Batman

Synopsis

Batman must face his most ruthless nemesis when a deformed madman calling himself "The Joker" seizes control of Gotham's criminal underworld.

100
Washington Post
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.
100
San Francisco Chronicle
It's a rare, beautifully made movie that offers you another world. [23 June 1989, Daily Datebook, p.E1]
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
In short, Batman is terrific - funny, smart and sensitive too, the perfect cinematic date.
80
Variety
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.
70
The New Republic
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]
70
The New Yorker
It has so many unpredictable spins that what's missing doesn't seem to matter much. The images sing. [10 July 1989]
63
ReelViews
Batman is largely content to skim the surface and bask in the light of its visual style.
60
Chicago Reader
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.