Batman Returns ««½
PG-13, 126m. 1992
Cast & Credits: Michael Keaton (Batman/Bruce Wayne), Danny Devito (Penguin/Oswald Cobblepot), Michelle Pfeiffer (Catwoman/Selina Kyle), Christopher Walken (Max Schreck), Michael Gough (Alfred), Michael Murphy (Mayor of Gotham City), Pat Hingle (Police Commissioner Gordon). Screenplay by Daniel Waters based on a story by Daniel Waters and Sam Hamm and based on characters created by Bob Kane. Directed by Tim Burton.
The word which best describes Batman Returns is overkill. Common advertising practice by film studios today calls for showing previews of upcoming movies months or a year in advance before their projected theatrical release date.
The problem I find with Batman Returns, as with most sequels that end with the numbers two and up, is the previews always look better than the movies themselves.
In the case of Batman Returns, the studio combined the film’s best scenes for a two minute trailer, showed it constantly, and hoped enough people would show up during the movie’s first few weeks of release to gain a profit.
I find this second installment lacks just about everything that made the 1989 original work. The plot of the first Batman (1989), filled with attractive, apocalyptic sets and a haunting musical score by Danny Elfman, was a unique battle of wits for the famous Dark Knight Detective (Michael Keaton) who avenged his parents’ murder at the hands of the Joker (devilishly played by Jack Nicholson) and saved Gotham City.
The original also dealt with the subject of dual personalities; a major theme the comics have always explored. In the comics, both the hero and the vast assortment of villains had a traumatic experience early on in their lives that caused them to become something else.
That theme continues in Batman Returns but the movie has only one thing going for it; director Tim Burton’s two new creations. There is the Penguin (Danny Devito); a deformed vicious human troll who, though dumped in a river by his opulent parents when he was a baby, is raised by penguins for decades in Gotham’s sewers.
And Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), a beautiful but dense secretary known as Selina Kyle by day who often calls herself a “stupid corndog” for doing such a lousy job. At night, however, she is a man-hating dominatrix in black leather whipping heads off male mannequins and blowing up toy stores, owned by her cold-hearted boss, Max Schreck (Christopher Walken).
Somewhere along the way, millionaire Bruce Wayne and Batman (Keaton) are on the scene to save the day. When Selina Kyle, however, exclaims “BATMAN!!” during the film’s opening sequence, it is not BATMAN!! as audiences might have felt with the first film but simply Batman.
The problem with this second outing is there are too many subplots going on at one time and none of them ever really come together. All the characters are off doing their own thing. Schreck, for example, wants to build a nuclear power plant that would suck all electricity from Gotham City. Bruce Wayne decides to stop him. Schreck then enlists the help of the Penguin who runs for mayor. Penguin, meanwhile, has other devious plans of his own and so on.
What Batman Returns needed was a more involving storyline and better set designs. The untimely deaths of screenwriter Warren Skaaren, who wrote scripts for some of Hollywood’s top blockbusters like Top Gun (1986), Beetlejuice (1988), and the first Batman; and production designer Anton Furst, who won an Academy Award in 1990 for his elaborate sets in the original film, leaves a gaping void unable to be filled in this second outing.
The Penguin’s house, for example, run-down, boarded up, and surrounded by snow looks as though Burton borrowed it from his earlier film, Edward Scissorhands (1990). The sets reminded me of the 1974 disaster film, Earthquake, where the destruction of Los Angeles was condensed all into one block. Like the characters from that film, the cast in Batman Returns seem to meet around every corner.
Burton creates some wonderful villains here but he is not sure what direction he wants to take them. Those who thought Keaton had little screen time in the first one seems to be given even less to do in the second. Walken’s Schreck exhibits a cold exterior but the film never allows him to show it. Jack Palance made a more despicable impression as a mobster in the first film and he was in only two scenes.
I find this marginally disappointing because, overall, the film isn’t really a total loss and does have some clever, memorably impressive sequences. I liked the way Batman patrolled the streets of Gotham City in his Batmobile like he was a member of the police department.
The climactic scene where the Penguin unleashes his animalized army of “penguinators” who don tiny missiles and helmets on their march to Gotham City Plaza was humorous to watch. The scene where Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle realize each other’s true identities echoed the sequence in Superman II (1980) where Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) learned of Clark Kent’s true identity as played by Christopher Reeve.
“Does this mean we have to start fighting,” Selina Kyle asks Bruce at a costume party.
The most ingenious perspective Burton has given to this series is evil and darkness can be both mysterious and attractive.
By the end of Batman Returns, however, I thought to myself if there is a third film, it might be time for the filmmakers to come up with something a little more on the lighter side in the adventures of the Dark Knight Detective.
©6/19/92
PG-13, 126m. 1992
Cast & Credits: Michael Keaton (Batman/Bruce Wayne), Danny Devito (Penguin/Oswald Cobblepot), Michelle Pfeiffer (Catwoman/Selina Kyle), Christopher Walken (Max Schreck), Michael Gough (Alfred), Michael Murphy (Mayor of Gotham City), Pat Hingle (Police Commissioner Gordon). Screenplay by Daniel Waters based on a story by Daniel Waters and Sam Hamm and based on characters created by Bob Kane. Directed by Tim Burton.
The problem I find with Batman Returns, as with most sequels that end with the numbers two and up, is the previews always look better than the movies themselves.
In the case of Batman Returns, the studio combined the film’s best scenes for a two minute trailer, showed it constantly, and hoped enough people would show up during the movie’s first few weeks of release to gain a profit.
I find this second installment lacks just about everything that made the 1989 original work. The plot of the first Batman (1989), filled with attractive, apocalyptic sets and a haunting musical score by Danny Elfman, was a unique battle of wits for the famous Dark Knight Detective (Michael Keaton) who avenged his parents’ murder at the hands of the Joker (devilishly played by Jack Nicholson) and saved Gotham City.
The original also dealt with the subject of dual personalities; a major theme the comics have always explored. In the comics, both the hero and the vast assortment of villains had a traumatic experience early on in their lives that caused them to become something else.
That theme continues in Batman Returns but the movie has only one thing going for it; director Tim Burton’s two new creations. There is the Penguin (Danny Devito); a deformed vicious human troll who, though dumped in a river by his opulent parents when he was a baby, is raised by penguins for decades in Gotham’s sewers.
And Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), a beautiful but dense secretary known as Selina Kyle by day who often calls herself a “stupid corndog” for doing such a lousy job. At night, however, she is a man-hating dominatrix in black leather whipping heads off male mannequins and blowing up toy stores, owned by her cold-hearted boss, Max Schreck (Christopher Walken).
Somewhere along the way, millionaire Bruce Wayne and Batman (Keaton) are on the scene to save the day. When Selina Kyle, however, exclaims “BATMAN!!” during the film’s opening sequence, it is not BATMAN!! as audiences might have felt with the first film but simply Batman.
The problem with this second outing is there are too many subplots going on at one time and none of them ever really come together. All the characters are off doing their own thing. Schreck, for example, wants to build a nuclear power plant that would suck all electricity from Gotham City. Bruce Wayne decides to stop him. Schreck then enlists the help of the Penguin who runs for mayor. Penguin, meanwhile, has other devious plans of his own and so on.
What Batman Returns needed was a more involving storyline and better set designs. The untimely deaths of screenwriter Warren Skaaren, who wrote scripts for some of Hollywood’s top blockbusters like Top Gun (1986), Beetlejuice (1988), and the first Batman; and production designer Anton Furst, who won an Academy Award in 1990 for his elaborate sets in the original film, leaves a gaping void unable to be filled in this second outing.
The Penguin’s house, for example, run-down, boarded up, and surrounded by snow looks as though Burton borrowed it from his earlier film, Edward Scissorhands (1990). The sets reminded me of the 1974 disaster film, Earthquake, where the destruction of Los Angeles was condensed all into one block. Like the characters from that film, the cast in Batman Returns seem to meet around every corner.
Burton creates some wonderful villains here but he is not sure what direction he wants to take them. Those who thought Keaton had little screen time in the first one seems to be given even less to do in the second. Walken’s Schreck exhibits a cold exterior but the film never allows him to show it. Jack Palance made a more despicable impression as a mobster in the first film and he was in only two scenes.
I find this marginally disappointing because, overall, the film isn’t really a total loss and does have some clever, memorably impressive sequences. I liked the way Batman patrolled the streets of Gotham City in his Batmobile like he was a member of the police department.
The climactic scene where the Penguin unleashes his animalized army of “penguinators” who don tiny missiles and helmets on their march to Gotham City Plaza was humorous to watch. The scene where Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle realize each other’s true identities echoed the sequence in Superman II (1980) where Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) learned of Clark Kent’s true identity as played by Christopher Reeve.
“Does this mean we have to start fighting,” Selina Kyle asks Bruce at a costume party.
The most ingenious perspective Burton has given to this series is evil and darkness can be both mysterious and attractive.
By the end of Batman Returns, however, I thought to myself if there is a third film, it might be time for the filmmakers to come up with something a little more on the lighter side in the adventures of the Dark Knight Detective.
©6/19/92
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