Directed by: Tim Burton
Premise: The Penguin (Danny DeVito) teams with an
unscrupulous businessman (Christopher Walken) to overtake Gotham City while
Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) runs amok on the streets.
What Works: Batman Returns is a bold sequel,
straying even more from its source than the previous Batman film by completely reinventing The Penguin and Catwoman
to fit within the context Burton has created. The picture is more of a
character-study of the villains and Batman Returns features a terrific
performance by Danny DeVito as The Penguin, who Burton and co-writer Sam Hamm
have recast as a tragic monster like the creature from Frankenstein.
DeVito capitalizes on the tragedy and manages to make The Penguin a very
sympathetic character with a lot of depth; he’s also very funny in a wild and
psychotic way that is distinctly different from Jack Nicholson’s Joker. The
film also presents a radically new Catwoman; she is a vigilante like Batman but
unrestrained by his respect for law and order and eventually her appetite for
destruction, personal agenda, and outright psychotic personality get the better
of her. The two are linked together by unscrupulous entrepreneur Max Shreck
(Christopher Walken) and the film uses the Shreck storyline to deepen the look
into Gotham City politics and provide a more complicated storyline. The visuals
work with the story to expand the world of Batman and the action scenes of Batman
Returns hold up with the first film.
What Doesn’t: Batman Returns spends so
much time with its villains that Batman is left without much to do except chase
after them. Unlike the first film, Bruce Wayne does not come to any sort of
peace with his alter ego or learn anything new about himself. The ending of the
film is also problematic. Despite bringing its characters together for the
finale, it just does not wrap up their stories in a satisfying way; parts of the
action don’t make sense and the climax does not bring anything to a logical
conclusion.
DVD extras: The two-disc special edition includes a
commentary track, documentaries and featurettes, music videos, trailers,
storyboards, and character profiles.
Bottom Line: Batman Returns is an uneven sequel but it is still a solid movie. Although it does not take any new steps in the super hero genre the way the previous film did, Batman Returns does broaden the pallet a bit and expands Burton’s interpretation of the Batman world.