Batman 1989

Released Year: 1989

Directed by Tim Burton

Casted by:

 Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman

Jack Nicholson as Jack Napier/The Joker

Kim Basinger as Vicki Vale

 Story:

The mayor of Gotham City orders district attorney Harvey Dent and Commissioner Gordon to increase police activity and combat crime in preparation for the city's 200th anniversary. Newspaper reporter Alexander Knox and photojournalist Vicki Vale begin to investigate reports of an elusive dark vigilante nicknamed "Batman", who is also targeting criminals in an effort to clean up the city.

Mob boss Carl Grissom, who has already been targeted by Dent, discovers his mistress is involved with his second-in-command, Jack Napier. With the help of corrupt policeman Max Eckhardt, Grissom sets up Napier to be murdered during a raid at the Axis Chemicals plant. During the ensuing shootout, Eckhardt is killed by Napier after which Batman suddenly appears. The two struggle, and Napier is accidentally knocked into a vat of chemical waste. Batman flees, and Napier is thought to be dead.

Batman is in actuality billionaire industrialist Bruce Wayne, an orphan who lives in the large mansion Wayne Manor with his butler Alfred Pennyworth. Bruce later meets and falls for Vicki at a fundraiser, and the two begin a relationship. Napier is revealed to have survived the accident. Following a botched attempt to repair physical damage from exposure to chemical waste, Napier is horribly disfigured with chalk-white skin, emerald-green hair and a permanent ruby-red grin. Calling himself the "Joker", he kills Grissom and usurps his criminal empire, making the Axis plant his headquarters.

The Joker begins to spread terror in the city, first by lacing hygiene products with a deadly chemical known as "Smilex", which causes victims to laugh to death when used in certain combinations. The Joker then sets a trap at the Gotham Museum of Art for Vicki, and he and his henchmen vandalize the surrounding works of art. Batman arrives and rescues Vicki, and the pair escape in the Batmobile. Batman gives information about Smilex to Vicki so she can warn the city via Gotham newspapers about the poisoned products.

The Joker begins plans to eliminate Batman. After recalling the Joker earlier asking him "Have you ever danced with the devil by the pale moonlight?" and remembering hearing the same quote as a child, Bruce discovers that the Joker (as Napier) is also the man who murdered his parents. Vicki suddenly appears in the Batcave, having been let in by Alfred. After avouching himself to Vicki, Bruce—as Batman—leaves to destroy the Axis Chemical plant. Meanwhile, planning to use poison gas to murder citizens, the Joker lures the townspeople to a nighttime parade with a promise to give away $20 million in cash. Batman arrives on the scene and saves Gotham City from the attack, but the Joker kidnaps Vicki and takes her to the top of Gotham City's Cathedral.

Batman pursues the two, and at the top of the dusty edifice, the two adversaries confront each other in single combat. When the Joker attempts an escape via a helicopter, Batman secures the Joker's leg to a heavy stone sculpture, causing the Joker to fall from the helicopter and plummet to his doom. Following the Joker's death, Commissioner Gordon unveils the Bat-Signal along with a note from Batman read by Harvey Dent, promising to defend Gotham whenever crime strikes again. 

 L² Scored: 10/10

L² Comment:

This would most likely the best ever Batman movie made throughout so many years, the rival totally outstand Batman's character. Is it because Nicholson is much more famous than Keaton at that time? Maybe... but definitely the acting and everything, hands down to Nicholson. And of course, this is always my favourit-st batman movie ever~ :)

Dark Shadows

 Released Year: 2012

Directed by Tim Burton

 

Casted by:

Johnny Depp as Barnabas Collins

Eva Green as Angelique Bouchard

Michelle Pfeiffer as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard

Bella Heathcote as Victoria Winters

Helena Bonham Carter as Dr. Julia Hoffman

 Story:

In 1760, the Collins family migrates to America from Liverpool and sets up a fishing port in Maine, naming it Collinsport. Sixteen years later in 1776 the son, Barnabas (Johnny Depp), has an affair with a maid, Angelique Bouchard, who is a witch infatuated with him since childhood. When he tells her he doesn't love or want her, Angelique kills his parents. Barnabas then falls in love with Josette du Pres. In a fit of jealousy, Angelique bewitches Josette into leaping from a cliff to her death. Barnabas leaps after her in grief, but he survives because Angelique turns him into an immortal vampire. She rouses a mob to capture and bury Barnabas alive in a chained coffin in the woods and curses his family.

One hundred ninety-six years later, in the year 1972, construction workers accidentally free Barnabas from his coffin, who reluctantly slakes his two-century thirst by feeding on and killing his rescuers. He makes his way back to his manor to find it inhabited by his dysfunctional descendants and their servants—the family matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard; her brother Roger; her 15-year-old daughter Carolyn; Roger's 10-year-old son David; Dr. Julia Hoffman, David's psychiatrist; Willie Loomis, the manor's caretaker; and Victoria Winters, David's newly hired governess and Josette's reincarnation. Upon convincing Elizabeth of his identity by revealing a secret treasure room behind the fireplace, Barnabas is allowed to stay under the condition that he never reveal either the room or the fact that he is a vampire to the rest of the family. At breakfast, Elizabeth makes him out to be "Barnabas Collins III", a distant relative from England who has come to restore the family's business and reputation in town. Barnabas becomes very deeply attracted to Victoria, whom he briefly mistakes for his lost Josette, and immediately begins to pursue her romantically.

As Barnabas helps revitalize the Collins' fishery and manor, he is approached by Angelique, who has used her powers to establish a successful rival fishery, called Angel Bay, and live through the decades by posing as her own descendants. She tries to win him back, later convincing him to make wild, passionate love with her, but he still rejects her, as he loves Victoria. He continues to restore his family's name by inviting the entire town to a party at the manor featuring Alice Cooper (whom Barnabas mistakes for a female due to Cooper's name), where Victoria reveals to Barnabas that her parents committed her to an insane asylum, (under her real name "Maggie Evans"), as a child because she could see and talk to an invisible friend, (Josette's ghost). They kiss and confess their feelings to each other, unknowingly enraging Angelique who has witnessed the scene.

Meanwhile, Dr. Hoffman has discovered Barnabas' true nature after hypnotizing him. She convinces him to try an experimental procedure to become a regular human again via blood transfusions using her own blood, but her real intent is to use his blood to become a vampire to avoid aging. Upon discovering this betrayal, Barnabas drains her to death and dumps her in the ocean. Barnabas catches Roger trying to find the secret room and exposes Roger's lack of interest in his son. Barnabas makes him choose between being a good father to David, or leaving the family with sufficient funding to satisfy his greed. Roger chooses to leave, deeply wounding his son's feelings. Immediately afterwards, Barnabas rescues David from a falling disco ball and stumbles into a beam of sunlight, burning his skin and exposing his secret to the horrified children and Victoria.

Later that night, Angelique calls Barnabas into her office, coaxes him into confessing Dr. Hoffman's murder, and traps him in another coffin that she leaves in his family's crypt until she decides to let him out again. She then burns down the Collins' canning factory and plays a recording of the murder confession to the police and gathered townsfolk, once more turning them against the family. Angie leads the mob to Collinwood to arrest the family, but Barnabas is rescued from the coffin by David and shows up at the manor, attacking her in front of the mob, thereby exposing both his and her true natures. As the townspeople disperse, Angelique sets fire to the manor and admits her role in the family's curse, including turning Carolyn into a werewolf and killing David's mother at sea. Barnabas and the Collins family fight Angelique until David summons his mother's vengeful ghost. The ghost gives a single scream which knocks Angelique into a chandelier.

Before she dies she pulls out her heart and offers it to Barnabas; he refuses the heart, trying to make her admit she didn't really love him, she just wanted to possess him, and it shatters as Angelique dies. Barnabas then discovers that Angelique has bewitched Victoria into jumping off of Widow's Hill, the same cliff Josette did. Barnabas arrives moments before Victoria is about to jump and breaks her hypnosis, but she reveals she wanted to fall. She pleads with him to make her a vampire so that they can remain together forever, but he refuses. She then casts herself off, forcing him to follow and bite her to save her life, and Victoria wakes up as a vampire. As the two kiss on the rocks in the waves, the film ends with an underwater scene showing a school of fish swimming away from Hoffman, who suddenly revives due to managing to make it far enough into the transfusions.

 L² Scored: 6.5/10

 

L² Comment:

As usual, Tim Burton's movie is funny but this movie has a lot of negative feedback and it dowsn't seems to work this time. For me the storyline is ok, but in the end the add on of the warewolf seems to spoil the whole movie... anyway, i still love Depp :)

Alice in Wonderland

Released Year: 2010

Directed by Tim Burton

Casted by:
Mia Wasikowska as Alice Kingsleigh
Johnny Depp as Mad Hatter
Helena Bonham Carter as Iracebeth, Red Queen
Anne Hathaway as Mirana, White Queen
Crispin Glover as Knave of Hearts
Story:

Since young, Alice Kingsleigh has been having the same weird dream till she's 19 years old. Alice attend a surprise propose wedding by Hamish Ascot, unable to make her decision, Alice excused herself and bump into a talking rabbit. Therefore, she chased after the rabbit till she fell into a hole beside a tree.

After a long fall, she got onto the base of the hole. She saw the shrink potion and drank it to escape through a small door. After Alice passed through the small entrance, she met Nivens McTwisp the white rabbit, Mallymkun the dormouse, Uilleam the dodo, Tweedledum and Tweedleldee the twins. The gang are not sure whether she's the real "Alice" that they are looking for, so they brought her to meet Absolem the caterpillar. Absolem claimed that she's not the full Alice they are looking at. Absolem also announced that on the Frabjous day, a heroin name Alice will slay the Red Queen's Jabberwocky.

While escorting Alice to see Mirana, the gang was attacked by Red Queen's army led by Knave of Hearts. Alice finally escaped when the dormouse stabs out the eye of Bandersnatch, a big fierce dog who attacked them. Alice was left behind and bump into the Cheshire Cat who took her to a tea party organized by Mad Hatter, March Hare & the dormouse. When Hatter is explaining what's "Alice" for, Knave of Hearts came with his troop. Mad Hatter gave Alice shrink potion and hide her in a teapot. Later on, Hatter brought Alice to look for Mirana on his hat. Mad Hatter again was caught by the army and went to make hat for the red queen.

Alice decided to look for Mad Hatter and gangs in red queen's castle. She managed to got the sword and save others from chain. They went to white queen castle and Alice was request to be the warrior who saly Jabberwocky but rejected by Alice. In the end, Alice took up the offer and fought with Jabberwocky in the Frabjous day. Alice managed to slay jabberwocky in the end and bring the crown back to white queen. White queen decided to chain her sister, red queen with knave of Heart together and shall not return to wonderland in the rest of their life.

Alice was back to the reality again, she rejected the proposed but becomes an apprentice for Lord Ascot in his business.

L² Scored: 7/10

L² Comment:

I have been watching the cartoon version since i was a kid, i still remember i got a video tape of it :) But apparently, Walt Disney decided to present a different version to the fans by working with Tim Burton. Burton of coz with his creative thoughts brought us a real good movie.

And i must say, Helena the red queen is so damn cool~ i jst cant stop laughing when i saw her big head~ And johnny depp still maintain his cockiness and anne hathaway brought me surprises too~ overall, this is the movie i will never miss on the big-screen :)