“Sickos never scare me. At least they’re committed.”
Batman Returns
Director: Tim Burton
Writer: Daniel Waters
Starring: Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer
Music By: Danny Elfman
Rated PG-13 (Contains lots of violence and lots more thick sexual innuendo)
After the defeat of the Joker, a new criminal arises in Gotham to challenge Batman. This time it’s a deformed, sewer-dwelling freak known as the Penguin, who has recently emerged into the light, ostensibly to find his true identity. But he’s really planning to take over the city with the help of shady businessman Max Schreck. Meanwhile, a murdered woman is mysteriously brought back to life by a bunch of cats, which somehow gives her gymnastics skills, a radically different fashion sense, and a taste for crime. Bruce Wayne starts a flirtation with post-resurrection Selina Kyle, but Batman finds Catwoman an increasingly troublesome obstacle in his fight against the Penguin.
First of all: this movie is bonkers. It is both more cartoonish and far more dark and gruesome than its predecessor. Batman Returns contains all of the following and more: an army of cute penguins; a plot to drown a bunch of infants in toxic waste; a gang that commits crimes using coordinated dance moves; multiple graphic shots of women falling to their deaths; and more Christmas decorations than I’ve seen in a movie outside the Home Alone series. Oh, and parts of it are also a rather thoughtful dive into the duality of the human condition. I’m having a hard time deciding whether this movie is a black comedy, a tonally-confused tragedy, or something else entirely. I think I’ll have to settle for calling it a Tim Burton film.
I can understand why Burton didn’t get to direct any more Batman movies after this one. The character had always been heavily marketed to children, and, while the 1989 movie did take a darker turn than usual, the average 8-year-old could probably watch it without being psychologically scarred. I’m not so sure that’s true of the sequel. Not only is it more violent, not only does it have a highly sexualised female villain (and, even worse, a deformed Danny DeVito dropping innuendo into every other line), but it also tells its story with a very twisted, mean-spirited sense of humour that tends to overshadow its more serious moments. For example: at one point, Batman (who is even more murder-happy in this movie than the last) plants a Looney Tunes-style bomb on a henchman during a fight and, just when the poor dope realises he’s about to explode, gives him a smirk so goofy that it’s become a meme. That’s just one of many, many scenes that made me laugh and then immediately feel like a very bad person.
But while Batman may be more gleefully homicidal in this movie, he’s also not glamourised like he was in previous instalments. In case you weren’t sure before, Batman Returns confirms that Bruce Wayne is not a happy man. When we first see him, he’s sitting alone in his dark mansion, just waiting for the Bat-signal to light up the sky. We find out later that Vicki Vale has left him due to his…eccentric lifestyle, and he seems to have just about given up all pretense of a social life. His alter ego has completely taken him over, and it takes the emergence of a couple of new costumed freaks (one of whom also happens to be a rich orphan with a Vitamin D deficiency) to make him see how close he is to becoming one of them. Throughout the movie, Bruce’s biggest struggle is between his desire to be a normal, good person, and his compulsion to be Batman. Which gives him a lot in common with the two villains.
One area where this movie definitely improves upon its predecessor is its romance. Whereas Vicki Vale’s role in the first movie was mostly limited to screaming and showing off her legs, Catwoman gets her very own story arc, which mirrors Batman’s. Like him, she’s torn between a desire to be normal (in order to get with the seemingly-normal Bruce Wayne) and the temptation to embrace her violent, aggressive Catwoman persona. In keeping with the weird brand of feminism that tends to show up in ’90s media, that persona both empowers and destroys her, while, of course, making her much more attractive than her frumpy pre-murder self. She’s still not exactly my favourite female character of all time, but she’s fascinating in her own way. Her mutual attraction with Batman makes sense, given how much the two have in common, and I actually kind of cared about their relationship, unlike the one in the first movie. Of course, I’m a pretty enthusiastic BatCat shipper in all Batman media, so I could be biased.
The Penguin, likewise, starts the movie as an oddball trying to fit in with society–maybe even the upper crust of society. And for part of the movie, he seems to be succeeding. Despite his looks, he quickly becomes popular in Gotham by painting himself as a hero (I guess Gothamites aren’t as shallow as most TV audiences). But unfortunately, the Penguin’s deformity is more than skin deep, and it only takes a bit of rejection for his evil, animalistic nature to reveal itself.
At its heart, this is a movie about three weirdos trying–mostly unsuccessfully–to find a place for themselves in the world. Like its predecessor, it differs wildly from the Batman stories I’m used to, and its characters bear very little resemblance to their comic counterparts. But they’re still good characters in their own right. I could definitely have done without some of the Penguin’s gross lines, but he and Catwoman are both excellent villains, and I like the character development that Batman gets in this movie, too.
But because of the movie’s weird tone, it can be hard to know how much of it to take seriously. Am I really supposed to sympathise with Catwoman, or just laugh at how she’s a literal “crazy cat lady?” Can there really be any pathos about the Penguin when he’s giving hammy speeches to an army of birds while looking…like that? Then there are all the things in this movie that are never explained–Catwoman’s resurrection, Penguin’s gang of clown/mimes, etc. Are these things supposed to make sense, or are we just supposed to accept that this takes place in a cartoon universe where magic happens for no reason? The violence, especially, switches back and forth between realistic and ridiculous so often that it’s hard to tell what kind of universe the movie is trying to establish.
Overall, though, I enjoyed this movie just a bit more than its predecessor, because unlike Batman 1989, it’s about something more than just Batman fighting a bad guy. Granted, it’s also insane and ridiculous and weird, but there’s a kind of charm to that, too. I wish it had a slightly more consistent tone, but it’s a decent watch. I just wish I’d known to watch it around Christmas time.
Next time, we’ll be leaving the realm of the cartoonish and silly, and getting our first look at a fully mature, serious Batman. Who just happens to be a cartoon.
- Batman: The Movie
- Batman Returns
- Batman (1989)
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Wizard at the Clicks 