, serials, and graphic novels, does not offer a single visual from the campy 60s TV series (whether this was a refusal by 20th Century Fox, who produced the series, to permit their use, or an attempt to distance the movie from the "ZAP! BAM! POW!" silliness is not explained). Also, the brief appearance of screen legend Jack Palance, as 'Boss Grissom', is largely ignored, other than in Tim Burton's audio commentary, which is surprising. Still, many of the cast share their memories (Billy Dee Williams still expresses disappointment that he didn't get to play 'Two-Face'; Robert Wuhl, regret that after they rewrote his death scene to allow his character to survive, he never appeared in another film in the franchise).

I guess what I'm saying, is...chuck your old copy of "Batman", and replace it with THIS one!

You'll be glad you did!

A Modern Classic
This film proved to the world that comic book films could be much more than action-packed carnage festivals. This film (and the first sequel "Batman Returns") have so much more to it than that. "Batman" is a gripping and very moving exploration of the psyche; it peers into the souls of not only the Dark Knight, but also those of the people whose lives he changes with his presence. The film is brilliantly acted by its perfectly-chosen cast, which includes Jack Nicholson (the Joker), Michael Keaton (the Batman), Kim Basinger (Vicki Vale), Micheal Gough (Alfred Pennyworth), and Robert Wuhl (Alexander Knox). Tim Burton makes perfect use of his wonderful directorial talents, Anton Furst designs a gothic, beautiful Gotham City, and Danny Elfman's classic musical score further help make this a unique, thought-provoking, and very powerful modern classic, a masterpiece of film noir and grand opera. "Batman Returns shares these wonderful qualities, but, sadly, Joel Schumacher's "Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin" lose all of that depth and meaning, and become little more than standard mindless action. But, we'll always have Burton's dark vision of a haunted and brooding Batman.

I'd forgotten how good this movie was!
If you want to look at a superhero adaptation done right look no further than this movie or the latest Spiderman movies. After watching the last two Batman flicks, I had kind of written the series off, but watching this on TV the other night I realized that I had forgotten how good this was. Michael Keaton was perfect as Batman, if you think about it Bruce Wayne is not the most tightly wrapped guy out there, he dresses up as a giant flying rodent and runs around at night in Gotham City beating up on criminals, and Keaton captured this essence perfectly. Kim Basinger was great as Vicki Vale and Jack Nicholson was awesome as the Joker. indeed I'd have to say that this is the last good performance that Nicholson did, after this movie he phoned everything in and cashed in on his Jack Nicholson act.
In addition to a well-written script (the only contrived part being the fact that the Joker had killed Bruce Wayne's parents years before) the sets for this movie were totally cool and like nothing else we had seen at the time. Tim Burton was still a young and fresh director and Danny Elfman scores hadn't become tiring. If this movie looks a bit stale now it's only because so many other movies have imitated it and because Burton and Elfman have become one-trick ponies. However when you look at it as the leader of a cinematic vanguard of action movies you realize how good it is.