Now we're on to part 2 of my look at the theatrically released Batman films leading up to my review of the new movie The Dark Knight Rises. For those of you who have just started here please take a look at my first retrospective review for the 1989 Batman movie before reading on. So without further ado, here's my review of Batman Returns.
HISTORY
After the monumental success of the original Batman, Warner Brothers gave full creative control of the sequel to Tim Burton. Now while this may have seemed like a great idea at the time it ended up proving to be a very controversial film. It took several liberties with the source material and took the franchise in a distinctly dark area. These dark changes included changing the Penguin into little more than a deformed monster and giving us a rather bittersweet ending many viewers weren't too fond over. I'll get more into the issues with the film people had but it lead to parents boycotting Mcdonald's who carried the toy line for the movie, leading to Tim Burton being taken out of the franchise. Since this eventually lead to Schumacher taking over one could say that this was the beginning of the end of this Batman franchise.
But despite all the controversy, the question remain. How does this film hold up today? Well let's take a look.
1) THE PLOT
The plot revolves around the emergence of a mysterious man named Oswald Cobblepot (The Penguin for those of you not up in the knowledge of the comics). He starts off as a beloved figure in the public eye after saving the mayor's baby. With the help of corrupt business man Max Schreck Oswald eventually runs for mayor himself. However Batman believes the Penguin is up to no good and attempts to deal with him while also trying to take out another mysterious villain, Catwoman, as well as taking on a circus themed gang that appeared around the same time as Cobblepot.
If the story sounds kind of confusing for a superhero movie, believe me when I say that's the least of this film's worry. As mentioned before this movie gets extremely dark extremely fast. In fact the movie starts off with a couple abandoning their newly born baby into the sewer system. I'll get more into that when I talk about the characters but I will say that Batman creator Bob Kane personally stated that this movie was way too dark for a Batman story.
2) THE HERO
Again Micheal Keaton returns (no pun intended) for the title role of Bruce Wayne/Batman. It's pretty much the same performance as in the original film so turn into my last review for more of my opinion. As for this movie my main issue comes in the form of Batman's new policy against killing people...in that he has none. While in the first movie Batman's actions could have been considered that he only accidentally killed certain criminals and that he mostly tried to avoid it, here I think he's going out of his way to kill the criminals of the city. One criminal he just outright killed with the tail end of his Batmobile and another he straped a bomb to his chest and simply walked away from the inevitable explosion. In fact a point is made that one of Catwoman's lives was taken from Batman himself. Aside from that, it is still the same performance as before and my only problems are based around the story itself.
3) THE VILLAIN
In this movie we have our first major change in villains until the reboot by Nolan (until then we just had carbon copies of the Joker). Enter in the Penguin played by Danny DeVito who's a radical departure from the Penguin from the comics. Instead of being a sophisticated criminal who just mildly looks like a penguin, here we have a gross deformed monstrosity who knows little about how social interactions work. This would be fine except this is where most of the dark and disturbing aspects of the film comes from. Naturally we all know about the scene where the Penguin bit that one guy's nose off and gave our entire generation nightmares to this very day but there's also his final evil scheme which involves...killing all the first born children of Gotham. Geez, and we say Nolan's Batman gets dark. But despite the obvious writing problems Danny does make this an enjoyable character to watch. It might not be his best performance but you can tell he's having fun with the character and that translates to us having a good time watching him...you know, when he's not killing children and biting people's noses off.
4) THE LOVE INTEREST
Just like in the first movie which introduced us to a love interest that was able to avoid many of the idiotic cliches of other superhero stories, here we get Selina Kyle A.K.A. Catwoman. On top of being significantly more developed than the average love interest Selina is also given a lengthy subplot, though one that is also a great departure from the comics. The story involves Selina as a nerdy secretary for Max Schreck who learns about her boss's evil doings. After an attempt on her life Selina gains cat powers and seeks revenge on her boss by adopting the persona of Catwoman. While the story does take liberties with the source material the film as well as the actor, Michelle Pfieffer, take great care and respect with the character. For one thing the fact that this Catwoman has powers is largely ignored. Another point is how after transfering into Catwoman she's very close to the classic femme fatale that we all know and love. Just like in the comics she uses her sexuallity to her advantage to both distract male adversaries and to fool others into thinking she's not as skilled as she really is. Not to mention but Michelle was also very determined to get this role right which is reflected in her performance (as an example of her determination, they didn't fake that scene where she ate the bird and spat it up). There's also a strong chemistry between her and Keaton that's definitally stronger than the one between Keaton and Basinger which makes the tragic ending all the more depressing. This is definitally the breakout performance of the movie and Anne Hathaway has some big shoes to fill in order to live up to what Pfieffer did.
5) THE SUPPORTING CAST
As mentioned before the supporting cast is mostly made up of Alfred and Gordon, but again not much has changed with them. Max Schreck however is a new addition, played by Christopher Walken. Being played by Walken you can tell his role in this is to be an awesomely creepy and akward man, which he naturally succeeds. Many of you may be wondering why I didn't include him with the villain section since he does work closely with the Penguin and is also the villain in the subplot with Catwoman. However i felt in the main narrative he could easily be taken out while just changing it so that the Penguin tried to kill Selina instead. Despite his superfluous nature in the story he's still got the likeability of Walken that we all love. The Penguin's gang also has a few interesting side characters but it still feels like a step down from the original for one reason...NO BOB!
6) FINAL VERDICT
All in all this is an okay edition to the franchise. With it's effects and dark storyline it actually hold up pretty well by today's standards. For fans of the comics i'd say it's more of something to avoid because of the changes from the source material and I wouldn't advise it for a family night as it can get pretty dark. But if you enjoyed Burton's first Batman movie it's at least worth a look.
So there's my review of Batman Returns. Please like if you liked this article and post a comment on your views on this movie. Tomorrow I will take a look at the next in the franchise which hopefully won't take Forever (I apologize for that terrible joke). See you next time.