The Dark Knight evolves

Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy comes to an end with next Friday's release of The Dark Knight Rises. And whatever the quality of the film, it is safe to say Nolan's participation in the franchise was nothing short of its salvation.

To understate: Batman has inspired radically different interpretations on film for a single hero.

Let's recap:

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The Dark Knight Rises

Batman (1966)

"Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb."

-- Batman (Adam West) attempting to be rid of a smoking, bowling ball-type explosive device.

The TV series Batman (1966-68) took an entirely campy approach to the vigilante hero created by Bob Kane in 1939, playing up Batman's goody two-shoes heroism to the extent that he and "Boy Wonder" Robin (Burt Ward) weren't even vigilantes. "Batman and Robin are fully deputized agents of the law," blusters Commissioner Gordon at one point in the movie.

This was all very well. The campy tone was appropriate for its time, and if star Adam West cut a singularly unimpressive figure in his Batsuit, his stolid delivery was very funny. The movie's cast of villains was actually impressive with Burgess Meredith as The Penguin, erstwhile Latin lover Cesar Romero as the Joker, comic-impressionist Frank Gorshin as The Riddler and, alas, Lee Meriwether -- a poor substitute for the original Julie Newmar -- as Catwoman.

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Batman (1966) (CP)

Batman (1989)

"I'm only laughing on the outside / My smile is just skin deep / If you could see inside I'm really crying / You might join me for a weep."

-- The Joker (Jack Nicholson) recites a poem to Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger).

When director Tim Burton signed on to reintroduce Batman to motion pictures, he came in with three advantages. 1: His own personal predilection for gothic style synced with the big-budget interpretation of the Caped Crusader. 2: He already had fruitful relationships with controversially-cast actor Michael Keaton (from Beetlejuice) and composer Danny Elfman, who would create an indelible heroic theme. 3: He got Jack Nicholson as The Joker at the point in that actor's career where his sardonic style, shamelessly amplified, lent itself to Joker's over-the-top villainy. Burton was reportedly inspired by Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns in adding shades of horror (as in Miller's comic book, the Joker is nothing less than a mass murderer) but still retained a bit of camp humour from the Adam West incarnation.

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Batman (1989)

Batman Returns (1992)

"I was their number 1 son, and they treated me like number 2."

-- The Penguin (Danny De Vito) recalls his tragic childhood.

Tim Burton and Michael Keaton returned to the franchise with Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman and Danny De Vito as a deformed, bile-spewing Penguin. Burton gets biblical: The Penguin, rejected in his infancy by his wealthy parents, wants to revenge himself on Gotham City by claiming every first-born child, even as he runs for political office. Meanwhile, Michelle Pfeiffer's punkish Catwoman pings kinky as she trades blows and provocative glances with Batman. The sequel was so excessive in style and tone, Burton didn't have anywhere else to take the hero, which unfortunately led to the franchise being placed in unworthy hands ...

Batman Forever (1995)

"It's the car, right? Chicks love the car."

-- Batman (Val Kilmer) repels the advances of rough trade-seeking psychologist Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman).

To the everlasting chagrin of comic book fans everywhere, director Joel Schumacher (St. Elmo's Fire) was hired to take over the franchise from Burton. Adding the character of Robin/Dick Grayson (Chris O'Donnell), Schumacher seems intent on returning Batman to its campy incarnation in the '60s, a direction abetted by special guest villains Jim Carrey as The Riddler (as scientist Edward Nygma, Carrey is obliged to sell a schoolboy crush on Bruce Wayne) and a particularly obnoxious Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face. Schumacher apparently felt that adding lots of fluorescent, day-glo colours to the mix somehow paid homage to the colour comic books, while wilfully ignoring the darker direction the comics had actually taken.

Hey, it could have been worse -- as we would soon see.

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Danny DeVito as The Penguin and Michelle Pfieffer as Catwoman.

Batman and Robin (1997)

"Allow me to break the ice. My name is Freeze. Learn it well, for it's the chilling sound of your doom." -- Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) loves his cold-temperature references.

This is the absolute nadir of the Batman franchise and comic book-inspired movies in general. In 2010, an Empire Magazine poll rated Batman and Robin the worst film of all time, period.

Comic books had become more sophisticated (remember that Alan Moore's Watchmen was written a decade before this movie came out) but Schumacher and writer Akiva Goldsman went completely retrograde retro. Arnold Schwarzenegger was top-billed as Mr. Freeze, burbling one horrible pun after another ("Ice to meet you") while the velvet-voiced George Clooney seemed completely at a loss as he was squeezed into his fetishistic rubber-nippled batsuit. If Robin was an unwelcome addition in the previous film, the addition of Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone) was positively groan-inducing. The best thing that can be said for it is that it gave Clooney a wealth of self-mocking comedy material for years to come.

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Batman and Robin

Batman Begins (2005)

"Bats frighten me. It's time my enemies shared my dread."

-- Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) decides on a style motif.

With challenging films such as Memento and The Prestige under his belt, Christopher Nolan was an unusual choice to reinvent the Batman franchise, but he was a smart one. And certainly brains were necessary, given the brainless direction Schumacher had taken the hero. Nolan's tack was to approach the Batman myth as if it was a realistic premise, giving Christian Bale's tortured hero a tech genius confederate in Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox and a Nietzschean vigilante role model in Liam Neeson's Henri Ducard. The lesser-known villain The Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) was an appropriate choice given the movie's motif of pervasive fear.

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Christian Bale as Batman (HANDOUT / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

The Dark Knight (2008)

"Some men just want to watch the world burn."

-- Alfred (Michael Caine) offers insight into the motivations of The Joker.

With its epic scale and grand portrayal of good vs. evil, this was the best of all the Batman movies so far, with Heath Ledger's mysterious Joker offering the kind of anarchic villainy that can't be explained. The movie ends with the death of the crazed, horribly scarred Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckart), a tragedy for which Batman takes responsibility, rendering him a true outlaw and setting up the franchise for a wrap-up involving an unstoppable killer known as Bane (Tom Hardy) and a reinvented Catwoman (Anne Hathaway).

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition July 14, 2012 G1