Analyzing Superhero Films: A Comparison of The Crow and Batman

A superhero film is a type of film adapted from another type of literature, comic books, that focuses on the life and actions of an extraordinary person. This individual usually has superhuman abilities, such as the ability to fly or superhuman strength. Although the abilities of superheroes tend to vary a lot, one thing is always constant in these films, heroism. Now not all heroes are the epitome of morality and always do the right thing, but this theme is hidden throughout the films.

For instance, The Crow (1994) is an excellent example of a superhero film that falls into the grey area between being super pure and evil because, in the movie, he exacts revenge on the people who murdered and tortured himself and his wife.

He is fighting against crime and stopping the thugs, which is something a hero would do, but at the same time, he is brutally murdering them in a fashion like how the thugs killed him and his wife. Batman (1989) is another superhero film that follows the protagonist Bruce Wayne who by day is a millionaire, but by night is Gotham City’s masked vigilante who goes against the law to fight crime. These films share similarities; however, the directors of each film had different approaches towards the stories they wanted to adapt for the respected superhero fandoms. Although The Crow (1994) directed by Alex Proyas shares many similarities with the Batman (1989) directed by Tim Burton, Batman (1989) is more effective at capturing the essence of what makes a superhero film astonishing through the film’s mise en scene, foreshadowing, and the establishment of the hero and villain’s origins.

While viewing both films’ components of mise en scene such as the camera angles, lighting, and even the color palette help create symbolic meaning throughout the movies.

In both films, the movie starts with camera angles overviewing the city in which the movie takes place. This helps to establish the setting of both films so the audience can get a visual of the new world they are being introduced to in both films. In The Crow (1994), the director incorporates point of view scenes from Eric Draven and the crow in the movie. These POV scenes help symbolize the connection between Draven and the crow because later in the film, the audience finds out the source of his supernatural powers comes from the crow. In Batman (1989), the director chose not to shoot any POV scenes and instead focused more on developing the characters Bruce Wayne and Jack Napier, who later turns into the Joker. For example, when Napier falls into the cauldron of green acid at the Access Chemical factory, he turns into the villain of the film, the Joker, and his entire personality changes along with his wardrobe. He is no longer this dull and uninteresting thug, and instead is this louder and more animated person with more of a sense of humor. Even the sudden wardrobe change symbolizes this change in the person Napier once was because before he wore darker suits and did not stand out, but after the incident, he dresses in an all-purple suit, and his hair turns green from the chemicals. This helps convey the message that Napier has transformed and is unpredictable after this moment in the film. It may also hint at the fact that Napier might have some dual personality disorder. There is another scene in this movie that gives the audience insight into who Wayne relies on for everything in his life. The scene at Bruce Wayne’s benefit Vicki Vale is searching for him, and he lies to her about who he is and then goes to his butler Alfred for information on who she is. Wayne also has him do other things for him in the film and asks for his advice because he is the only stable person he has in his life. The audience learns that Alfred is the only family he has left later in the film and that not only Bruce Wayne, but Batman is very dependent on Alfred also. The only real connection we get with Eric Draven in The Crow (1994) is during the transformation scene when we get flooded with all his flashbacks about the worse night of his life. Throughout the rest of this film, Draven is just tracking down his enemies and murdering them. The audience does not get to see other sides of Draven much other than the quick moments with the little girl, Sarah, who lacks character development in the film, so viewers do not really form a connection to her. The lack of character development in The Crow (1994) through mise en scene does not compare to the development in Batman (1989), which is why it surpasses The Crow (1994) in the mise en scene category.

Foreshadowing is largely used in both films but in slightly different ways. In Batman (1989), there is a scene near the beginning of the movie that shows a family of three trying to get a taxi in downtown Gotham. This family tries getting a taxicab but struggle to find one and end up walking down a dark alleyway. Two thugs come out of the darkness and rob them, knocking over the father of the child. This foreshadows a similar experience Bruce Wayne went through as a child with his parents, and the audience later finds out that is how his parents died. Jack Napier has a foreshadowing scene as well before he is turned into the Joker. He is in a meeting with Grissom, who is his boss, and Napier dressed in a dark all-purple suit and playing with the joker playing card. This scene is foreshadowing Napier’s transformation into the Joker and the cause of why he is the one who is sent to Access Chemical. The joker card has a hole in it, and Napier looks through it as the elevator opens to see Jerry Hall, Grissom’s girlfriend, who Napier is having an affair with. The hole in the playing card eludes to the fact that Grissom found out about the two and sent Napier there to be killed by the corrupt cops Grissom has on payroll. Now in The Crow (1994), foreshadowing is used more subtly and is easier to miss if the audience is not paying much attention to the scene. An example of this would be right before the thugs trash the arcade, T-Bird talks about how Lake Eerie caught on fire once from all the pollution in it, and he wishes he could have seen that. Then later in the film, he gets locked into his car that drives off a pier into a lake and explodes. This foreshadowing was done all through dialogue, which makes it easy to miss while in Batman (1989), it is more prominent and visual.

One of the essential parts of any superhero film is the origin stories. The background information about the hero and the villains are crucial because this information is what helps the audience relate and understand the characters before they see all the decisions the characters make throughout the movie. In The Crow (1994), the audience is shown the ‘transformation’ scene when Eric Draven is guided to his old apartment, where he was killed along with his wife. The crow guides him here, and the audience, along with Draven, gets bombarded with flashbacks of his old life. This is where he becomes the Crow and is the origin of his new life as a supernatural avenger. However, in this film, the audience does not get much of an origin story of the thugs that killed Draven and his wife or of the leader of the gang. The Crow (1994) lacks that background information about the villains that Batman (1989) does not. In Batman, the director shows the creation of the Joker, who, contrary to the actual comic book, is created by Batman. Batman drops Jack Napier into the green acid, and the Joker is born. Then later in the film, the audience learns that the person who set Bruce Wayne on this path to becoming Batman was no one other than Jack Napier himself. This was a very brilliant choice because, in a way, it makes Batman and his greatest nemesis, the Joker interconnected, and these characters overlap. Even in the dialogue of the scene where Wayne comes over to Vicki Vale’s apartment, it is eerily similar to the Joker’s dialogue when he interrupts them. Wayne says, ‘Nice apartment. Lots of space.’ when he enters her apartment and when the Joker comes, he says, ‘Nice place, lots of space.’ Almost the exact same words to show how intertwined these characters are, and this is right before Wayne realizes the Joker killed his parents. So by developing the origins of the main characters of a superhero film, the audience gets a deeper understanding of the conflict between the two, and in Batman (1989), this is done exceptionally well. In The Crow (1994), the director did a great job with Draven’s origin story, but for the villains in that movie, they did not develop through the film. They were just thugs working for the leader of the gang, Top Dollar, and the audience never really gets to know him, unlike the Joker in Batman (1989).

Batman (1989) was more effective at resembling what a superhero film should be, but The Crow (1994) cannot be discredited. The Crow (1994) has most elements of a superhero film, and the symbolism used within the film was magnificent. However, Batman’s (1989) use of mise en scene, foreshadowing, and establishment of origin stories for both the villain and the hero surpass The Crow (1994). The remarkable thing about both these films is they are adaptations of original comic books, and even though they do not entirely stick to the comics, it gives fans as well as new viewers a chance to see their favorite characters in a new artform.