Ah yes, this review brought me back to the days when I was 4 and "innocence" was a word I could still associate with myself and not have half a room, including my cat, rolling on the floor laughing til they couldn’t breathe.

The summer of ’89 was a glorious time in everyone’s life. The country was still riding high on the election of the first retarded Cowboy from Texas, "Ghostbusters II" had just broken box-office records with its release, parachute pants were still cool and a winged freak-child named “Batman” swooped into theaters and started the superhero movie genre that gave birth to the action-packed super-hero-themed movie offspring we have today.

Tim Burton’s “Batman” was the first such movie to take comic book characters and give them some sense of reality and depth; much more than the usual “POW!” and “ZAP!” of the comic book cheesiness.

Still “Batman” is no “Dark Knight.” It’s hard not to compare the two movies and their take on the Batman vs. Joker episode. I actually had a hard time with this. As I rewatched the film, I got a bit of nostalgia of what I felt watching it when I was a young lad. However, with the advances in computer animation and the even darker tone of “The Dark Knight,” I couldn't sit and watch the old “Batman” and quite feel the same.

“Batman” was the only one of the Warner Bros. series I actually liked. It didn’t take itself too seriously, but still had some of retro campiness of the early comics, while having a mix of dark comedy and well-thought action. I know it’s supposed to be set in 1986 Gotham City, but watching it now looks more like 1950’s Gotham City and has the same charm as say “Citizen Cane.”

Of course, the best reason why “Batman” was and always will be a worthy contender in the super hero movie universe is that Harvey Dent was played by Lando Calrissian. I know it’s not completely true to the comic books, but it was a great casting call. Which is also my biggest beef: when it came time to put Harvey Dent/Two Face in a follow-up movie, they went with a retarded version of Tommy Lee Jones instead of bringing back Billy Dee Williams. I guess the casting director was afraid to give Williams a gun for fear of “Black Rage!”

So fast forward 20 years later and Warner Bros. is re-releasing “Batman” on Blu Ray, probably to take advantage of nostalgic, little brats like myself wishing they were back to the simpler times … you know, before electric bills and broken cars took your hard-earned cash away.

Blu Ray is a good medium. We have all seen that know. So imagine the movie as detailed as you thought it should have been  in theaters and on your VHS after you bought it in Christmas of 1989 and then you’ve got it. And if you want to feel every punch and not just have to voiceover the “POW!”s and “WHAM!”s then crank your speakers to 11 and make sure you have EMS on speed dial.

But the movie is probably not enough to make people rush out and buy the disc. And here’s where Warner Bros. actually had a good thought (a single one, but we’ll give them credit) and that’s in the special features.

It’s all about the extras in this re-release. There are hours of special features on the disc with so much behind-the-scenes detail you would think you helped create the movie. Writers, directors, prop guys, Stan Lee, you name it, and they’re interviewed.

Being the type of nerd that gets all fluttery inside for extras like this, I couldn’t help but watch them all. I watched them for bloody hours. You know how that goes, when you suddenly look up and realize you need to go to bed to get at least two hours of sleep before you have to go to work.

Usually, the special features are lackluster, but these features are almost Lucas-like in scale and … OK they are better than Lucas’ quality, but you get the point. They’re huge. I didn’t add the total running time up, but they come somewhere close to the movie itself.

Movies like “Batman” and even “The Dark Knight” make me want to learn more about how they were made. They’re a spectacle in their own right. Instead of ruining the magical experience, it actually makes me appreciate the work and thought put into the final product.

Speaking of product, the packaging is nicely done as well. The disc comes in a hard-bound book. It’s incased in even more behind-the-scenes information, an excerpt from one of the “Batman” screenplay drafts and a small “Batman” comic book. It’s a great lead-in to the main features on the disc.

In the end, a review has to come down to one thing: was it entertaining. And yes, this little trek into nostalgia was entertaining. Warner Bros. put a lot of effort into creating an experience that fans would like. It is important to know, and to their credit, they could have stuck with the same retro campiness of the movie for all the special features and packaging; however, they understood that the audience for this DVD would have been all grown up now and wanted something a little more sophisticated.

All-in-all it's a stellar presentation, and I’m giving it a hearty recommendation for fans of the series or anyone wanting to see where “Batman” and indeed most of this generation of super-hero movies came from. For everyone else, you’ll be left out in the dark.

I give it an A.