Review of Batman Returns (1992) by Cliff S — 23 Sep 2014

I bought the 4pack Blu Ray that had all of the 4 early Batman movies (not counting the TV movie). So this is the second rewatch from that batch. I hadn't seen these in years, but I remember not really liking the original much, but really liking Batman Returns.

Well, my memory was right. This is a MUCH better movie than the first Batman.

This is much more of a unique, uncompromising vision of a film. The first one was obviously a Burton movie done commercially, with a bunch of studio hacks who didn't think story mattered and didn't want to take too many risks. This was different. This was a BURTON interpretation of Batman, not a Batman movie done by Burton.

So, of course, the movie is impossibly weird. It's very different from the "real world" Batman of the Nolan films and much more a pure fantasy. But that's the beauty of it. It has an odd combination of Blade Runner and a saturday morning cartoon feel to the atmosphere. It has a dripping teeth Penguin character that fits in to the whole person/animal thing that they play with the whole movie, it has penguins launching rockets, duck transportation, aquatic birds doing a funeral precession, human eating cats, etc. But unlike the original Batman, the atmosphere draws you in, as weird as it is, and you feel like you've entered this other world.

While the plot is still relatively weak, unlike the Nolan Batman movies later, it's still stronger than the original Batman. More important, the characters are exceptionally strong. You really feel the psychological struggles of Bruce/Batman, Selina/Catwoman and Oswald/Penguin, at least in an odd Burton way. You want them to solve their psychological hang ups. The fact that you know they want just makes it feel all the more tragic.

At least for me, I found the doomed love story between Bruce and Selina to be very moving. It just got to me in this odd fantasy world way. I'll be the first to admit that I think when I first saw this around age 11, seeing Michelle Pfeiffer dressed in leather gave me feelings I didn't really understand at the time. So maybe that influenced it. But I really think it had a Romeo and Juliet "doomed love story" feel to it. You know they can never work, but the impossibility of the circumstances and their own hangups make you WANT these twisted, lonely souls to find a way to overcome it. I remember desperately wanting the final scene, seeing Catwoman still alive, to be carried on in the next movie. I remember being crushed that it wasn't.

Of course, there are things I didn't like. They go a bit too far with Penguin, his raw fish eating/nose biting/black teeth was too over the top and not that fun to watch at times. And I think they could have cut back a little on some of the more overt cartoonish elements. But overall, this movie is the only one of the pre-Nolan Batman films that I really think is worthwhile. It's a true visionary work of an auteur near the peak of his powers and with the success of the first movie cutting him loose from the studio. However flawed it may be, it's a compelling vision. One of Burton's best and a truly unique movie.