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All Movie Info
Directed By
Tim Burton
Written By:
Daniel Waters
Cast:
Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Michael Gough, Michael Murphy, Cristi Conaway, Pat Hingle, Vincent Schiavelli, Jan Hooks, Paul Reubens, Andrew Bryniarski
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Batman Returns (1992)
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Movie Review by Jarrod 
September 16th, 2007
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'Batman Returns' saw Tim Burton return to the director's chair (for the last time, and the series went downhill by most accounts), in what I think is a slightly superior effort. The production values are still top-notch, with the morbid and ominous landscape of Gotham City, and Keaton returns to the title role, better than he was the first time, but Bruce Wayne has perked up a bit, too, and is not such a dour drag, though there is no vast improvement in his temperament or personality. You also have three great villains. Danny DeVito as the Penguin, a diminutive and deformed lunatic who was cruelly abandoned by his parents at birth, and raised in the sewers by penguins, who don't typically live in sewers, but oh well.
Christopher Walken is Max Schreck (sharing the name of the actor who played the vampire in Murnau's Nosferatu), an evil tycoon who kills his secretary (Michelle Pfeiffer) after she discovers his nefarious plan to drain the city of all of its energy. She is resurrected as Catwoman, the third villain, or maybe she isn't a villain, she wants revenge on Schreck, and flirts with Batman, and looks smoking in her tight, dominatrix-like leather outfit. What playful chemistry Pfeiffer and Keaton have, fighting each other, and then ending up on the ground, her on top of him, any degree of overt eroticism limited by the PG-13 rating. There is a virtuous and sympathetic side to Catwoman, and even to the Penguin, whose life has been hard and devoid of joy, but I am not sure whether we are supposed to find him scary or funny, or both, or neither. DeVito is terrific nonetheless.
The most detestable person is Schreck, played with delightful menace by Walken, who is obviously enjoying himself. He echoes Nicholson from the original movie. Batman has no special powers. He simply trained himself in martial arts, and has honed his agility, accompanied by various gadgets and a super-fast car outfitted with all kinds of cool mechanisms. 'Batman Returns', like its predecessor, paints a depressing and sad picture of the Dark Knight, who is troubled and self-absorbed, emotionally and psychologically hollow. Most superhero stories are more upbeat. There is never any moment where you feel like you really understand Bruce Wayne, or know anything about him. A lighter tone would be adopted in later movies, that unfortunately tended to squander most everything else.
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