Jack Nicholson's performance in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman is the grain alcohol punch that, as at a college party, gets you drunk enough to think you're having a great time only to wake up the next morning in a pool of stale vomit, with a pounding hangover and a dick drawn on your forehead in Sharpie.
Director Tim Burton may be one of the most frustrating figures in modern cinema. The man is obviously brilliant, and yet rarely makes a great or even good film. Nor has he produced a true masterpiece, something on the level of David Cronenberg's The Fly, David Lynch's Mulholland Drive or even Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight.
Batman is a perfect example of Burton's weakness: style over story.