Dick Tracy

It's kind of funny that the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy movie and Tim Burton's Batman movie were released so close to each other. Each movie tried valiantly to recreate the atmosphere of their respective comics with high impact visuals. However, Batman did a much better job carrying the comic's look and feel over to the big screen. The new Dick Tracy movie's wild colors and cheesy backdrops took away from the all-star cast that the producers put together. The original Dick Tracy movie featuring Morgan Conway is much more realistic and doesn't try as hard to be a live action comic strip and is the better movie for it.

First off, things must be said about Morgan Conway's portrayal of everyone's favorite detective. He bears a decent resemblance to his 2-D counterpart, but not one nearly as uncanny as Ralph Byrd's look. Nevertheless, Conway does a good job getting across Tracy's tough as nails yet sympathetic family-oriented character. You can't help but think that Conway looks and sounds too much like Humphrey Bogart to be Dick Tracy though.

Anne Jeffries and Mickey Kuhn as Tess and Junior do decent jobs as well. Pat Patton is a little deemphasized though, something that would remedied in future films. The scarred Splitface doesn't have the personality that some of the comic strip characters do, but he's passable as an original character. The whole movie doesn't try to be exactly like the comic as the 1960's Batman and the latest Dick Tracy movie did later. Rather, it's more true-to-life with some subtle hints of its comic roots. It keeps the stereotypical police department, the daring feats of courage by the heroes and the rogues gallery of characters from the strip while giving Dick Tracy's world a more real feel. That real-world feel puts this movie a cut above the 1990 movie.