Last year, I took a look at Tim Burton’s 1989 take on Batman—which, while it might seem slightly goofy and overly dripping in purple
rain-flavored eighties-ness for today’s audiences, was a massive deal when it
came out. It single-handedly finished what the Richard Donner Superman film did
a decade before in establishing what we know as the current superhero ‘genre’,
and engaged in an all-out marketing blitz, the likes of which we still see
these days with modern Marvel flicks. And it had an undeniable influence on many
comic-inspired movies after that—indirectly or directly, but an influence
nevertheless. So, let’s take a look at a couple of films that more or less fit
that criteria!
First up is 1990’s Dick Tracy, produced, directed, and
starring Oscar-toting Warren Beatty. This was a passion project for Beatty in
development since the seventies, but Burton Batman had an undeniable
influence—especially when it came to Danny Elfman’s soundtrack, or a similar
marketing storm by Disney. There was even a pop singer attached to it much like
Prince with Batman—in this case, Madonna. Which, er, we’ll get to. Still, we
had a director and lead believing in the project, we had a classic story of a
detective clad inexplicably in banana yellow taking on over the top gangsters,
how did it turn out?
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| Then again, if your roads are bright green, you're either in Chernobyl or something else has gone badly wrong. |
The most striking aspect of the film, again much like Batman, is the visuals. Beatty went out of his way to replicate the look of the original 1930s Dick Tracy comic strips, with lots of primary colors from costumes to props, heavy use of matte paintings, and overall a very striking style. It’s actually not half bad and pretty memorable, with just the right lighting to make it not look totally ridiculous. This extends to the bad guys, who, from Al Pacino’s main bad guy Big Boy to all the henchmen, all have some grotesque or weird physical feature done with elaborate makeup…hey, it’s based on a thirties comic strip, whaddya expect.
Speaking of Pacino, he’s also one of the highlights.
Considering how much latex is slathered onto his face, it’s impressive that he
constantly remains his usual barking self—and he sure seems to be having fun
with the role, which may not be a torrent of cursing like Tony Montana, but
it’s no less demented.
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| I had much the same response to Jack and Jill too. |
Unfortunately, the film starts to falter elsewhere. Beatty is fine, and you can tell he’s giving the role his all…but Dick himself isn’t a super-interesting character. He’s a good cop, dedicated to the law (well, except when it comes to interrogating crooks, but again, thirties comic strip), dedicated to his love Tess Truheart (Glenne Headley)…and that’s more or less the way he stays. Sure, he gets into predicaments, and there’s the ongoing plot of him adopting a street urchin (Charlie Korsmo), but being entirely clad in banana yellow, there’s not quite the screen presence Batman usually has either. Yeah, this is probably being loyal to the two-fisted square-jawed old-timey comic character, but at the same time, sometimes it’s best to expand the source material.
And then there’s Madonna. This was around her career height,
when she was putting out pretentious BSDM-themed music videos with whisper-singing
lyrics about snorting chili out of belly buttons or something, and all that,
and, well, we can all joke given how her filmography looks. Everyone loved
Evita, right? Hey, how about that Die Another Day cameo? But truthfully…she’s
not that bad here. Her character, lounge singer Breathless Maloney, is the one
that actually has a real character arc throughout, even if it mostly revolves
around apparently trying to get into Tracy’s pants. Still, it has twists and
turns, as she plays different parties against each other, and has the strongest beats to it.
The film has a bunch of other surprising roles, like Dustin
Hoffman of all people, who plays informant Mumbles…who does just that through
the whole thing. Hell, even Dick Van Dyke shows up as a corrupt DA. Still…with
all the marketing, the stars, and style, the film, while not an outright flop,
didn’t match Batman’s numbers, which basically made it a failure in Disney’s
eyes. Maybe the character wasn’t as ingrained as the Bat, maybe it just didn’t
have the same edge as Burton, who knows.
Beatty has remained committed to a sequel to this day, even
doing a weird special with Leonard Maltin in character as Tracy just to retain
the rights. Given that the film isn’t the brightest in pop culture memory and
Beatty’s age…I frankly doubt it’ll see the light of day, but never say never I
guess.
Overall, Dick Tracy is alright—it’s worth it more for the
style than the substance, but if the whole cartoony exaggerated painting
old-school gangland looks strike something with you, give it a watch. I
wouldn’t rank it as high as other throwback comic book adaptations of the
nineties like Rocketeer, but you can do plenty worse. Next time, we take a
look at something that’s even more obscure, starring Liam ‘I’m coming for ya’
Neeson…
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