Dated effects; darkness; Vicki Vale framing; Keaton-Basinger romance; casting uproar; Prince soundtrack; Gotham Globe newspaper; Keaton’s hair; wasted Billy Dee Williams; Pat Hingle; Robert Wuhl as Knox
The framing of Vicki Vale is flagged as weird and reserved for this category.
Some special effects, like the bat plane flight, feel very 1989.
The film is too dark and literally hard to see in places; The Batman is said to be darker still.
The Keaton-Basinger scenes feel rough; a defense says they convey chemistry and that the Joker is crude and after her.
Keaton’s Bruce is an odd, untraumatized weirdo, so the romance raises the question of why she likes him beyond his money; he is compared to a tech billionaire with a Steve Jobs look, though he had great chemistry with Michelle Pfeiffer in the sequel.
The uproar over casting Keaton, with a reported 50,000 protest letters, is hard to explain today and is contrasted with modern tweet-based hate.
The Prince soundtrack is named, while Trust and Party Man are defended as good songs.
The importance of the Gotham Globe newspaper has dated; the setting feels like both 1989 and 1948, and Gotham is a composite of many cities.
