The Weird Turn Pro

Batman Returns
1992, PG-13
Directed by Tim Burton
Written by Daniel Waters & Sam Hamm
Screenplay by Daniel Waters

The Bat.  The Cat.  The Penguin.  The bad tagline.  The horrible dialogue.  The unbelievable origins.  I can go on but you get the idea.  Welcome to the dissection of Batman Returns—the 1992 sequel to Tim Burton’s over-the-top Batman.  I’ll discuss the deep plot, Oscar-worthy acting, incredible action, and awesome continuity.  Or hell, I can do what I usually do….

Three years after they shocked the world by casting comedic actor Michael Keaton as Batman and Jack Nicholson as the Joker, Batman Returns brings us not one, not two, but three baddies at once.  We can crooked businessman Max Schrek teaming with a deformed bad guy from the sewers, the Penguin.  The plot is simple.  Discredit Batman while making the Penguin look good and somehow getting the weeble-looking, raw-fish-eating, penguin-freak elected as mayor.  Living in a city that elected an asshole like Mike Bloomberg mayor not once but twice I can see this strategy working.  Actually, I’d vote for Penguin over that lying fascist right now, but I digress.  Throwing a wrench into the whole thing is yet another villain—Catwoman—Shreck’s secretary who sees too much and gets thrown out a very high window, but somehow comes back with weird cat-like tendencies and leather bondage gear… what?  How does getting thrown out a window give you nine lives and a fetish?  It’s beyond my understanding.  Holy bad origin, Batman!  Penguin’s origin we don’t really see, nor do we get an even remotely logical reason for his deformity or his gang of real penguin sidekicks.  This jumble of confusing plot holes gets a 1 for total lack of effort.

Keaton is back as Batman and tries his best to work with this disaster. However, what can you really do with lines like, “Eat floor.  High fiber.”  Wow, is that bad.  Christopher Walken is Shreck with his usual cool delivery.  He makes sense in this movie, unlike his secretary turned dominatrix.  Michelle Pfeiffer is so much better in her dramatic roles she should stick to them.  Then again, her character makes so little sense in this movie there really isn’t much she could do.  Given the Halle Berry version of this same character I’m beginning to think the whole idea should have been scrapped decades ago.  Please Mr. Nolan, don’t do this again!  All that brings us to Danny Devito as the Penguin.  I liked this.  His performance strangely worked.  I’ll give them a 3 for the effort it must have taken to do all this with a straight face.

To the technical! I’m a big fan of Burton’s dark sets and they work here.  The special effects were top line for the time and his Elfman soundtrack compliments them well.  A perfect four there. Fighting however is a problem again. Much like the first movie, you don’t get much action as Keaton COULDN’T MOVE IN THE FUCKING SUIT!  How hard would it have been to design a suit where he could do more than just throw a basic punch?  Speaking of punch it’s lacking here as again we drop down to a lonely 1.  All this brings us to an overall score of 2.25 in a sequel that’s only could as a cautionary tale.  Pay attention Warner Bros!

Review by Captain Zero