Batman Returns

BATMAN RETURNS

(1992)

Warner Bros.

Directed by Tim Burton
Produced by Peter Guber, Jon Peters and Michael E. Uslan
Based on “BATMAN” created by Bob Kane
Screenplay by Daniel Waters
Based on a story by Sam Hamm and Daniel Waters

BATMAN RETURNS is that rarest of movie animals: a sequel that actually stands on it’s own as a legitimate movie with it’s own identity and can be watched and enjoyed on it’s own without having to know anything about or even seen the previous movie. There are a few references made to events in the first movie, mostly about Bruce Wayne’s girlfriend Vicky Vale (played by Kim Basinger) but they slide right by and don’t get in the way of what we came to see, which is Batman and his world in glorious, operatic live action. I’d go so far to say that as far as the live action movies are concerned, BATMAN RETURNS is my favorite (sorry, but the title of overall best Batman film goes to MASK OF THE PHANTASM) in terms of acting, casting, set design and my amazement at just how much story and characterization is packed into the 126 minutes of screen time. It’s probably the most fully realized vision of Batman’s world put on the screen to date (at least until we get to see how the upcoming Christian Bale starring movie stacks up) and Tim Burton deserves a lot of credit for giving comic book fans a Batman that accurately reflected the character they were reading about in today’s comic books, most notably Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” which was a big influence on the look and style of Burton’s films.

The movie opens in a gloomy gothic mansion (is there any other kind? Especially in Gotham City?) where a deformed mutant baby is born to horrified parents (the father is played by Paul Reubens aka PeeWee Herman) and subsequently dumped in a sewer where he’s found and raised by penguins. Hey, if alligators can live in New York sewers, why not penguins in Gotham City’s? He grows up and emerges from the sewers years later, claiming to want to regain his birthright and he discovers his true name: Oswald Cobblepot. But to the citizens of Gotham City as well as Batman he quickly becomes known by another name: The Penguin.

The Penguin swiftly forms an alliance with Gotham’s most powerful businessman, the wonderfully named Maximillian Schrek and the two scheme to oust the current mayor and put The Penguin in office. Now, while this is going on, Max’s executive secretary Selina Kyle stumbles onto the real secret purpose of Max Schrek’s proposed power plant idea and is ruthlessly murdered by Max. But she miraculously returns to life through the healing power of stray ally cats (I swear I’m not making this up) and as The Catwoman she hooks up with The Penguin in bringing down The Batman while romancing Bruce Wayne as Selina.

Got all that? I managed to boil it down to around two hundred words but there’s an awful lot of stuff that goes on between the words. The movie has to tell the origins of both The Penguin and Catwoman, explain Max Schrek’s power plant scheme, which really isn’t explained all that well, now that I think of it, explore the dual romance between Selina/Catwoman and Bruce/Batman, the political power play of Cobblepot and Schrek and still find time for the missile firing killer penguins.

You may ask, well, with all that going on, where’s time for Batman? Actually there isn’t much but when we do see him, he’s in action, doing the things we want to see Batman doing. Unlike the previous movie which was dominated so heavily by Jack Nicholson’s definitive performance as The Joker, this movie remembers that Batman is supposed to be the main character and the script does a good job of showing us enough of Batman/Bruce Wayne this time around.

The overall look of the movie is simply wonderful. Gotham City looks like it was designed by Fritz Lang on acid and the costuming has a 1940’s feel to it as well as the vehicles and even the computers in the Bat Cave have a futuristic retro look to them. And the performances…well, what can you say about the cast that hasn’t been said before. Michael Keaton remains, for me at least, the definitive Batman/Bruce Wayne and the one thing I really like about Keaton as an actor is that you can look at him and see him thinking. Some of his best moments in the movie is when as Bruce Wayne he’s putting the clues together and coming up with the answers and we can see him working out the problem. And of course, when he’s in the Batsuit, Keaton uses his wonderfully expressive eyes to full advantage.

Michelle Pfeiffer follows in the footsteps of some outstanding actresses who have played Catwoman in the past and she’s more than worthy to stand alongside of Julie Newman, Lee Merriweather and Eartha Kitt. We’re not even gonna mention that pretender who dared steal the Catwoman name for one dismal movie. Michelle Pfeiffer is resoundingly sexy in her skintight vinyl suit and as Selina Kyle projects a sort of wistful vulnerability. Danny DeVito plays Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin and his disgustingly loopy portrayal of the character as a grotesquely malignant monster with deformed hands, a bulbous body and drooling black bile most of the time. Burgess Meredith this ain’t. When this movie had it’s original theatrical run, it was reported that little kids had to be taken out into the lobby, sobbing because The Penguin frightened them. In fact, parents themselves were pretty shocked by the movie on the whole, expecting to take their kids to see a fun superhero romp. And DeVito’s Penguin IS a godawfully vile creature. I suppose DeVito was trying to give us a Penguin to be pitied but all I wanted to do was to see the poor wretch be put out of his misery.

And Christopher Walken, as usual, steals every scene he’s in. Max Schrek is a new villain created for the movie and not one of Batman’s Rogues Gallery but he fits right in as if he’d always been in Gotham City all along. Michael Gough is impeccably droll as Alfred and he and Keaton have a great scene where they discuss a bit of business from the first movie that had Batfans wondering if Alfred had lost his mind.

BATMAN RETURNS is simply one of the best superhero movies made. While the story is needlessly complicated with the three villains running around with their own plans and agendas, at least they do have motivations, which is more than I can say for the villains of the two following BATMAN movies and we can follow what’s going on and more importantly, why. The sets are awesome looking, the performances right on point and for fans of the current incarnation of the character, this is the movie that they probably will all agree comes the closest to translating Batman from the comic book to the silver screen.

126 minutes
Rated PG-13: There’s no really harsh language in the movie and the violence is strictly comic book except for two scenes where it’s pretty apparent that Batman has either killed or severely crippled/maimed his opponents. The Penguin is unnecessarily repugnant with his spitting black bile through much of the picture and the movie plainly explores the psychosexual costume fetish that is a part of the Batman/Bruce /Selina/Catwoman relationship so don’t say I didn’t warn you.