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[Prospero]

As a comic-book movie, Dick Tracy is pretty much forgotten. When it came out it didn't do well in theaters because it didn't have the gloominess of Tim Burton's Batman (or at least that's what I thought at the time).

I watched it this weekend, having not seen it in ten years (probably). These days I actually prefer it to Batman: I think it's held up a lot better over time.

The visual effects look patently fake, but deliberately so--criticizing their fakeness is missing the point. They look like early 20th-century comics, and they're really, really pretty--that's the point. No CG--all miniatures, mattes, and optical effects.

Look at that image composition--again, it looks just like something out of a comic book, more so than images from any other comic book movie during that period. Dick Tracy was shot by Vittorio Storaro, who photographed Apocalypse Now.

Great makeup effects as well--you can sense the identity of the original actors beneath the makeup, but they still seem suitably deformed and strange. Al Pacino got a Best Supporting Actor nomination (basically by sending up his roles in other movies, but it works). The cast has the kinds of actors you'd have never expected to see in this kind of movie--Warren Beatty, Dustin Hoffman, James Caan, Paul Sorvino, Dick Van Dyke, Charles Durning... the list goes on.

Madonna is the movie's weak link, but she performs songs written for the movie by Stephen Sondheim, and those songs are ace. The plot is also pretty sloppy (the big reveal that

Spoiler

No-Face

is actually

Spoiler

Breathless Mahoney

doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as far as I can tell), but somehow it's hard for me to care too much about that.

The DVD is utter crap--the video quality's not very good, and sometimes craps out when representing the film's bright colors. And there are zero extras. Arguably it's in the wrong aspect ratio as well--Warren Beatty (the director) has said that the preferred ratio is 4:3, the aspect ratio of a single panel of a three-panel newspaper strip, and the DVD has an image that's cropped to 1.85:1. Maybe someday we'll get a special edition, but I doubt it. Still worth checking out, though--if you dismissed it back when it came out, give it another chance. You may be surprised.

 

[Diablos]

Can you believe 1990 was 15 years ago? Jesus.

 

[Foreign Jackass]

Dick Tracy was a great, great flick. I was completely entranced by it when I was young, and again when I saw it a couple of years later. I should really give it another try to see if it ages as well as you're saying. As for the original Batman movie, well, I thought for a long time that it was great, but after watching it being older, I think it pretty much sucks except for the visuals, which are better in Dick Tracy anyway.

Warren Beatty rarely (not NEVER, but rarely) gets involved in bad projects. As for Tim Burton, well, I was pretty much a great admirer of his, but now he seems very gimmicky to me.

 

[Crow]

Can you believe 1990 was 15 years ago? Jesus.

Well I sure as hell hope it was or i'm living in the wrong year.

But yeah, Dick Tracy was a good film, havent seen it for many years though and had just about forgotten it.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

The best reason to see this film:

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I liked the movie a lot. It took some liberties with Dick Tracy's universe (notably, each of the bad guys in it was a badass in his own right in the comics, rather than just henchemn)-- but that's forgivable for the brillian visuals. It's also a great performance of understated camp by Beatty.

And Dustin Hoffman's brief role, particularly the interrogation scene, is brilliant.

Thumbs up. This makes me want to go grab the DVD.

 

[Prospero]

It's also a great performance of understated camp by Beatty.

I like the fistfights, where every single punch that Beatty throws is a full-on haymaker.