Word: vale
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...inarticulate knowingness all mixed up -- as the singer's nymphet bride. All these authenticities fitfully but forcefully remind us that back in the enervated '50s, there were certain unspeakably raunchy things in life and fantasy that Jerry Lee Lewis put us in touch with while Johnny Mathis and Jerry Vale were otherwise engaged...
Scarred by his childhood memories, Wayne remains distant from the rest of the world. At his own black-tie benefit, Wayne wanders around without speaking to his guests, and when the gorgeous blonde photographer Vicky Vale (Kim Bassinger) asks where she can find the host, he gives her a confused look and conceals his identity. Later, when he invites Vale to dinner, they sit at opposite ends of a long table, unable to see or hear each other...
This is a Keaton familiar from earlier comedies like Beetlejuice. He gets to deliver only a few amusing lines--notably in a scene with Vale and newspaper reporter Alexander Knox (Robert Wohl)--but he delivers them well. And Keaton has a beautifully expressive face; he's fun to watch when the script supports him. Sadly, however, it seldom does...
...Joker is a pycho who finds humor in everything, but especially in killing people. ("I am the world's first fully functioning homicidal artist," he tells Vale.) For the Joker, killing is a release of the pain and boredom of his pretoxic-waste life as a big-time gangster. In his own way, he is as driven as Batman...
THERE isn't really much of a story to Batman. In the grand comic book tradition, the movie simply focuses on a series of confrontations between Batman and the Joker. None of the other characters have any depth, particularly Vale, who seems to exist only to be terrorized by the Joker and rescued by Batman...