BATMAN RETURNS - A Quickie Review

My review of 'Captain America: Civil War' will be out soon, but honestly, my mind is more occupied with revisiting the heyday of Batmania. So with that, let's go back 24 years (holy shit, we're all old) and check out 1992's 'Batman Returns'!

Of course, 'Batman' was going to generate a sequel. It was a monster hit, and the entire country went nuts for anything and everything Batman. I remember being at the UA theater near my home when I saw the teaser poster a couple of years later, and thinking it was so cool that 'Batman 2' was going to be called 'Batman Returns'. I remember seeing the trailers and being so excited that I didn't know how I could possibly wait a few months to see it. I remember buying tickets on Friday for a show on Saturday and going with my mom and sister to the General Cinema at the mall near us. I remember my mom hating it, and in fact, most moms hated it. I remember getting a black-colored McDonald's fry pouchie thing, because they were doing a cross promotion deal. And I remember feeling like I'd somehow gotten away with seeing this movie, because it was so weird and dark and violent.

So it turns out Tim Burton didn't want to make 'Batman Returns'. And it shows on the screen. Not because it's a bad movie, or lazy, but because it's so very different from 'Batman' in nearly every way. Where 'Batman' was a grim, gothic heightened reality, 'Returns' definitely has a more fantastical vibe, closer to its comic book origins. I'd say it was almost campy, if it weren't so genuinely fucking weird. And to listen to his commentary track the DVD (or Blu-ray, if you've got it) it seemed he had to be cajoled by WB into doing it, and given a bigger budget and free reign to just go ahead and make whatever kind of movie he wanted. What we got was Burton off the leash: a funky, idiosyncratic movie, shot in almost monochrome, villains with elongated features and fetishistic costumes, and a Batman who was arguably not even the main character of the movie. Make no mistake though, 'Batman Returns' is about Batman, though, and the way his psychology is illuminated by the abberant psychologies of his antagonists.

The Penguin (played with total psychotic relish by Danny Devito) is driven by his anger, resentment, and genuine hurt of being rejected, first by his parents and then by the people of Gotham. Though while his parents rejected him because he was a grotesque freak, the citizens of Gotham City reject him for being...you know...totally fucking insane. He's not just a dark reflection of Bruce Wayne, both born to lives of privilege, both robbed of it. The Penguin's origin is also a sort of perversion of the Superman mythos, too. Both were given up by their parents - one so that he might live, and the other so that he might die. Both were raised by people who influenced the track they'd take in life. But while Superman had the loving Kents to raise him, Penguin had the criminal circus gang he'd eventually take over. Superman protects Metropolis, while Penguin only pretends to want to save Gotham so that he can assume power over it. Yet he never forgets or lets go of the hurt of being not wanted by the people who should have wanted him most. He seeks to punish all the parents of Gotham because of that, judging them for their hedonistic lifestyles, while plotting to literally murder babies.

Like Batman, Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfieffer) is another vigilante created by the crime of another. After her boss tries to murder her, Selina fashions herself a Catwoman costume and goes out, first, to take on a mugger and chastise his victim for being so helpless, and then to blow up a department store owned by her murderous employer. That Selina is trying to form a relationship with Bruce Wayne, with neither person finding out until it's too late who the other really is, is probably the closest Bruce gets to a mirror. They're both people struggling to figure out who they really are. Early in the movie, Commissioner Gordon lights up the Bat signal, and a series of mirrors brings it directly into Wayne Manor, where Bruce sits in the dark, just waiting for Batman to be needed. When Bruce tries to talk Selina out of killing Max Shreck, who admittedly, totally deserves to die,  he promises her that they can just go home, and live happily ever after. He rips off his Batman masks and appears to choose being Bruce Wayne. Selina, though chooses to remain Catwoman,to kill Shreck, and forego the fairytale ending.

Speaking of Max Shreck (Christopher Walken), he's yet a third villain in the move, and perhaps the most villainous. Penguin is motivated by anger, Selina by revenge, but Max? He's motivated only by greed. He's the complete antithesis of Bruce Wayne, who would stand behind his law and order Mayor while Shreck tries to supplant him. Shreck derides Bruce as a "trust fund goodie goodie", and is so supremely arrogant that he can't even believe when he sees Batman unmasked who he really is. He is evil enough to take a shot at Bruce and then four shots at point blank range at Selina for no other reason then to protect the life he's made for himself. He's the darkest mirror of Bruce Wayne within this movie.

I also love this movie, because every bit of action, romance, and psychological exploration in this film is underlined and magnified by Danny Elfman, who's masterpiece of a score still ranks as one of my all-time favorites. Two pieces in particular stand out; the first is when Selina is trashing her apartment just prior to adopting her Catwoman persona; and the second is the climax of the film, and the Penguin's death and "funeral". Elfman's score is so poignant and haunting it illuminates the pity that the story takes on these two villains. They're not villains because they're just bad, like The Joker or Max Shreck. They were made into who they are, and Elfman's wonderful music feels sorry for them.

Tim Burton may not have wanted to do it, but that doesn't mean he didn't do a good job, or didn't try. He delivered something no one was expecting, and paved the way for something closer to the Nolan trilogy by exploring the minds of these characters in an extraordinarily vivid way.

Ok, this review wasn't so quickie, after all.


FINAL SCORE - 8/10