Way back in Episode 4 of the Film at 11 podcast, I subjected my son Thomas to 1978’s Superman: The Movie. He wasn’t a fan of that one. I suspect his opinion of that left him extremely skeptical when I told him we’d be watching Batman this week. He seemed decidedly less-than-enthused when the movie started. In fact, if you watch the beginning of our new episode, I explain how I tried to fake him out with the wrong movie at first, and he had no reaction at all to that.
Watching the beginning of this episode will also show you how abjectly I’m willing to humiliate myself in a desperate bid for video views. I won’t be doing that again.
For what it’s worth, Thomas eventually came around on the 1989 Batman, but it took him a while to warm up to it. Having been raised on other modern superhero movies, I think he still doesn’t quite grasp how this one completely changed the genre.
| Title: | Batman |
| Year of Release: | 1989 |
| Director: | Tim Burton |
| Watched On: | Blu-ray |
| Also Available On: | 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray HBO Max Roku Channel Various VOD rental and purchase platforms |
The Blu-ray
I’ve previously reviewed the 4K UItra HD Blu-ray edition of Batman on this site (linked at the end of this article). I still have ambivalent feelings about that disc. Although the increase in sharpness and detail is often very impressive, more than most 1080p-to-4K upgrades, I really hate the new teal-and-orange color grade, which tears me right out of the movie on numerous occasions.
For this viewing, I made a conscious decision to watch the older Blu-ray edition from 2009, which I own in both Digibook and SteelBook packaging because the collector impulse sometimes gets the better of me. That disc may not be perfect either, but I think it holds up reasonably well, and I prefer the colors on it. I also knew my son wouldn’t know or care about the difference either way.
The Blu-ray has a full-screen 16:9 transfer, slightly opened up on the top and bottom from the theatrical 1.85:1. (I set my projector’s zoom for 1.85:1 and just masked off the smidge of excess picture.) I won’t pretend the image looks 4K, but it’s acceptably sharp enough to not be distracting. The HDR on the 4K disc makes the Blu-ray seem a little flat and dull in comparison, but the contrast here looks fine judged on its own.
As I said, I prefer the colors on the Blu-ray. They probably could be richer or more vibrant, and a small red shift is noticeable at times, but the disc is mercifully free of the teal atrocity that’s been foisted onto the 4K remaster. (I don’t have the ability to take 4K HDR screenshots yet, but the new Blu-ray included with the 4K disc comes from the same recolored source and amply demonstrates the problem.)
On the older Blu-ray, the film’s soundtrack comes in both lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 and lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1. Frustratingly, the disc defaults to the lossy track unless you change it manually, which you’ll need to do after the movie’s started because the disc also auto-plays right away with no main menu screen. I hate these aspects of the disc.
The TrueHD 5.1 track has a lot of directional surround activity. However, dynamic range is fairly weak overall, which leaves the Danny Elfman score sounding a little thin. I actually got out of my chair during the movie and checked to make sure my primary subwoofer was plugged in and working. (It was.) Many sounds feel like they really ought to have more presence, especially the giant cathedral bells in the film’s climax.
I suppose that may be why the Dolby Atmos remix on the 4K Ultra HD outright replaced some of the sound effects with new substitutes. That practice leaves me with even more mixed feelings. I’m not a fan of it in general, and it causes the 4K version of Batman to suffer huge volume swings where certain sound effects are disproportionately louder than others. The Blu-ray doesn’t have that problem, at least.
The 2009 Blu-ray is loaded with extra content, mostly recycled from DVD. If you pull up the Special Features option in the pop-up menu, a whole page of items will appear. Among these are an old audio commentary by Tim Burton, a bunch of featurettes about the original Batman comic books and the making of this movie, character profiles, storyboards, Prince music videos, and a trailer. All the video content is encoded in standard-definition resolution.
Related
- Batman (1989)
- Other Batman Movies, Etc.
- DC Comics (Other)
- Tim Burton (director)
- Danny Elfman (music)
- Other Awesome Movies of 1989
The Video File Blog 
Hey Josh,
You might want to check out “Flow” on Max or Fandango with your son (it’s rated PG). It’s the Best Animated Picture from 2024; the movie is beautifully animated with some really cool cinematography. The filmmakers don’t explain anything, but do drop some hints story-wise to give the audience an idea as to what happened. The film is a bit esoteric, but I think it would be interesting to see how he responds to a movie without any human characters or dialogue.
The movie doesn’t overstay its welcome and runs a lean 86 minutes. Also, I would try to watch it without any commercials; Max is obnoxious about inserting them at absolutely the wrong time.
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My kids wound up going to a free screening of Flow at a local library, so I won’t be covering it in this podcast (which is for first-time viewings). They enjoyed the movie, though.
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I really enjoyed the intro and found it quite funny. Batman was definitely a game changer for superhero movies. I remember the cool chunky gold bat logo being around before the movie was released. It seems almost like some sort of subliminal way of advertising. The suit not being spandex was also a really fresh idea. I always liked Vicki Vale’s character and was disappointed when she wasn’t in the sequels. It seems the filmmakers always liked having a new disposable dame for every sequel where Bruce has to fall in love and then reveal his Batman identity to them. I can’t remember if the Val Kilmer ones do that. Because of that, I’d rather them leave the love interest out of it. I don’t mind the Atmos mix but I wish studios would include OG audio with all their catalogue stuff. There’s plenty of room for both and it would appease purists and tech enthusiasts alike. Even after all these years, I really enjoy this one a lot. Danny Elfman’s score for this is iconic!
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