This flawed masterpiece charts a brooding course for fantasy

Audaciously, Batman leaves comic-book flicks such as Superman and Conan behind like dust particles blown aside in Batman's winged wake.

Tim Burton's film succeeds because it explodes tired, old myths and invents dangerous new ones.
The first myth it shatters - in an instant - is the idea that comic Michael Keaton is incapable of playing the most enigmatic of all superheroes.

From the first second that you glimpse him in ebony black cape, cowl and bullet-proof costume, Keaton is a strange, charismatic presence who embodies both fantasy and humanity in one glowering look and purposeful stride.

The character is indebted to the original concept of Batman - the 1939 vigilante who seeks to avenge his murdered parents. Missing - Holy Cow! - is the nonsensical camp creature that Adam West played on TV. Robin is AWOL - and who cares?

Simultaneously, Batman is updated to contemporary times and given a futuristic twist that makes him as much an expression of our paranoiac '80s as he is a product of pre-WWII America. Keaton's creation is a complex man who wrestles with his inner demons and struggles for a way to express his anger in positive action.

Which leads us to a bitter irony. While he does the unexpected - give Batman three dimensions - Keaton fails to play playboy Bruce Wayne with the same conviction.

That tilts the movie askew when Wayne - Batman's daytime persona - falls in love with Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger), a news photographer hot on Batman's trail. Basinger, all swollen lips, hair and liquid eyes, fights to infuse the romance with life. But Keaton is wishy-washy.

The Joker (Jack Nicholson) - now that's a man with passion! He pursues the heroine with a romantic zest that makes his rival's efforts seem anemic. Of course, The Joker is also demonically psychotic.

So is Nicholson, the actor. Storming the barricades of good taste, he gives one of the most jaw-dropping, eye-popping, brain-busting performances in Hollywood history. He is reined in only when in direct confrontation with Batman himself. They, of course, are two sides of the same dream-nightmare, one good, one evil.

On the way to their epic battle that provides the film with its exhausting climax, Burton and his screenwriters, Sam Hamm and Warren Skaaren, make mistakes. Besides the Wayne dilemma, there are plot implausibilities, a few scenes, such as the Gotham parade, are sluggish, and Prince's songs are even more wimpy than Bruce Wayne.

But the film's strengths tower above mere quibbles. Anton Furst's sensational designs for Gotham City and Batman's lair create a cultural and temporal melange (art deco Blade Runner) that is fantastical but smacks of grim possibility.

The severe lighting reinforces this eerie effect: It looks as if it were shot in crisp black-and-white with The Joker slashing across the screen in shocking pop-art color.

The support cast is impressive, including Michael Gough as the quintessential English butler; Robert Wuhl as the crack crime reporter; Jack Palance as a gangster; and Jerry Hall as an in-joke.