Review of Batman Returns (1992) by Nick E — 04 Aug 2012

Michelle Pfeiffer is great, and arguably the best Catwoman ever in a Batman feature film. The movie itself, while having some fun action and set pieces, is kind of a mess though. Firstly, it's not even really a Batman movie. At least, anything you ever thought you knew about Batman can be thrown out the window because the source material is practically ignored as Batman goes around shoving dynamite down people's pants and a mutant penguin monster sends an army of penguins to shoot rockets at Gotham city. The third act of this movie is a complete joke, and while most of the movie can be entertaining for the most part, the final action sequences are laughable and bad. It all leads up to the Penguin being led to the water by some extremely large (and fake-looking) penguins.

I loved this movie as a kid, but it really has aged well. I think the performances are great (Pfeiffer, like I said, is great, Walken, Keaton, and DeVito are good too), but it felt too much like Tim Burton had to put his stamp on it that it doesn't even feel like watching a Batman movie. It felt like another Tim Burton "misunderstood misfit enters a quirky 'real-life' society" movie (being the Penguin story). It felt as if Burton just used the Batman character as a means to make another story he wanted to tell. I wouldn't have had too much of an issue with it if he managed to make a good movie, but it feels really disjointed and seems to switch between Batman-action movie to Penguin-Tim Burton movie constantly.

It is probably the weakest Batman movie yet. Yes, Batman & Robin IS technically worse, but it allows for some laughs and at least felt like a Batman movie. Batman Returns, but you probably wouldn't notice him in this one.