Batman Returns is a relic of an age when disgusting monsters only ran for office in the movies
To really enjoy Batman Returns, you have to give yourself over to its triumphant silliness
Film Features Batman Returns
In honor of The Batman opening this week, we are rerunning some of our favorite features about the Caped Crusader. This article originally ran on March 23, 2018.
It seemed ridiculous in 1992: the idea of a misshapen, braying lunatic running for higher office while barely bothering to disguise his own painfully obvious-bordering-on-theatrical creepiness. These days, would anyone blink? In fact, the biggest difference between Batman Returns and our own impossible present-day reality is what happens when the candidate in question is caught saying evil shit on tape. In Batman Returns, Oswald Cobblepot lost the sympathy of the public so much that he didn’t even bother carrying on with his campaign! And Cobblepot was only running for mayor! Back when it came out, lots of people thought Batman Returns was too dark. Turns out it may not have been dark enough. If Donald Trump loses his bid for reelection in 2020 and our streets are suddenly full of penguins with missiles strapped to their backs, we can’t say Batman Returns didn’t warn us.
Of course, Batman Returns was dark. It was ridiculously dark. With his first Batman movie, Tim Burton found tremendous blockbuster success even as he introduced a Joker who bragged of being “the world’s first fully functioning homicide artist.” It can’t have been easy to up the ante from there. And yet Burton did it, introducing a drooling, deformed sex maniac of a villain whose final plan is to drown infants in toxic waste. When a character introduces the beautifully ridiculous Lex Luthorian plan of constructing a fake power plant that would steal and stockpile Gotham City’s electricity rather than generating it, he’s only the secondary villain, a total afterthought. And that’s not even getting into all the sex stuff.
And there’s so much sex stuff. As the Catwoman, Michelle Pfeiffer speaks almost entirely in double-entendre catchphrases. She dons a gleaming vinyl catsuit that Pfeiffer found almost impossible to wear. (I love how the character was supposed to make the costume by repurposing an old shiny raincoat while the real Pfeiffer had to be helped into it and then sprayed with silicon so that it would shine.) The costume is pure BDSM, something that is plenty obvious even before Pfeiffer cracks a whip for the first time. And both she and Danny DeVito’s penguin turn innuendo into high art. (My favorite line is DeVito, panting over an image consultant: “I’d like to fill her void! Teach her my French flipper trick!”)
And yet Burton managed to cram all this filthy nastiness into what was absolutely a children’s movie. To really enjoy Batman Returns, which is not exactly a difficult thing to do, you have to give yourself over to its triumphant silliness. Before a single word is spoken in the movie, we see an infant Penguin eat a cat as Pee-Wee Herman himself, Paul Reubens, takes a long, resigned drink. Selina Kyle, in her pre-Catwoman harried-secretary guise, has a giant pink-neon “hello there” sign in her apartment—something that could only exist so that she can, in her transformation, smash a couple of letters and turn it into “hell here.” When Christopher Walken’s Max Shreck meets his death by electrocution, he comes out looking like an Iron Maiden cover art. There is nothing about Batman Returns that even nods in the general direction of realism, and that’s why the movie is great.
Much more than the first Batman and possibly more than any other movie that Burton ever made, Batman Returns is driven by a sort of magical dreamlike logic. It takes place in a world where Oswald Cobblepot can be raised by actual zoo penguins without a single human being—not even a zookeeper—finding out. In this world, Cobblepot manages to organize, train, and costume an entire circus-themed gang of criminal marauders before his existence is anything more than a rumor to the surface-dwelling population. (The gang members are so ridiculous, in fact, that not even the evil clowns conjure memories of the previous movie’s Joker. Jack Nicholson’s Joker, a hurricane of hamminess in the first movie, is too grounded of a character to even make sense in Batman Returns.) In this same world, a herd of alley cats can resurrect a dead lady, and Catwoman’s whole thing about having nine lives goes from being mid-fight banter to an actual plot point; she helpfully keeps track of them for us.
Batman himself may be the least ridiculous character in Batman Returns, and the movie makes the wise decision to deemphasize him wherever possible. Michael Keaton reportedly told screenwriter Daniel Waters to cut most of his lines, and Keaton had the right idea. This Batman works best as a silent, glowering presence, as something for DeVito and Pfeiffer to play off of. He’s only barely in the first half-hour of the movie. I like how Burton introduces him motionless, staring off into nothing, as if he just shuts down whenever the Bat signal isn’t shining through his window. One thing that hasn’t aged especially well is how happily he kills people—lighting one evil clown on fire, strapping a bomb to another’s chest before pushing him into a hole while smiling. That’s just what was happening back when non-comics people were being encouraged to make comic-book movies. (There’s also a scene of Batman plowing through pedestrians in the Batmobile. It’s not his fault—Penguin is controlling the car via remote control—but that doesn’t make it much easier to watch post-Charlottesville.)
Keaton turned the movie over to Pfeiffer and DeVito, who were always going to dominate it anyway. It’s baffling to think that we almost had a world where Pfeiffer didn’t get the role. Annette Bening was initially cast, dropping out only after she got pregnant, and Sean Young famously tried to confront Burton on the Warner Bros. lot while wearing her own homemade Catwoman costume. But Pfeiffer owns the role completely, stalking through the movie as thought she’s sex personified. She steers into the role’s campiness, purring and growling and licking her lips and, at one point, putting an actual live bird into her mouth, something that was not a special effect. It’s one of the all-time great comic-book performances, still astonishing in its commitment, and I wish she would’ve at least been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. (Marisa Tomei won that year for My Cousin Vinny, and was Pfeiffer’s performance really that much sillier?)
As great as Pfeiffer is, DeVito might be even better. He transforms himself into something so revolting that he’s only barely human while still wringing a little bit of pathos out of the Penguin’s tragic backstory. His body lumpen and misshapen, black drool coating his teeth, DeVito probably could’ve brought out his character’s freakiness even without the daily four-hour makeup job. Whenever he’s not talking, he’s still grunting and snarling and breathing heavily. And he savors his most over-the-top lines: “I played this stinking city like a harp from hell!” He’s less comic-book supervillain than fairy-tale witch, and he’s a joy to behold.
Burton even dialed up the crazy set design that was probably the best thing about the first Baman. By setting the movie during Christmas, he got to use holiday decorations that made his looming German-expressionist gothic architecture look even darker and more imposing. He put a giant rotating nightmare Felix The Cat head on top of Shreck’s department store and gave Penguin a giant, inexplicable rubber-duck boat that also turns into a hydraulic lift. Even Christopher Walken’s hair has its own absurdist gothic architecture.
Batman Returns would pull in $267 million worldwide. That was good enough to make it the third-highest grossing movie of 1992 (behind Aladdin and Home Alone 2: Lost In New York) but still well short of the first Batman. In response, Warner Bros. practically chased Burton away from the franchise, instead giving it to Joel Schumacher, who turned it into extreme Day-Glo silliness. So even though it’s a sequel, Batman Returns still feels like a glorious one-off. Today, it plays as a very personal and particular take on the superhero movie, one that barely cares about its hero. Goth superhero movies like The Crow and Blade would follow, but I can’t really claim that Batman Returns was influential. Instead, it’s a vivid and freaky oddity, a vision of a road not taken for the genre.
Other notable 1992 superhero movies: Pity the people at Marvel, who just could not figure out how to turn their heroes into movie characters. Consider Albert Pyun’s near-unwatchable take on Captain America, shot in 1990 but only released as a straight-to-video turkey two years later. There’s some fun stuff in the movie; I like the makeup job on the latter-day post-plastic-surgery Red Skull. But the movie’s cheaper-than-shit costumes and effects, its deeply wooden performances, and its apparently genuine disinterest in the mechanics of exciting filmmaking mean that it’s not even fun as a so-bad-it’s-good watch. (Some trivia: Ned Beatty, who had played a bumbling bad-guy henchman in 1978’s Superman: The Movie, also played a bumbling good-guy reporter in Captain America. I’m pretty sure that makes him the first actor with roles in both DC and Marvel movies.)
1992’s Doctor Mordrid is another great example of Marvel’s early filmic haplessness. The low-budget fantasy movie was originally intended as a Doctor Strange adaptation, but the producers lost the rights to the character just as the movie was about to go into production. So instead, it’s a bald and obvious Doctor Strange rip-off, right down to the astral plane projection and the ornate Manhattan apartment and the flappy sleeves. It’s pretty fun! There’s a climactic stop-motion-animated fight between a T. rex skeleton and a mastodon skeleton that’s a whole lot better than anything in that original Captain America, anyway.
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The masquerade ball scene still remains my favorite Batman-related thing across all media. Also, hell yeah Meteor Man!
“Does this mean we have to start fighting?”
Their chemistry and innuendo are pretty damn hot for a kid’s movie.
Re-watched this recently. Totally forgot Siouxsie and the Banshees’ “Face To Face” was for this movie and freaked out when it came on in this scene.
I can’t imagine anybody making a superhero as idiosyncratic and defiantly strange as Batman Returns now. There’s too much emphasis on world building in the storylines, of a film acknowledging its place in the scheme of a multi-movie arc.So many blockbusters are created these days with potential franchises in mind, movies are starting to ape the box set model of television.And while Tim Burton slid into self-parody a while time ago, it’s amazing to think that he was willing (and able) to do what he did with the Batman franchise in this film. In fact, Burton went so hard with Batman Returns, I’d argue it’s what led to the cinematic identity crisis of the franchise as we got films which were now unable to decide what sort of tone to go for. I think Nolan made the right choice by choosing to reset his Batman films as crime films as opposed to being weirdly psycho-sexual exercises in camp. But even he kind of went off-book by the end of his trilogy. I think that all adaptations of Batman seem doomed to absurdity by the inherent insanity of its basic premise: a man battling childhood trauma by dressing as a bat. The paradox of a stupid premise being underpinned by a visceral tragedy means that the franchise will always need to reset itself every few years as it gradually unravels and becomes nonsense.
I think that all adaptations of Batman seem doomed to absurdity by the inherent insanity of its basic premise: a man battling childhood trauma by dressing as a bat.Pretty much yeah. He’s a power fantasy for kids invented in the 1930s, you’re swimming against a pretty powerful current by trying to force that to be something complex for adults. Heck, the Nolan films are probably the best example of this. I remember how everyone was talking about how The Dark Knight was pretty much The Wire with a guy dressed as a bat showing up every so often. Now, either they kind of forgot about that in the next movie, or I haven’t gotten up to the season of The Wire where they explore the politics of quasi-medieval desert hole-prisons.
But Pryzbylewski was so cheerful about getting transferred to that quasi-medieval desert hole-prison!
Spoilers!
Haha, I was actually saying this about the Netflix Daredevil series too. “Imagine you’re watching Season 5 of The Wire, and then suddenly Omar starts fighting a bunch of ninjas.”
Bane is basically Marlo but with a sillier voice.
Batman: The Animated Series has the best sustained depiction of the character, adeptly handling the fantastical elements by just treating the concept as a pulp adventure story. I think it’s no accident it feels closest to the comics of the 70’s and early 80s, when Batman worked well as the somber but cool superhero that was no more ridiculous than any other. Iwould love for for a live action treatment in this regard, one that doesn’t think it has to pander to adults and can create a quality, family friendly adventure film.
TAS doesn’t really enter the fantasy realm at all as far as I can recall — Clayface, those android replicants and maybe that time The Riddler trapped Gordon in a VR game were about as out-there as it got. It wasn’t until Justice League that we ever saw Bats mixing it up with aliens and shit.
Fantastical in so far as it’s about a costumed hero fighting costumed/grotesque villains with made up gadgets in imaginative and creative plots. That’s separate then saying it has fantasy elements, which it definitely does not.
The same team’s depiction of Batman in Justice League was likewise amazing. He functioned as a part time member whose primary focus was still Gotham, so he would go on ridiculous intergalactic adventures, then come back down to earth and head right back to detective work. It works because there’s a sense that Batman isn’t a straight power fantasy, he’s a symbol of responsibility and dedication to his city that keeps tabs on issues big and small. Spiderman also works on the same spectrum by being a symbol of responsibility, who always has time to foil convenience store robberies in between world ending adventures.
He (and in later seasons, Green Arrow) worked to both seriously and playfully be the token powerless humans on the team.
As in here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcA5c8S6Q-s
I’ve never bought into the critical trope that Bruce Wayne is somehow this incredibly deep, nuanced character to which each “Batman” movie must do justice.
Dark Knight is more Heat than Wire.
Ah, that explains it. I was forgetting the scene where Neil Macually breaks Vincent Hanna’s back and throws him into a desert hole-prison.
Herc and Carver went there in S5
“Man’s gotta have a desert hole”
Nolan wasn’t even sure if he wanted to do a third film at first, and IIRC Occupy Wall Street made a big impression on him. Arguably, TDKR was still better than Knightfall, the comics arc that partially inspired the story (along with No Man’s Land), since we didn’t get a Fauxbat in an exoskeleton, but I have to admit that the desert hole scenes lacked any sort of suspense, since you know that he’s going to get out and kick some ass when he gets back. If Nolan had any particular consciousness that he’d done The Wire in the previous movie, it seemed limited to hiring Littlefinger Carcetti as the CIA dude.
Lacked suspense and moreover the “impossible” climb out was like a 5.9 at worst. Handholds and footholds everywhere! Ledges to rest on! I’m a completely shit climber and I could knock that out in an hour.
I think that all adaptations of Batman seem doomed to absurdity by the inherent insanity of its basic premise: a man battling childhood trauma by dressing as a bat. And punching people! You can leave off the part about him punching people otherwise it just sounds silly.
It’s definitely not as dark, but Thor: Ragnarok gets plenty weird after it spends the first act closing every connection it could find to the larger MCU before launching into a Flash Gordon fever dream
must now make “flash gordon fever dream” wall art.
Probably look better on the side of a van.
Almost every frame of Thor: Ragnarok wouldn’t look out of place airbrushed on the side of a van.
That’s actually how it was storyboarded. Most of the film’s budget went on vans and aerosol paint.
Peak Goldblum
We’ve been at peak Goldblum for the last 25 years or so. He’s a national treasure.
It’s only a peak once he starts going down. Hasn’t happened yet.
Which is why its so great. It feels like a comic book. Starts in media res in an event that you could imagine was part of another comic book you didn’t buy or follow. It quickly wraps that up. Then it checks in with the back story that was hanging from the last comic arc(IE movie). It quickly wraps that up to(You can imagine that the arc was by a different creative team that has now left and the new team doesn’t really care about it). Then it quickly shifts the main character and some other cool characters the team clearly wanted to write about to some random new place for a wacky space adventure. Hell it even ends with a bit of a status quo reset/setup for the next big company wide event, INFINITY WAR!
What I’ve really liked about the more recent MCU movies is that they’ve been willing to blow up the status quo. “Winter Soldier” really started it by blowing up SHIELD, Civil War broke The Avengers, Ragnarok just completely detonated everything in Thor’s world.
I could see that the comedy in Ragnarok could be seen as actors not giving a crap and just farming in their roles to get a paycheck. I doubt that was the case.
I believe that someone turned Taika Waititi onto Kirby’s 1970s comics, when he was just going apeshit on the page every month, and Waititi resolved to dispose of all the boring old shit from the previous movies before cutting the brake lines on the express train to Kirbytown.
Batman V Superman is plenty idiosyncratic and weird. We are talking about about a movie with 4 dream sequences.
Good points. As opposed to the movies Gotham wisely decided “why wait” and has been nonsense from the beginning.
I think Nolan made the right choice by choosing to reset his Batman films as crime films as opposed to being weirdly psycho-sexual exercises in camp. I disagree that they are crime films. That’s my major problem with them. In each movie, Batman is trying to save Gotham City from destruction. I wish there were a Batman movie series where he’s just fighting crime.
“Hey, we’ve got this character called Batman. His parents were killed in a robbery, so what he does is dresses as a bat to scare criminals and fight crime on the streets.”
“Sounds great, so what happens in the story?”
“Well, some people want to destroy the entire city and he has to stop them.”
Every one of the Nolan sequels does a reset to avoid showing too much regular crime-fighting. Batman does such a good job cleaning up the city? Okay, here comes The Joker to destroy Gotham. Batman retired and the city is mostly at peace, thanks to a lie conjured up about Harvey Dent? Here comes Bane to destroy Gotham.
Well, Nolan’s Batman had a specific goal in mind, rather than the generic “Fightin’ CRIME!”. He was going after the mob and corruption in Gotham. His Batman didn’t do “regular” crime fighting, that’s what the cops are for. It’s dumb for Batman to go around beating up muggers, anyways. Gotham is a big goddamned place, it’d be a damned superpower to actually be where crime happens when it happens. If you could do that, all you need is a phone to tell the cops where shit’s going down. You don’t even need to leave the house. A friend used to draw a comic about exactly that. A superhero with the requisite powers of strength and invulnerability and a bitchin’ costume, but he ends up wandering around the city doing nothing because he can’t find crime as it’s happening, and by the time he gets to any crime scene the cops are already there and it’s all over. He ends every comic getting shit-faced and complaining about how there isn’t enough crime.
Dark Knight doesn’t feature a threat of citywide destruction, does it? Two ferry loads of people blowing each other the fuck up is damn tragic and all, but it pales in comparison to Ra’s al Ghul’s plan to drive roughly 8 million people insane with fear to the point everyone starts killing each other.
In a way the Joker was trying to destroy the “spirit” of the city. He’s not trying to out-and-out kill everyone, but he wants to eliminate whatever it is that the Batman thinks he’s trying to protect.
It turns out the real Gotham City was in our hearts all along…
Also, it’s like Gotham City is a character itself.
The threat of destruction in Dark Knight isn’t literal—Joker doesn’t have a nuke or a chemical weapon—but it’s just as real as in the other two movies. It’s destruction through terror. If his plan had worked, Gotham’s citizens would’ve learned to be afraid of basically all of the city’s infrastructure (bridges, tunnels, mass transit, hospitals), as well as their fellow citizens. The city’s top officials would be dead or disfigured and demented. Bane’s dystopian Gotham was civilized by comparison.
I really want to see that approach with the Spider-Man franchise too. Every film is just about him battling some rogue science freak, but classic Spidey always tangled with crimelords like Kingpin, Silvermane, Tombstone, The Rose, etc. Even Doc Ock and Green Goblin became gangsters.
That kind of had to happen, though. “Rich white dude kicks the living shit out of poor people” just doesn’t look good. You don’t need a Batman for that . . . Bruce Wayne just plugs all that money he’s using on batarangs and bat-themed vehicles into education and jobs initiatives in the inner city and he would do AT LEAST as much good as Batman beating people up for misdemeanors. You kinda need a lunatic clown or a dude made of clay or an alligator person or an immortal assassin king to justify Batman’s existence.
That’s my problem with most Marvel movies and Star Wars. They are all so high stakes that everything feels overblown. More micro level one-offs would be better. Part of what made Black Panther work so well is that it was a fairly contained story that’s not about thousands of faceless aliens destroying the world. Again. I hoped the Star Wars side films would be more of this, unconnected to the Skywalker saga. But they never were, and now that they’re pushing new trilogies over one-offs, i fear it will lead to more convoluted “the whole galaxy is in danger!!!!!” stories than cool little Star Wars genre flicks.
This is one of the reasons I really liked “Ant-Man”. For once the stakes weren’t “the world could end”.
That’s my problem with most Marvel movies and Star Wars. They are all so high stakes that everything feels overblown. More micro level one-offs would be better.Like my favorite Marvel movie.Seriously, I love that the biggest stakes in the film are personal. The villain doesn’t want to rule the world, just best his mentor and make a shit ton of money. The hero doesn’t want to save the world, he just wants to get back into his daughter’s life. So unusual for a super-hero film in general, doubly so for the Marvel films.
But even then, gotta have Cross making a deal to sell the Yellow Jacket suit to Hydra. Sure, it’s not an interdimensional hole in the sky, but it’s pretty telling that even when the story doesn’t need worldwide stakes, they’ve still got to be slipped in somehow.
Strongly agreed. I loved Homecoming for similar reasons: the Vulture wasn’t a universe- or even city-threatening megalomaniac. In fact he wasn’t any kind of maniac at all! He was a smart man with some legit gripes about how he and his crew had been fucked over by an impersonal bureaucracy, and an entirely reasonable desire to do right by his family. If not for his temper and willingness to kill people, he’s 100% sympathetic. He even tries to peace out on his final fight with Spider-Man because he realizes he can still steal the thing he’s trying to steal and that’s actually what he’s there to do.I’m still astonished that a film with six credited scriptwriters and a corporate shared-custody agreement for its very existence that probably required several on-call law firms to adjudicate on a daily basis somehow managed to feel as grounded and confident as Homecoming did. Here’s hoping they don’t screw it up in the sequels.And yeah: really looking forward to Ant-Man and the Wasp. Possibly more than to Infinity War. 🙂
So far we’ve gotten Rogue One….Literally the filler movie between 3 and 4. What basis do you have for assuming this? We haven’t even seen the SECOND one off from star wars yet. Calm yourself. There is plenty of one-off books from the EU to use as basis for making smaller films. The Solo series could be a great series. Indiana Jones style in space…
It would be pretty great for a Batman film be about Batman fighting like the mob or something. Weirdly enough the Penguin could also be the villain of the piece.
Which is why Returns is so great: the city isn’t in danger, there’s just a couple crooks using each other to get money and power. The one moment Penguin goes crazy and tries to destroy the city in rage, it’s near the very end, last about 5 minutes, and is essentially foiled by Alfred by remote.
“Stopping people from destroying cities is tight! Is it gonna be hard for him to stop them?”
“No, it’s gonna be super easy, barely an inconvenience!”
A lot of franchises have that escalating weirdness that ends up unraveling into nonsense. Pretty much every 80s toy/cartoon fell into that trap. G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero went from semi-realistic counter-terrorism to a villain who turns into a giant snake. Transformers was pretty high-concept from day one, and they kept getting gimmickier every year: combiners, Headmasters, Pretenders, Micromasters, and Action Masters which didn’t even transform. TMNT has been rebooted a half-dozen times across various media; they all begin with the Turtles fighting ninja street gangs, and end with the Turtles travelling through space and time. That makes it all the more impressive when a superhero comic can run for decades without so much as a soft reboot. Amazing Spider-Man ran for 400+ issues over 30+ years before they had to do any major continuity rewrites. They showed a lot of restraint in that core title, kept it grounded. Spider-Man rarely got into space travel, time travel, or multiple dimensions; he only got involved in those sorts of high-concept stories for cross-over events. (It all went to hell with the Clone Saga, of course.) I think the big reason that Spider-Man avoided long or soft reboots for so long was twofold: readers actually wanted Peter Parker to grow over time, and (this point is more relevant to this discussion) Spider-Man’s humorous side allows it to bounce back from the crazier stories. Spider-Man can fight Thanos in deep space with the Avengers, and then go back to webbing up muggers a month later, acknowledging the former adventure with a “Wow! That was crazy. Glad to be back home.”Batman can’t seem to bounce back from the silly and crazy stories as easily as Spider-Man can, largely because so many people expect Batman to remain “dark and gritty”. And as you stated, that “dark and gritty” tone is forever at odds with the inherent ridiculousness of a man dressed as a bat fighting costumed gangsters and mad scientists.
TMNT has been rebooted a half-dozen times across various media; they all begin with the Turtles fighting ninja street gangs, and end with the Turtles travelling through space and time.Well, the original run of comics had the TMNT traveling across space by the end of issue 4, and traveling through time in issue 8, but eventually ended with one of their most grounded storylines (“City At War”).But TMNT, at its core, was always about tongue-in-cheek indulgence of comic book tropes. When it’s being “grounded,” it’s often being hyperbolically dark n gritty.
Yeah, I think the main issue with TMNT series isn’t that they grow weirder over time; it’s more that they seem to grow sillier (and usually more juvenile) over time. The Ghostbusters franchise went through a similar trajectory in the 80s; by the time The Real Ghostbusters ended, it was more of a straight cartoon.
Yeah, I think the main issue with TMNT series isn’t that they grow weirder over time; it’s more that they seem to grow sillier (and usually more juvenile) over time. The Ghostbusters franchise went through a similar trajectory in the 80s; by the time The Real Ghostbusters ended, it was more of a straight cartoon.Hell, the Ghostbusters were there by the end of the second film. They’d become a kiddie franchise, even Winston had to shave his moustache off. 😀
Eh, the Turtles went into space in the sixth issue of their original comic, which was published way before they even had a cartoon or toys. They were always a broad franchise of escalating weirdness.
Fugitoid, Triceratons, TCRI run by Utroms, Renet, Cerberus, Savanti Romero, etc.Yeah, they embraced gonzo from day one.
I think it helped that Spider Man was *also* starring in the original “Marvel Team-Up” where every month he had weird adventures with random characters that were canon but never seemed to circle back to the main continuity outside of the fact that he had apparently had at least one adventure with EVERY SINGLE marvel hero.
Lots of the really weird stuff happened over there so it didn’t have to intrude on the main line.
I love the Claremont/Byrne run on MTU. The Thing could handle weird stuff better, but lots of strange things occurred in Marvel Two-In-One as well.
As someone who grew up reading Marvel in the 70s and 80s, it’s weird to see a Marvel without The Thing being front and center. He was almost as much of a Marvel icon or mascot as Spidey was. Obviously with the terrible Fantastic Four movies, he never gained in profile as a character the way the other Marvel characters did but back in the 70s and 80s…while Marvel Two-In-One was being published, he was HUGE.Maybe if Marvel reboots the FF in the MCU, he’ll finally be done right.
I’ve longed for years for someone to hire Fabian Nicieza to write Spider-Man. He had the perfect balance of humor and reluctant heroism to the character in his New Warriors appearances.
“I think Nolan made the right choice by choosing to reset his Batman films as crime films as opposed to being weirdly psycho-sexual exercises in camp.” Yeah, but his decision to make Batman boring was definitely the wrong choice.
I have long held that the first Nolan Batman is in fact the only film that was ever actually *about* Batman. Every single other one (including the Adam West movie) is actually about the villians with Batman showing up to stop them at the end.
Which if fine, but I actually want a Batman movie, not another Joker movie.
Always and forever the best Batman comic:
I quite like this one too:
Love this comic. But to be fair, I don’t really get the whole “why doesn’t he just use his billions to make Gotham a better place?” criticism. Because the only real answer to it is simply “Because Bruce Wayne: Charity CEO wouldn’t be a particularly exciting premise for an action-adventure-fantasy comic”.
In the comics, Bruce Wayne canonically gives millions and millions to charity, hires parolees he helped put away so they get a second chance, and fights through proxies for improvements that require the Gotham government to step in. He absolutely is working through those sorts of channels. He’s just also fighting crime dressed like a bat because Gotham exists in comic book Earth where some problems can only be solved that way. (Something that has also been literal canon at various times in the DCU.) One of the things I enjoy about Gotham is that in addition to totally embracing near-incoherent silliness in a very comic book way, it’s doing an excellent job constructing a world that’s inevitably going to continue spiralling out of control without the intervention of a man dressed like a bat punching criminals. In that, it’s basically the antithesis of the Nolan films’ thesis that Batman’s villains only exist because he does.
“the Nolan films’ thesis that Batman’s villains only exist because he does.” A thesis that never made a lick of sense in the first place, because the villains of Batman Begins are Ra’s Al Ghul & the League of Shadows, which have—even in the film’s own canon—been villaining for hundreds of years already (this isn’t even the first time they’ve attacked Gotham in particular).
At some point in its conception, any superhero film just has to come to terms with the fact that it on some -even microscopic – level, can’t be fully grounded. The best ones find a balance or just live with their ninja-trained billionaire vigilantes fighting masked superstrong Middle Eastern terrorists that sound like Monty Python characters and give reality the middle finger.
Or maybe the trick is in not considering absurdity to be a “doom.”
I still think that Batman Returns is the best Batman movie (I’ve seen) and probably the best Burton movie. I can remember being blown away by it. Not just the silliness, the over the top images, the characters all comic book. No, it’s a movie about people who wear masks and can only wear masks. As soon as they drop them, the become someone else, someone with a mask. It’s deeply sad how Keaton’s Batman longs for human contact but has to fight Catwoman, tragic when he meets her out of her costume (the party where Bruce and Selina meet) and the only thing they manage is small talk. Only to resign and fight each other again. And Pfeiffer who is still one of my all time favorite actresses, really takes the role to levels no other could have done. Of course she should have gotten an Oscar for this.
I always got a kick out of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle showing up to that party and they’re the only ones not wearing costumes. “Oh, because Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle ARE the costumes.” Symbolism 101.
I’m not sure I could call it the best Batman movie – the Nolan films are technically better made, and Returns is just so damn silly and incoherent. But it is arguably the most fun to watch.
Fuck technics. What else decides if a movie is good? Rotten Tomatoes? Variety? The only measure can be your own taste.
I found the Nolan Batmans too blown up, too self important. Batman Begins was ok, DK was terrible, the third I didn’t see.
The problem is that Batman works best as a really strong (in a literal sense) detective movie. The best in the series are Batman (1989) then The Dark Knight, both happen to feature the Joker but both of them work great as detective films, sniffing out the clues, watching it unfold.
Most of the basic superhero films work on two levels – Being a fantastical superhuman experience & a moral play. Captain America about doing what’s right in the face of difficulty, Ironman about taking responsibility for your actions, Spiderman about understanding the responsibility of your powers, so on and so forth. Batman doesn’t really have that, there aren’t great moral plays to his best stories, they’re about justice and punishment. So you really aren’t making superhero movies with Batman…You’re making detective movies on huge budgets. Mentioned below but consistently true, The Animated Series had enough plots and good writing to turn atleast a half-dozen of them into full-length live action films with just some decent wrap around padding and some added grandeur. The androids from TAS alone could easily be a great jumping off point for a modern Batman movie, one where an Affleck or another facetime-worthy Bruce Wayne could actually do some in-between sleuthing.
You either die a hero, or live long enough to become a super silly entry in the Batman franchise.
I so much want to upvote you but I’m not going to be the one to disrupt a perfect ‘69′.
Michelle Pfeiffer, damn! The movie was more nasty than dark to me. Too much Max Shreck even if he’s Christopher Walken.There was some good things in the Captain America movie. The opening of a child musical prodigy, assuming he is also generally intelligent, taken from his family and deformed into Red Skull was pretty good. Then bringing that back at the end by playing the music was a good touch.
I think there was just the right amount of Christopher Walken.Even though Max Shreck is a character especially made-up for the film, he’s really the key character, the one who puts all the various plots into motion. He’s the one who creates Catwoman, he’s the one who steers the Penguin in his plot to become mayor, and it’s men like Shreck who arguably represent the very evil and corruption Batman is dedicated to opposing. Shreck, the capitalist bigwig property developer, who kills personal assistants and business associates with impunity, is also the character that best represents the current state of the USA, in which a brazenly corrupt former businessman intent on hoodwinking the electorate to serve his own personal interests, is currently President.
Making the Red Skull Italian sure was weird, though.
I was going to write that Red Skull being an Italian fascist was weird, but cut it. That and older Red Skull having pinkish skin.
Wasn’t there a whole “Red Skull wears makeup” thing? I didn’t understand that. Still lots of time and hassle for the actor, but ruins the classic character look.Then again, they did this with Nicholson, too. Always felt like they were a little ashamed of the comic-book origins, and didn’t fully commit.
Way to bury the lede on that knockoff Doctor Strange – that is Jeffrey Goddamn Combs in the lead.
The Penguin should have made getting rid of illegal immigrants part of his platform. Trash talk liberals and be anti-immigrant, and a significant percent of the electorate will stick with you no matter what you get caught saying on tape.
You gotta admit, he’s playing this stinking country like a harp from hell!*record scratch with a CD
Many members of Oswald’s Red Triangle Circus Gang were immigrants (or were at least played by non-American actors with a range of European accents), so, even if he was campaigning on a right-wing platform, and aligning himself with a rapacious capitalist, like Max Shreck, to get elected, bear in mind that his whole plan was ultimately to take down the powerful and privileged members of Gotham’s one-percent, rather than the genuine outsiders, like himself.I’m not saying the Penguin’s actions are remotely sympathetic, but I do think we’re meant to sympathise with some of his motives and grievances, considering how he was treated by his parents and then the rest of society for 33 years.
I loved the villains in BR so much because they had depth like this. Even Max Shrek sacrifices himself for his son in a surprise move of humanity when the Penguin comes to take him. Also, Christopher Walken is chewing scenery as much as the costumed villains!
This is my point precisely. The villains in this particular film arguably have a lot more depth and pathos than today’s real-life villains (you know who I mean).That said, I think Shreck is the least sympathetic, and the most Trump-like of the lot (even when he does sacrifice himself for his son, it’s partly about protecting his legacy, and with the cocky belief that, unlike the not-too-bright Chip, he is best placed to manipulate the Penguin into letting him escape).
Oh yeah, definitely the least sympathetic and most Trumplike (unless we count body type).Still more likable than Tom Hardy in that last Nolan Batman, though. I just wanted him to die so I didn’t have to hear the weird unitelligible voice box garble.
And there’s no need to even compare the Clooney/Batffleck films, right? The Governator Mr. Freeze (which Burton could’ve made work) and a really off Uma Ivy or Lex Luther as annoying hipster and his cgi thing? Its not even close to as entertaining as Pfeiffer, Devito, and Walken. I can at least understand people picking the Ledger version of Joker. I would probably pick that over the first Batman’s Nicholson.
Although I did enjoy noting the parallel with the real-life version’s extremely dumb adult sons.
Yeah, which one is Chip? Donald Junior, or Eric?
You have made the connection between Chip and Eric Trump, right? Dead ringers, surely you’ve noticed…
Yep, I’ve noticed.
I agree about Max and would argue of the 3, he is the most purely evil. And can we talk about how Batman Returns proves that a superhero movie CAN pull off 3 villains? (looking at you, Spider-Man)
Well, I know Batman Returns still gets some stick for introducing the trend for multiple villains in superhero films, but at least it does it fairly organically. All three villains are fairly well interconnected.I think The Dark Knight films and many of the MCU films also do a good job of employing multiple villains.
It’s so weird that Walken has been both a Bond villain and a Batman villain. I honestly believe that if he had played Lex Luther in BvS instead Eisenberg and changed none of the dialogue the movie would have been far more entertaining.I mean it wouldn’t make the movie good but you’d at least look foreword to Walken whenever he popped up.
“…if he had played Lex Luther in BvS instead Eisenberg and changed none of the dialogue the movie would have been far more entertaining.”Well, the dialogue wouldn’t change, just the punctuation.
I think he was a better Bond villain in Batman Returns.
Walken also really helps the game “Ripper” with his chops and pretty much out acts everybody else in it.
It’s really hard to think off of the top of my head a “bad” Walken role.
“I mean it wouldn’t make the movie good but you’d at least look foreword to Walken whenever he popped up.”100%. I have happily sat through that one film where he met aliens several times. Its a movie that ONLY works because he is so fascinating an actor.
It was a full decade after I saw the movie in the theater before I realized that “Max Shrek” was a Nosferatu shoutout.
“If you have one iota of human feeling, take me instead.”
I’m not saying the Penguin’s actions are remotely sympathetic, but I do think we’re meant to sympathise with some of his motives and grievances, considering how he was treated by his parents and then the rest of society for 33 years.Most of the movie — Penguin is a villian who is doing evil stuff and has an evil scheme where he kills the first-born sons of Gotham.Finale of the movie — Penguin is a pitiful soul who was abandoned by his family. All of his human friends leave him and he regresses to an infant-like state before dying and being carried off by his pallbearer penguins.
He is definitely evil, but I also think he’s partly a product of his terrible childhood. Unlike say Trump (sorry to bring him up again) who was born with a silver spoon and a $ million loan from daddy in his back pocket, you can understand the Penguin’s grievances, and (not that this makes the Penguin’s plans any more defensible) his vendetta is primarily against the city’s haves rather than the have-nots (which is arguably represented by him and his circus buddies).
So, are you on the spectrum or are you just genuinely humorless?
I’m not ‘on the spectrum’, but I have got OCD, and this is one of those things I’m obsessive about (the film came out just as my OCD started developing in my pre-teens). I know the OP was making a joke, but unless you’ve got OCD yourself you wouldn’t understand how it can affect people and cause them to take even the most trivial and peripheral things seriously.
It is almost as if people don’t care much about off-color jokes made (supposedly) in private, because everyone says things in private they wouldn’t necessarily say in public. It is almost as if people care more about jobs and border security than dumb pussy-jokes. It is almost as if voters can factor in multiple variables when assessing a candidate and not base their decisions on a single factor, like a child would (i.e. “man say bad thing!”).
A stone cold classic! Pfeiffer was Earth-shatteringly sexy and DeVito committed so hard to that hideous character. Best thing Tim Burton ever did.
Ed Wood is Burton’s best, but this is still great. I think it’s my favorite live action Batman.
Agreed on both counts. Ed Wood is still his best film, but Batman Returns is my favorite Batman movie, hands down. It’s the only Bat-flick to fully embrace both the darkness AND the silliness of Batman and his world, proving you really can have it both ways.
I can’t quite agree. Edward Scissorhands and its fairy tale ranks just a bit above BR in my personal Burton Ranking.
Agreed – Edward Scissorhands is probably the purest expression of his style and outlook, though for me this film is more fun to watch.
Same here. For me Edward Scissorhands, an original story no less (Burton should do more of those), is the purest distillation of his aesthetics and thematic interests, plus it’s a genuinely touching, poignant movie that successfully pulls the emotional strings.
“One thing that hasn’t aged especially well is how happily he kills people—lighting one evil clown on fire, strapping a bomb to another’s chest before pushing him into a hole while smiling.”Tell that to the Snyder fanboys who have made it their personal mission to justify their love of fascist propaganda that is Crazy Steve v. Super Jesus by bringing up the Burton films, early stories when his origin wasn’t even properly defined yet, or bringing other up without any context to justify Batman being homicidal maniac.
Its like with superman. I know his killed a handful of times but the comics have the time to explore the aftermath and how it affects his actions going forward. Man of steel just has him snap a neck and then crack a joke 5 minutes later.The only DC hero I could see actively killing someone is Wonder Woman and I would think thats like the last thing she tries to do.
Favorite part of MoS that showed just how much Snyder didn’t comprehend the scope of violence that he portrayed. End of the movie the one dude is asking someone to go to the basketball game with him. WHAT!? The whole fucking city is destroyed, they’d be lucky if they had a basketball stadium much less an actual team left after the whole fucking city was demolished.
In my opinion I thought the fact that the movie just outright forgets the destruction even happened once Super Jesus snapped Zod’s neck like a twig and then made a face like he was constipated and trying to take a shit. The movie just immediately cuts away to Super Jesus destroying a drone and a woman saying he’s hot. The only time we see Metropolis after that is when Super Jesus starts his job at the Daily Planet, even tough the movie up until this point had never once indicated that he had an interest in journalism let alone had been to college, and it looks perfectly fine. What was the point of leveling the city if there’s no impact and the movie treats it like it never happened?
Especially because im pretty sure the daily planet was also blown the fuck up and its a pretty big building so it would take years to fix.
The biggest crime of MoS was the under use and then killing of Chris Meloni. He should be in everything.
You misspelled “Richard Schiff”. ; )
Reading your comment, as well as a few others, is making me realize just how bad/dumb some of those Snyder movies are. Havent watched MoS in awhile so I forget, or just never noticed, some of those poor qualities and inconsistencies.And yet people still defend those movies to the death. Just the other I was commenting with individuals claiming MoS is great and that BvS is deep and thoughtful movie. But that’s bound to happen when you find yourself on a forum with fans comparing the MCU to the DCEU
Maybe the game was in Gotham, since it’s just across the bay from Metropolis.
I love messing with people that Gotham city is suppose to be in New Jersey around Atlantic City. Im not sure how true that is anymore in the new 52/flashpoint/rebirth.
“Attention basketball fans: Everyone in Metropolis is dead. Tonight’s game will continue as scheduled.”
I like the part where Zod and Superman get separated briefly. Superman while looking for Zod floats in front of a building that suddenly collapses under its own weight. Superman doesn’t look at it, doesn’t react to it. It’s CGI so Henry wasn’t directed to react to it, they just put it in in post because otherwise its just a shot of Superman darting his eyes around. That was the moment I realized this wasn’t a superhero fight scene. This was a kaiju fight scene.
Yeah, movies NEVER use CGI! Oh. Wait.
I never criticized it for being CGI.
Ahhh…that’s what was missing from Dark Knight Rises. Alfred asking Bruce if a football game would clear his mind.“Oh right…the explosion and the death and all that. Sorry, Master Wayne.”
Yeah, instead of going to a basketball game they should have gone for schwarma. Those restaurants are always fine despite city-wide destruction.
In Metropolis, “Let’s go to the basketball game” is common slang for “My children have been crushed by falling debris, I have nothing left to live for.” Just another fun detail of the Snyder Murderverse!
Aquaman would totally kill a dude. No question.
Yea I was thinking that right after I posted about Wonder Woman.
Even when Wonder Woman does justifiably kill someone in the comics, Clark and Bruce are so upset that they stop talking to her.
Ya like I remember when she killed Maxwell Lord and she justified it because he was controlling superman and they were just not dropping it at all.
Just for the sexual thrill!
She even has a saying about all the things to try doing BEFORE killing someone, while sort of implying that she will if none of those things work.
Aquaman could as well cause he’s a dick
Wonder Woman killed many, many times in her solo film. You think those Germans survived? She didn’t give it a second thought until Doctor Poison
She was completely jutified in killing those germans. She was in the middle of a war. I didnt say she never kills just only when its the last option.
Of the Trinity, Diana is the only one who might consider the use of lethal force but she views it as only a last resort.
Not gonna get into Snyder but yeah having recently caught BR on cable that scene with the bomb did shake me a little. I didn’t remember it from my original viewing – it doesn’t seem very heroic, does it?
I sort of half-remembered it as Batman is forced to kick someone away who is carrying a bomb.Rewatched it recently — he just grabs a bomb off some mook and is wandering around beating up people. Then he runs into the “giant mook” that is bigger than him and he can’t beat him up! So he attaches the convenient bomb to him, then kicks him off screen to blow up.
Yeah it’s pretty cold blooded.
In my many years frequenting these places, I’ve yet to see a Snyder fanboy. I’ve seen so many complaining about Snyder fanboys, but yet to spot one in the wild. I often wonder if it’s at least partially imagined in order to provide a foil for arguments people wished they’d had and won.
When I watch Avengers and see Captain America grab a machine gun while defending the helicarrier, I always imagine Snyder whining about why no one complains about that.And I really don’t know why we give a general pass to the MCU heroes sometimes using lethal force. It just feels okay within the context of the films, and always feels wrong coming from Batman and Superman no matter how they portray it.
Well it’s because with the exception of Spider-Man, Daredevil, and the Hulk, the majority of the MCU’s heroes never had a no-kill rule. With Batman and Superman, there strict moral code has been something that has defined the two of them for decades to the point that when it does happen, they either have a mental breakdown or outright retire.
No, this is incorrect. The original comics iterations of all the Silver Age Marvel heroes (all comic heroes actually, independent of publisher) had no killing codes as stringent as Batman and Superman. It’s why characters like Wolverine, Punisher, and Ghost Rider were so distasteful to the rest of the Marvel heroes in their first appearances. They may have gotten more lax in recent Marvel comics, but this was definitely the case through at least the late 90’s.
Man, comic books are lame.
Perhaps, but I suppose no more than entertainment industries that keep increasing the mature content for characters originally intended for kids.
Captain America never killed anyone according to the canon until the post-9/11 Marvel Knights series. According to Mark Gruenwald, he didn’t even kill Nazis during World War II. When Hawkeye quits the Avengers to try to redeem the Thunderbolts, he says that the only reason he’s willing to give them the chance is because they aren’t killers and the only member who had had to go to jail for the crime. One of them points out there’s heroes like the Punisher and Wolverine who kill and Hawkeye basically says, “Yeah, and you won’t see them joining the Avengers.” Even when Wolverine does show up in New Avengers, Cap objects because he’s a killer.
I love Wolverine, but I can not stand that he’s a member of the Avengers. There’s no way any conception of the Avengers I read while growing up would be comfortable with him in their ranks.
I completely agree. I imagine that they respect him and would work with him, but it doesn’t track that he’s a member.
I’m not sure about respect, and it seems like the mainstream heroes only ever tolerated working with him (and the rest of the X-Men, really) when they were forced to during stuff like Secret Wars and Infinity incidents.
And I really don’t know why we give a general pass to the MCU heroes sometimes using lethal force. It just feels okay within the context of the films, and always feels wrong coming from Batman and Superman no matter how they portray it.
Probably for the same reason that a wisecrack that would feel totally normal for Bugs Bunny to make would sound borderline sacrilege coming out of Mickey Mouse’s mouth. Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Warner Bros. toons are deliberately designed, from their inception, to be the more wisecracking, world-weary cartoons that play against the wholesomeness of their Disney counterparts.Similar principles apply with the relationship between DC and Marvel. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are as much icons as characters, just like Mickey Mouse. And just like it would feel deeply weird to see Mickey smoking, drinking and shooting pool, it feels deeply weird to see Superman be anything other than the guy who always does the right thing for the right reasons, and has the power to ensure that right always wins. Marvel characters get to set themselves against that standard and fail to varying degrees because Superman has already set that standard.
Hey just to let you know, you got a Snyder troll replying to you. I recommend dismissing his comment as soon as you can.
And I really don’t know why we give a general pass to the MCU heroes sometimes using lethal force. It just feels okay within the context of the films, and always feels wrong coming from Batman and Superman no matter how they portray it.In Man of Steel, it’s built as the big defining point that causes Superman to scream out in anger. But it was never built up to and feels incongruent based on the surrounding death and destruction. For Batman, it’s because of The Dark Knight where Batman is given many opportunities to kill the Joker but refuses to do so.The DC movies tried to incorporate a code against killing for their heroes, because that’s what the comics do. The Marvel movies didn’t, because that’s what movies do.——As for why Batman killing in this movie is remarked upon — it’s because his most obvious kill is completely unnecessary and he has a huge grin on his face when it happens. Batman brought a bomb to a fistfight and escalated the conflict.
Well, that’s the thing. The Snyder films were clearly trying to incorporate killing as being okay for their heroes, and it was flat out rejected just because it was Batman and Superman. Is it because it was such a central point of the Nolan films? Perhaps. . . but it looks like there is no going back now.
Except Batman does kill people in the Nolan films. He leaves Ra’s al Ghul to die on the train, throws Harvey Dent off a building (although I maintain that his interrogation of Eric Roberts earlier in the film included the drop off the roof to show that Dent would survive and Heath Ledger’s death caused a last minute edit) and is at least complicit in Bane and Talia’s murders. Plus, his Batmobile and Batcycle have machine guns.Nolan’s Batman might not kill a lot, but he doesn’t really care if the big villains end up in the ground.
The Nolan films harped on Batman’s code so much in Begins and DK that I have to chalk these up to the filmmakers being inconsistent, if not dumb. But I thought making his code so vital to the character in the Nolan films was a bad choice, as all your examples demonstrate. It can’t help but lead to plot holes unless you write around it, which they largely did not.
I think Batman’s little act of sophistry in ‘Begins’ (“I’m not going to kill you, but I don’t have to save you”) is actually quite intentional. The series as a whole focuses on Batman taking responsibility for the consequences of his crusade, and by leaving Ra’s to die he motivates Talia (who otherwise kind of hated her dad) to seek revenge in a way that almost destroyed the whole city. He takes the easy way out in the first film and pays for it in the third.I’ll give him a pass on Dent. He’s injured and has to act quickly to save Gordon’s son. He tosses Dent aside to do that and isn’t quite able to do so safely, but he had a greater good to focus on.
Captain America is literally a soldier. I can see how it feels a bit weird, but to me using guns entirely makes sense for him. He only does it when he doesn’t have his shield, though.
Oh, I knew some asshole would show up whining about, ‘Superman killed a guy! Waaaah! Snyder is a fascist!’. Except, dipshit, Superman kills THE FASCIST, so the fascist can’t kill a woman & enslave the entire human race. What’s he SUPPOSED to do w Zod?! Fly him, tied up in a rope, to the nearest police precinct and triumphantly announce, ‘Officer! I believe you are looking for this Kryptonian prisoner! Ha, ha! Evil loses AGAIN! Humanity is peachy-keen!’?! Jesus, you guys are pathetic. ‘But! But! Christopher Reeve’s Superman only threw Zod down a deep, dark hole, in The Fortress of Solitude, in the absolute masterpiece, Superman 2!’. Womp! Womp! Let’s hear it folks, for the world’s biggest idiots!
I present the Snyder Fanboy in his natural habitat. Notice the name calling and the wall of text that’s just full of Straw Man Fallacies. Notice that at no point was I talking about MoS, at least not in the comment he replied to, and is just making an incoherent rant. This is by far the classic example of an unhinged fan of the DCEU.
I almost didn’t really believe they were real, or if they were, that they couldn’t breathe outside of their native habitat of Reddit and YouTube Comments.
I’m ‘name calling’? After you spend two comments referring to people who enjoy Man of Steel & BvS as ‘Snyder fanboys’ & ‘fascists’? And refer to Superman in those films as a ‘homicidal maniac’? Give me a break!First off, even if you didn’t mention it by name, you could only be referring to Man of Steel: As it’s the only Snyder film in which Superman intentionally kills someone. And, again, you can’t make any argument for why he SHOULDN’T have killed Zod; but, you have no problem labelling him a ‘homicidal maniac’. Even tho you have ZERO EVIDENCE from those films to back that up. Finally, all your bullshit about ‘fascist propaganda’ is just that: Bullshit. All you are revealing is your ludicrous comfort in an echo chamber of internet ‘yes-men’ who all just agree w each other, SO MUCH, on subjects, that you fail to notice (and, don’t even really care) that you can’t back any of it up w actual facts.You’re the pop-culture geek version of a ‘flat-earther’.
It’s also funny how much all of you bitching about Snyder, have zero problems w the, compartive, serial killers that make up the MCU hero roster. *Eye Roll*
He’s still not done people. It’s always hilarious when they star sealioning.
I don’t think we’re supposed to interpret those as Batman killing, though. Like the article says — the movie operates on a dream logic in a heightened reality. Catwoman survives multiple sure-deaths alone.The bomb on the Strong Man and the Fire Burning Guy… those are more “cartoonish” ways to “knock out” the bad guy. It’s presented like Looney Tunes violence, and only becomes “murder” when selectively applying a realistic filter that doesn’t fit the rest of the film’s text.
This is a fun read. My only real comment I feel compelled to make is that DC officially became a part of Warner Brothers in 1972 – so they were already a company that COULD make their own stories into movies without fighting a studio for creative rights for decades before Marvel ever could. Even though Tim Burton was not a Batman fan (he preferred Superman), the studio still tried to make sure that their films were made by the biggest directors and writers, starring A-list actors. The first movie that Marvel had this level of control over to make what they wanted was ‘Iron Man’ which didn’t come out until 2008. Even gems like ‘Blade’ or the ‘Punisher’ (not the Dolf Lundgren one) or even ‘Spiderman‘ were made by other studios that had complete control over how characters went from comicbook page to movie screen. We now live in a comics movie golden age where instead of relying on writers and directors to love a comic and try to make a good film (‘The Mask’, ‘Ghost World’, ‘Scott Pilgrim vs The World’, ‘V for Vendetta’, ‘Men In Black’; etc.), we now have comic writers and publishers making their stories WITH studios who want to make a good film worthy of fans attention.
He was a such a fan of Superman that he tried to murder everything about the character by casting Nicholas Cage as the Man of Steel in Superman Lives! So glad that movie never got made.
To be fair, DC was pretty much trying to murder everything about Superman around that time as well.
Yet all the movies suck….
Batman Returns did give us this nice little moment:“Bruce Wayne? Why are you dressed up as Batman?”
“Because he is Batman, you moron.”
She delivered that line perfectly.
*ahem* …. purrrrrfectly
Get out.
So good.
Okay fair enough.
“Was.”
I actually preferred Batman Returns to Batman at the time, but that’s because I was an angsty 17 year old and the film spoke to me on that level.
Also, every character in it wears black leather or rubber gloves.
I’ve preferred Batman Returns to Batman for my entire life (or, you know, since I saw them in middle school). It’s just so much more confident. And crazy. And silly. And fun.The Penguin rides around in a giant duck car! A duck! Where did it come from?!
It must’ve been a ride at the circus!!! (I’m so glad I finally got to say that idea from when I was like 9, my inner child is overjoyed.)
That’s good! As a kid, I assumed it was makeshift crap from the abandoned zoo HQ.
Where did it come from?!
Well, his gang did operate under the guise of a traveling big top circus…
Yeah, that’s true. It’s just such a weird and incongruous thing.(I love it so much)
It really is. I kind of miss the idiosyncratic aesthetic of those movies. They at least tried to convey a universe that is essentially timeless; they don’t exist in an identifiable past, present, or future.Most of today’s superhero movies seem to be grounded in a kind of visually bland simulacrum of present-day or near-future real-world trappings. Even in the movies that take place far away from Earth, it’s been established that they take place in the same universe as a circa-2015 Earth. In the long run, I’m not convinced they’ll age as well.I guess we’ll have to wait to find out!
Honestly, that’s a big part of why the first Captain America movie is still my favorite Marvel movie. It’s just as rooted in a specific time, but that time is 1941 so it plays a lot better than 2008 or 2012 or 2015.
There’s like, twelve different clashing aesthetics happening at once in this movie. There’s the circus, with extra clowns (you’d think the Joker would be the one with clown henchmen, but that fuck that, it makes too much sense) there’s penguins, and also rubber ducks, and sewers, and also everyone’s dressed like it’s the 1930’s, except Penguin who dresses like a robber baron from 20 years prior, and also there’s lots of cats, and ALSO some neon, but also gothic architecture, AND it’s all happening on Christmas.Somehow all of this comes together and WORKS. It’s insanity and I’m fairly sure it all happened by accident.
And they were based (and Penguin was raised) under a weird abandoned zoo, which apparently had some rides as well as animal exhibits (we see it has a skyride thing as we approach it at the beginning). Could have been adapted from that.
The narrative is always that Shumacher was trying to do a big budget version of the Adam West show. But look at this movie and tell me that that show isn’t baked into BR better than Shumacher’s.
Right! They even picked up a specific plot from the series (the Penguin running for Mayor). And while they took it in a different direction, it’s still just as ridiculous.
The Penguin’s lair was sort of an insane derivation of a zoo/amusement park/circus/sewage plant, it’s the most sensible location in the entire movie.
Read me, Doctor Memory?
Ah Clem!
(Do we have to have a dance-off now? I’ve always wanted to have a dance-off!)
Please restate your query in the form of a question.
I always assumed he modified a Zoo ride- Gotham is definitely the type of place where the zoos have giant trams shapes like animals
Howard the Duck probably needed some cash and put it on the Craigslist of the time.
This seems to be a fairly common view. I’ve seen Batman many times but BR just once, about 20 years ago. I may need to revisit it. The only thing I really remember is the creepy flashback to Penguin’s childhood.
BATMAN RETURNS isn’t a *good* movie – but it is better than the first BATMAN (a movie I’m just never going to like).
(One thing I like: The fact that Max Shreck and his son have a genuinely loving bond.)
(Also: “Ah, the direct approach! I admire that from a man in a mask!”)
Angsty 17 year old you was 100% correct.
Dr Mordred is awesome. Jeff Combs is a better strange than Cumberbatch.
As a massive obsessive of this film, ever since its release in 1992, I do get frustrated with all the recent comparisons between Oswald Cobblepot and the Red Triangle Gang, and Trump and his minions. The wealthy businessman Max Shreck, who literally says “You’re Fired!” (before shooting Selina Kyle) at one stage, and who even speaks with a Brooklyn accent, is the Trump avatar, not Cobblepot. In fact, Max’s spoiled, trust-fund baby, dumbass son, Chip, is probably the even better parallel with Donald Trump (the nefarious property developer Max is more likely a proxy for Fred Trump, passing on his criminally-founded businesses and dodgy connections to his unworthy heir and ‘chip-off-the-old-block’).By contrast, for all his letching over young interns and generally gross behaviour, Cobblepot is supposed to be a semi-sympathetic character, dumped into the sewer by his parents as a baby, consigned to an impoverished and socially-shunned life underground, and accompanied by a group of marginalised outcasts and circus freaks, presumably fellow orphans, called the Red Triangle Circus Gang, a name that evokes the left-wing dissidents and anarchists who were assigned a red triangle by the Nazis and placed in concentration camps during the Second World War. And Oswald and his ragbag team of outsiders, all of whom are dressed like Eastern European bohemians and carnies, are explicitly opposed to Gotham’s 1%, whose children they later attempt to kidnap and drown, and the monocultural, homogenously white (notice that there are practically no black speaking parts in this film, and even the African-American Harvey Dent and the Ed Koch like mayor of the previous film have been replaced by a bunch of WASPs) Christmas celebrations that open the present-day portion of the film. This is a superficially cleaned-up and glossy Gotham, in contrast to the dirtier, grungier city of the preceding film, perhaps predicting the upcoming Rudy Giuliani mayoral administration, that seems to have more in common with the suburban, small-minded, conservative values of the the pastel-coloured neighbourhood featured in Edward Scissorhands, rather than the typical cosmopolitan and cultured values and attitudes of most big metropolises, including the Gotham we see in the 1989 film, and it is those former conservative values that Cobblepot (the malign flipside of fellow outcast and freak, Scissorhands), and by extension Tim Burton, are railing against (i.e. the shallow, exclusionary, and bigoted society represented by the Shrecks and Trumps of the world). Likewise, Catwoman, Cobblepot’s partner-in-crime, is also fighting to bring down Gotham’s social hierarchy, specifically from an anti-patriarchy angle, but that’s another, even more fascinating, element to this film.
To add to your excellent points… Christopher Walken even had a passing resemblance to a 1992-era Donald Trump! If people want to compare a Batman character to a bad businessman with political aspirations… they should chose the one that fits.
The only difference that the film implies that Shreck is self-made (he chides Bruce Wayne for being a “trust-fund goody goody”), and he’s clearly much smarter (and thinner) than the real-life Trump. But in terms of mannerisms and actions, I definitely think there is a parallel between Shreck and Trump, although I suspect Chip, had we seen his character develop, would be the true Trump proxy (the original screenplay makes it clearer that he is complicit in his father’s evil plans, including murdering his personal assistant).
In one draft, Selina kills Chip by drowning him with her carpet or something?
Yeah, in an earlier draft, Chip sinks into some quicksand in Selina’s apartment. But even if Selina’s apartment was on the ground floor, or for that matter the basement, I don’t see how that conceit would logically have worked. I know this is a very fantastical, often absurd, and cartoonish film, but even by those standards I think this was a very silly idea, best omitted from the final draft.I do recall another written, but unfilmed, scene where Selina traps, but doesn’t kill, Chip with her Murphy bed, which probably could have worked.
I’d like to drown in Selina Kyle’s carpet, if you know what I mean.
Furthermore, Trump is often thought of as “the president that memes built”. What long-lasting meme peaked around the time that Trump started running? Shrek. We achieved max Shrek, and elected Max Schrek. (and not only that, but he then appointed the real Max Shreck’s Count Orlock, or at least somebody with Orlock’s ears, as Attorney General)Life imitates art indeed.
Your last sentence reminds me that Daniel Waters wrote a CATWOMAN screenplay that was to be a sequel to BR. It’s just as batshit and Michelle would have killed it.
I’ve got some mixed feelings about that Catwoman screenplay, but I definitely would have loved to have seen a solo Catwoman film reuniting Pfeiffer, Burton, and Daniel Waters (assuming someone was on hand to help refine his screenplay).
Agreed. The only pure villain in this film is Shrek. This film is very, very much in the vein of the first half of Burton’s career in that it’s all about the freaks and misfits (Wayne/Batman, Kyle/Catwoman, Cobblepot/Penguin) coming out of the shadows to interact with “legit” society, with varying degrees of success. Basically, Burton envisioned the superhero/villain dynamic as extreme Cosplay for grown-up nerds, and set it all against a trippy neo-expressionist setting.
The Penguin is obviously the most malevolent of the aforementioned trio, but Burton always leaves us with at least a touch of sympathy for him (I swear to God I still tear up during that final scene with the emperor penguins as pall bearers). Setting the story at Christmastime, arguably the most traditional and conformist of holidays (hence conservative panic about the “war on Christmas”), and also the most overly commercialized, when black sheep are often forced to spend time with families they feel estranged from amid manufactured “cheer” is a particularly deft touch.
Brilliantly put.I’m definitely not anti-Christmas by any means, but I also appreciate this film’s satirical and subversive digs at the conservative and materialistic aspects of the holidays, and I do get a kick out of the film’s ‘war on Christmas’ (which, for once, is not some hyped-up Fox News non-story but an actual assault on the festivities), something that Burton revisited a year later with The Nightmare Before Christmas.
I didn’t see this movie until I was in middle school (1997-ish), but I loved the Adam West TV show at the time the movie came out. So my parents bought me Batman Returns bed sheets. It seems bonkers now that I had this movie’s Catwoman and Penguin on my sheets and pillow case when I was 7. I would have been terrified if I’d actually seen the movie back then.
You’re probably about my age. I also think I had those bed sheets! I did get to see the movie, but I don’t think I appreciated how insane it was until much later. I did have the Penguin Commando figures as well, and it’s super surreal and funny that I essentially had my Batman figure beating up animals as a kid.
I had a Batman Returns sleeping bag and was not allowed to see the movie.
Ever time I watch this, which is at least every Christmas, I can’t believe I saw this in the 1st grade. Again so many great quotable lines, one of my favs:“Eat floor, high fiber.”And I just found out like last year she put the actual damn bird in her mouth, I always though it was just a trick of the camera or something & really good miming. But no she put the actual fucking bird in her freaking mouth!!
I’ve watched that bit again and again in the film, and on youtube clips. At first I thought it was a trick of the camera, but wasn’t sure. But over many viewings I was sure that was a real damn bird, so kudos to Michelle for going for it. But I still think the bit where she spits the bird out and it flies away probably involved some camera trickery.
“Batman Returns would pull in $267 worldwide. That was good enough to make it the third-highest grossing movie of 1992″Pretty weak year for movies.
Dude, you gotta adjust for inflation. In 1992 that’s a ginormous number.
Dammit! I was going to make that exact joke. Beat me to it.
Well, back in those days you could take a family of eight to a movie for a fraction of a cent. Pennies were hard to come by in the recession of the early 90s.
The movie recession of ‘92 helped get Bill Clinton elected!
To this day my friends and I still say “Could be worse, my nose could be gushing blood” if anyone should have a bloody nose.
stop snorting so much cocaine
“My nose could be … what?”
“Is that supposed to hypnotize me?”
“No! It’s supposed to give you a splitting headache!”
“HI MAX! REMEMBER ME? I’M FRED’S HAND!! You wanna greet any other body parts?”
“You flush it, I flaunt it!” is the type of line that can make your imagination run wild with grotesque imagery. It’s the best.
You’re just jealous because I’m a genuine freak, and YOU have to wear a mask!
“Ah, shit. I picked a cute one.”
Don’t badmouth Captain America. Salinger was never better!
As in J.D.?
Actually, believe it or not, J.D.’s son Matt.
As in J.D.’s son Matt, who played Cap.
No, that’s his son.
I was being sarcastic, but you are right. Matt is J.D.’s son.
Of all the MANY problems that movie had… I’d actually put his performance at the bottom of the list. He wasn’t great, but he wasn’t bad. I kind of wish they’d give him a cameo in the MCU.
I’ve never really liked Batman Returns. I always felt that it was too gross and too freaky. I also didn’t like the overcrowded nature of the film. Walken’s Schreck specifically.
My favourite weird detail of this movie is Penguin’s plan to snatch Gotham’s wealthiest children away from their babysitters, including one named “Chip”, who is a grown man so huge that a decade later he was playing Leatherface.
He also played a character called ‘Butterfinger’ in Hudson Hawk.
“Read my lips, Frenchie: Steak burger.”
Is it just me, or are all Andrew Bryniarski’s characters, including Chip Shreck, Butterfinger, the neo-Nazi he played in Higher Learning, the rapist football player in The Program, and especially Leatherface, variations on Trump?Butterfinger: “You want me to rape them?”Snickers: “Just read your book, Butterfinger.”Butterfinger (reading book): “’Not in a boat. Not on a train. Not with a goat. Not in the rain’”
Sounds about right.
Who also would play a roided out D-Lineman in The Program and the Neo-Nazi enforcer in Higher Learning.
He also played a football player in Any Given Sunday. He had two memorable locker room scenes, one where he cleared out the shower by unleashing an alligator, the other where he forcibly removed the placekicker from a stall in order to take what was one of the foulest sounding shits in film history.
Lattimer! “Starting defense!”
“A place at the table!!”
And now you know the rest of the story!
And Zangief that one time.It was also first born kids right? As a first born, I often wondered what the cutoff would be. There is a clear teenager in one of their cages at one point.
Clearly somewhere between Chip Shreck and Bruce Wayne’s ages (both of them being first-born sons).
Bruce doesn’t have parents to punish
Chip is Zangief??! You just blew my mind!
Chip also spoke using a Christopher Walken impression, which I really love.
As others have stated, I do believe it was stealing the first born children of the wealthy. Don’t know if Penguin had an age cutoff, but even if he did, I do think Chip (Andrew Bryniarski) would have been an exception as he was Max Schreck’s son.
I’ve never seen all of this movie. When I finally do watch it, I’m going to be imagining that Cobblepot is really just Frank Reynolds after getting a hold of some bad cocaine.
I love this movie, but I don’t know how the fuck the producers and WB people let it through and be marketed as a kids’ flick!
Maybe they didn’t watch it?
They didn’t. They still haven’t. Then and now, the WB execs hate and fear comics properties, and barely give them any respect. They know that Batman properties make money, so they throw cash at someone and let them go to town.
That’s half-true; the current DC movies, the WB exec continuously meddled, but without any real plan or focus because they can’t manage to concentrate on anything other than the tantalizing (but ultimately impossible for them, although they’ll never believe that) dream of the cash that the Marvel movies bring in.
Well. They did watch it afterwards. And then they hired Joel Schumacher…
TERRIFIC piece! Such a wild and fun movie, and as you point out, such a weird and welcome departure from the first (also great) movie.Can I disagree with one point? “Jack Nicholson’s Joker, a hurricane of hamminess in the first movie …” I really don’t see it that way. I thought Nicholson was a straight up, scary psychopath in the first movie. I wouldn’t call it “hammy,” just f’ing scary crazy. The weird lightheartedness of the villains in Returns are cut from a completely different cloth. I think, if anything, DeVito’s performance can be described as “hammy” (in a good way).
I thought Nicholson was a straight up, scary psychopath in the first movie. I wouldn’t call it “hammy,” just f’ing scary crazy. Not sure I can agree with you there. Sure, he’s scary, but he also does some amazing scenery-chewing.
I think he’s really hammy, and then he kills someone, and that sudden shift is what makes him scary.
I think there’s hamminess and scariness to both Penguin and Joker. It can really go either way, depending on who you ask.
Impossible present-day reality. That’s where I stopped. MAGA.
I loved re-watching this movie on Netflix. It was such a goddamn delight. Pfeiffer and Keaton have so much chemistry. The scene at the masquerade ball is incredible. I like how shocked and saddened they both get when they realize they’re both enemies. That scene holds up great.Very dark film for me when I first saw it as a kid. I always closed my eyes when they showed Max’s charred corpse. My favorite Burton film next to Ed Wood.
I’ve never actually seen it, and your comment made me think “yaknow what, I finally will, particularly if it’s as easy as just calling it up on Netflix! I’m feeling lazy this Friday anyways!”Alas, it is not on Netflix in Canada.
If a movie’s not available on Canadian Netflix, do they send you a heartfelt, profuse apology?
Unfortunately, for matters of tax and politeness Netflix Canada is actually considered an American company, so they just give us the finger and yammer something about guns.
Of course it’s not. “It is not on Netflix in Canada” is the slogan of Netflix of Canada.
With the funny exception of shows from The CW, where people living in the U.S. go “but when will it be on streaming?” while we’re lazily watching Black Lightning and Riverdale and whatnot up here north of the border.
Call me crazy, but the darkness didn’t get to me when I first watched Batman Returns as a kid. I mean, yea, Penguin was gross, and there was some weird sex stuff, but I could handle it, and didn’t realize how big a deal that was for others. Just seemed like the type of complaint parents made that helped ruin the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sequels. But it took my second viewing, and the moment where Oswald pulls out some dead dude’s hand from his bag, that I kinda went…Oh….Well, yea. I get it now.
Don’t forget to remind us how woke you are with every sentence. Watching pedestrians get run over wasn’t horrifying before Charlottesville changed everything. Ask anyone from Nice, getting run over can now only be associated with Trump.
Don’t forget the Siouxee and the Banshees song “Face To Face”. So deliciously haunting and weird.
So I come here for interesting article about pop culture, not your personal politics, so please keep them for yourself (yes I know 80% at least of the people here hate Trump, and I think he is, let’s say, slightly unstable also, but anyway, you almost make me root for him when I read you). Thanks.
How disappointing that there is a Doctor Strange movie starring Jeffrey Combs and it doesn’t technically get to be a Doctor Strange movie.
Yeah, I never even knew that was a thing until now. Combs and Brian Thompson?! I need to see this.
1992 was literally the year where David Duke ran for Governor of Louisiana.
Yeah, but unlike Trump, Duke didn’t win, and it wasn’t a moment caught on tape that did him in, but enough Louisiana voters realizing a felonious con man was a far better choice than a felonious neo-Nazi.
Hey man, the title doesn’t say “ran successfully.” It says “ran.” And David Duke was at best, a lateral move from the Penguin.
Except the Penguin is not a Nazi. In fact the red triangle, which his troupe of circus performer sidekicks wear, was a symbol assigned by the Nazis to political dissidents in the 1940s.
Still better than most of the current cgi’d-to-crap movies. Although Wonder Woman was awesome but I barely remember because gibsons.
I read things like this and I think I’m going mad. I did not like Batman Returns when it came out. I thought it was a mess. The only bit I did like is in that first clip, the shot of Batman floating down surrounded by bats, and only because it looked like they copied this poster, which I had on my wall at the time.I know I wasn’t alone in this. My favorite insult ever was thrown at this film by someone who worked on BTAS, “Batman Returns is a protozoan on the food chain of movies.” I never caught that guy’s name, but I have always remembered that comment.I simply don’t understand how the critical opinion has turned around and decided this was a masterpiece. Maybe if I revisited it, I would change my opinion, but I doubt it. A film has to have more going for it than aping F. W. Murnau and Steve Rude to win my good opinion.
I’ve only seen it the once and my opinion has been much like yours. I think as a kid I just thought it was stupid compared to the “much more believable” first one. Now I think I’d enjoy that Catwoman is magically resurrected but at the time I was a po-faced teenager.This review has got to me though. I’m going to re-watch tonight.
I don’t think critical opinion has changed much ( like, real movie critics), just that the internet opinion has changed. As other examples, Ghostbusters 2 and Clue are somehow regarded as classic by the internet nowadays but I remember seeing those in the theater and thinking, “man, these movies are marginal at best.”I think part of it is is that some movies just have a few meme-worthy lines or camera shots, but the internet trades those memes around, which increases a comfort or familiarity with the movie as a whole, similar to nostalgia.
Eh, I don’t know that many “real movie critics” ever weighed in much on this one. Reviewers at the time weren’t very kind to it, but what little academic writing I’ve found about it has tended to be more favorable.I’d say, if anything, that Burton’s first Batman was a collection of meme-worthy lines and images – that movie may have been rivaled only by Ghostbusters for the most-quoted flick on 1980s elementary school playgrounds – but seems to strike people as a little hollow on repeat viewing. Returns appeals to a more limited audience, but tfor that audience it has a special resonance.
Clue is freakin’ awesome and you’re objectively wrong for saying otherwise. On the other hand, there are movies where you really have to be on their wavelength, and Clue is one of those.
Meh, the Clue VCR Game story was more entertaining.
You officially have no soul. I bet you think Young Frankenstein is overrated.
We had this in our house as a kid, and I have never played the game, but I’d watch the tape over and over again. I remember thinking that the butler being named “Didit” was hilarious.
I hate your opinion about Clue, SO much…flames…flames on the side of my face…
Winning.
As other examples, Ghostbusters 2 and Clue are somehow regarded as classic by the internet nowadays but I remember seeing those in the theater and thinking, “man, these movies are marginal at best.”Calling Ghostbusters 2 “marginal” is very, very generous. It’s a cash grab, as shameless as it is incoherent. For very good choice they made with the original, they made the terrible choice in the sequel. Right down to the production design.But Clue? Shut your fool mouth.
BBiggest mistake in Ghostbusters 2? That Godawful late 80s Randy Edelman score, which sounded like it came from a coffee commercial.
I would have said that the biggest mistake is the utter disregard it has for the characters, or the overall attempt to “kiddi-fy” the franchise. But that works too.
You really need Bernard Hermann to class things up.
I thought Elmer Bernstein did a great job with the original.
OOk. Woah. Woah. Clue IS a masterpiece. Name one reason it’s not.
I dunno, man, I saw Clue for the first time a few years ago and it was wonderful. Not to mention the absolute *tour de force* that is Tim Curry.
Clue was underappreciated in its time, and I’ll go toe to toe with anyone who says otherwise. It’s just extremely funny screwball comedy; you don’t even need to remember that it was based on a board game because the board game portion sets the stage. I wouldn’t say it’s a masterpiece, but it’s a helluva lot better than “marginal.” Tim Curry’s performance alone is why I will endlessly love that movie (plus, the ethereal Madeline Kahn as Mrs. White, with probably the most quotable lines in the whole film).
Ghostbusters II is still funny – though not anywhere near the original. However, it beats the hell out of the remake, and I say that as something of a feminist. The Kristen Wiig/Melissa McCarthy/Kate McKinnon/Leslie Jones vehicle was a hot mess that too many people thought was actually good.
I don’t even think internet opinion has changed on this one. It’s not good, but it is interesting. And the older you get the more clearly you realize how formulaic and similar to each other most movies really are, so you end up revisiting and cherishing the few that actually break that mould.
It’s no masterpiece but the opposite extreme – that’s it’s “protozoan on the food chain of movies” – is certainly as hyperbolically wrong in its assessment.
But you have to admit it’s a really good line.
I actually think that that is a very fair assessment coming from the perspective of someone who helped make the Batman Animated Series happen. That show basically nailed what is best about Batman and reinvented what an animated piece of entertainment can be, and it truly honored the Batman world of the comics.
Batman Returns is not that Batman, and not that Batman world…and that’s okay. It’s different. And if you come from a place in which living up to the comic-book Batman means everything, year, this film fell very short.
Just because it’s hyperbolic doesn’t make it wrong.
I’m similarly baffled with the recent apparent Batman Returns reclamation project. I’ve seen several articles over the past few years variously claiming it to be the best Batman movie, the best Burton movie, or even the best superhero movie. I’ve never hated Returns, but these superlatives have me questioning the world I live in just a tiny bit. I appreciate Returns more as an entry in the the Tim Burton oeuvre, as much a sequel to Edward Scissorhands as it is to Batman 89′, but it’s certainly not his best work, nor a shining example of the Dark Knight or the superhero genre.Tim Burton, who I was absolutely enthralled with in 1992, clearly had no interest in making another Batman movie (he’s said as much in interviews), and instead chose to make a beautiful and overt tribute to the classic films of the German silent era with WB money. The Penguin’s design is obviously modeled on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, his Catwoman and Gotham City are meant to evoke Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, and Christopher Walken’s character is explicitly named for the actor who played Nosferatu. This is why Batman is even more sidelined in his own movie than usual, and I’m really surprised none of this is mentioned in the article above. It’s what drove the filmmaker creatively, much more so than anything appearing in Detective Comics. There are things in this movie that really bothered me, even as a 12-year-old. Selina Kyle’s psychological transformation, abilities, and motive aren’t adequately explained or explored. The “corrupt politician reveals his true colors over a P.A. sound system” trope was tired even 25 years ago. I’m pretty sure the cd scratching scene began Burton’s bad habit of inserting tonally-jarring dad jokes into his gothic fairy tales. I also kind of resented its portrayal of the Penguin dictating the characters sewer mutant depiction in Batman: TAS during its best years.The German Expressionist influence certainly made this the best-looking Batman film (in my eyes), and possibly even the best-looking Burton or comic book film (in the latter, I think only Dick Tracy approaches it in realized vision). Theres a good argument to be made that this is the most Burton-y Tim Burton film, but those making that argument might not mean that as a compliment. Long before he completely lost his way as a director, Burton was hounded with the “style over story” label, and Batman Returns sort of emblemises this early criticism.Again, I don’t hate the film. I’d watch it again before any other Batman’s save for Batman 89′, Mask of the Phantasm, or The Dark Knight. I just really don’t understand the recent turnaround in its public appraisal.
I think that’s fair. I’d say it’s a very interesting film, and hella fun to watch, but not really a good movie. Or even a good Batman movie.
Yeah opinion has really swung… I think these days people are a lot more fond of these gonzo Hollywood movies that tried some bizarre things. I’m looking at the current climate of fairly bland but tightly-plotted superhero movies, and thinking this might be a reaction to that.
I hated it the first time I saw it, but loved it when I rewatched it years later and saw it as a Tim Burton Batman movie rather than just a Batman movie.
I’m with you, but at this point there’s no changing it.
That poster is awesome, Steve Rude is really underrated as an artist.
I still own it, but I’ve run out of wall space so it’s rolled and kept safe. When I first saw it I recognized it as his work without realizing I had. I commented on what a Steve Rude palette it was to my friend who worked at the store, and he said there was a reason for that. I bought it on the spot, even though I wasn’t really into Batman at the time.
I don’t think anyone is calling it a masterpiece and if they are it’s more tongue in cheek. But, if we were to label the movie a masterpiece, it is a masterpiece in the sense that’s it’s a bat-shit crazy superhero movie full of theatrics with over the top characters set in a colorful and unqiue world. In a way it’s both not a good movie but also what makes movies great and wonderful. If we are judging it based on what critics look for in a good movie it won’t rank very high. However, the movie takes us to a surreal place with unique characters that is only possible through film (and perhaps modern videogames).
Next we will learn that Batman & Robin was delightful camp.
Meanwhile, the compulsively-watchable-at-the-time Batman Forever gets no love. I didn’t know I was bi yet but man I couldn’t stop thinking about Chase Meridian.
It’s pretty terrible in my book. It’s a Batman movie that wishes Batman wasn’t even in it (Keaton appears in just 3 of the film’s first 35 minutes), a literal penguin, a literal catwoman, a baffling plot, and a movie that tonally is too silly to be taken seriously but too serious to enjoy on a silly level. Even the visual astonishment of the first film is gone, Bo Welch’s sets looking way too much like sets and lacking the grandeur and noir of Anton Furst’s Gotham. I find it a quite miserable experience aside from Christopher Walken’s scenes, who once again is the best thing in his movie.
I’m with you. I enjoyed Burton’s first Batman film, and my wife LOVED it—mostly because of Nicholson’s Joker. Both of us were excited by the trailers, and I truly thought it would be one of my all-time favorite movie experiences.
NARRATOR: It was not.
What the reviewer sees as “magical, dreamlike logic,” I saw as utter nonsense. Catwoman was licked back to life by cats? The Penguinwas raised by penguins? Who gave him a Viking funeral?Shreck’s power-stealing plot is emblematic of the film’s idiot logic. It would work for perhaps all of five minutes before officials realized that the city’s spiffy, new electrical generator was actually draining the grid. Then what?
The film had too many villains—Shreck was allowed to stick around well past his usefulness to the narrative—and far too many plot machinations. The Penguin was simultaneously attempting to frame Batman, become Mayor, and murder the children of Gotham’s elite, and that’s before trying to blow up the city. (Somehow, Batman and Alfred were aware of the Penguin’s explosive penguins before they even made their move.)
Batman Returns is needlessly grotesque, overstuffed, and—worst of all—entirely indifferent to Batman. I find the love for it inexplicable.
Your last line is the reason why. “entirely indifferent to Batman” does not automatically degrade a movie in others’ eyes.
then nothing because said officials would be so stupid they wouldn’t realise. Or they were all corrupt. Or the draining was salami-style just a little every hour. Or every week you get a power cut when the drain happens.
I haven’t seen Batman Returns since it was new, but I hated it so much at the time. After reading these columns, I’m dying to rewatch both of Burton’s Batman movies.One thing that I long complained about after this, was that it set up a tradition of using (at least) two villains at a time. This was something most superhero movies did for years, and it bothered the hell out of me.
The film is terrific because it is more than “just” a “superhero” film. It is a true Tim Burton film through and through (in a way few of his more recent movies are), and all the good that can come with that. If you love true Burton style, you love Batman Returns. If you’ve never liked a Burton movie, you won’t like this.
I’ve also heard a convincing argument that Batman Returns is secretly a perfect example of gothic romance, so there is that too.
We like films to be original, to give us something different or unique. Especially when it comes to comic characters we have know forever and have seen many versions of, it’s nice for these to not be “paint by the numbers” (for example, the perfectly adequate Captain America: The First Avenger does everything it’s supposed to…but really nothing else).
I can respect anyone personally not liking Batman Returns; it most certainly is NOT for everyone. But I think anyone who takes a moment to look at it objectively can at least understand in theory what many people like about it.
The only bit I did like is in that first clip, the shot of Batman floating down surrounded by bats, and only because it looked like they copied this poster, which I had on my wall at the time.Steve Rude. Genius.
Batman and Robin did a lot to raise people’s estimation of Returns, because the baseline for what a Batman movie was went way down (B&R caused a lot of people to reconsider Batman Forever as well). But overall, I don’t think that Tom’s fandom of Returns is the new critical consensus. I can see that if you’re a fan of Burton moreso than of Batman or superhero movies in general, a Batman movie that more closely resembles Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice (now with less Keaton!) would seem like a great deal. Batman Returns is actually a pretty decent Burton movie. It’s just not a good superhero movie, and it’s barely a Batman movie at all.
Kang loves him some MCU movies, and the first two Nolan Bat-films, but this movie is so much nasty fun that it deserves to be remembered. No, it’s not for Batman purists. If the love for Returns is a reaction to anything, it’s to a world held hostage by entitled nerd purists. ‘Cause fuck them and the Tauntaun they rode in on
No way to grab the well-reasoned high ground like ranting that everyone who disagrees with you is an “entitled nerd purist” and cursing at them :)Batman Returns doesn’t just fail as a Batman movie. It doesn’t really hold together as a Burton movie, either, because it’s too overstuffed, with too many characters whose storylines don’t quite fit together. Penguin and Catwoman are basically in separate movies, haphazardly stitched together. More than that, the message of this film is basically the opposite of Burton’s best films, which are dark parables about learning to accept things and people that are different either because they’re thought to be dangerous (Scissorhands) or creepy (the ghosts in Beetlejuice) or both.In Returns, the people who are different get punished. Accepting Penguin turns out to be a bad deal for the people of Gotham, who brutally (but correctly) reject him, and then the freak has to die. The nice woman who discovered a fetish lifestyle gets shot and then electrocutes herself. Sure, Burton tries a “she’s still out there, their love will go on” Scissorhands-style ending for Catwoman’s story, but since Batman’s not really a character in the story, do we really think their love will go on? Do we care? His last big romance gets dismissed in this movie with maybe a line and a half of dialogue!Again, I can see why people would like it, particularly given the way that Burton’s awful late career has placed his earlier work on a bit of a pedestal. But to me, while there are fun bits, they don’t quite come together to make anything interesting.
I don’t think anyone’s calling it a masterpiece. But people appreciate it for what an inspired ridiculous mess it was. It’s not a good movie, but it is a FUN movie, and not just in an ironic MST3K sort of way.Also, I’d argue that comic fans of that era wanted their Batman to be as dark and gritty as possible because older people and popular culture still saw Bats as the campy joke character he was on the Adam West show. Fans’ vision of Batman was much closer to the Nolan trilogy than what Burton (who was directly inspired by the 60’s TV series and didn’t read comics) gave us.
Nowadays, the standard pop culture image of Batman IS the Nolan version, so it feels okay for Batman to be silly again. Thus comic fans are a lot more forgiving of the goofier Batman Returns than they were back in the day, because the idea of Batman as a serious character seems etched in stone now.
Nah, Kang saw this right in the sweet spot of Sophomore year in high school and loved it. Remember having the thought at the climax of the movie: ‘But, weaponized Penguins are ridiculous. This is supposed to be serious. So why am I enjoying this so goddamned much??’ My movie taste was smarter than I was at that point. This is a wonderfully sexy haunted house of a movie in Christmas drag. It regularly turns from campy to vampy to weirdly poignant on a dime, usually within the same scene. It has no patience for anything resembling the real world and refuses to play by any of its rules. It’s great.
No mention of the rumor that Schrek was originally supposed to be Harvey Dent and the stun gun kiss and explosion would turn him into Two Face for movie 3. Or did I make that up.
Nope, that’s right (at least rumor-wise). Billy Dee Williams wanted the role of Harvey Dent in the first Batman, knowing that his character would eventually become Two-Face. When the initial scripts by Sam Hamm for Returns featured two villains (Catwoman and Penguin), and a much smaller role for Harvey Dent, Williams backed out, and the character (as well as the introduction of Robin) was eventually written out by Daniel Waters and Wesley Strick.Batman Forever picked up those deleted elements, and added The Riddler.
Did Williams back out? I thought he wanted to continue playing the part and was disappointed when he ended up being replaced by Tommy Lee Jones (he even says that his version of Two-Face would have been very different to TLJ’s in one of the documentaries featured on the dvd’s special features).
That’s the story I recall (from a long time ago, that I can’t remember the source of, so I can’t attest to it’s veracity), so it’s likely apocryphal, as you mention.Either way, it’s too bad.
It’s too bad we didn’t get Billy Dee Williams back as Harvey Dent/Two-Face, although I think it’s a good thing that an entirely new character was devised for the evil power-draining businessman role (like I said, prior to becoming Two-Face, Dent is supposed to be a fairly good guy). Plus, Christopher Walken makes for a better Trump than Billy Dee Williams does, even if Walken is about 100 lbs lighter than the real Trump.
And wasn’t a Wayans going to be Robin?
Yeah, it was gonna be Marlon Wayans. In fact, he still gets paid for it.
I’m cool with paying Marlon Wayans not to work.
That’s admittedly very funny, but I still wish we had gotten an African-American Robin back in 1992.It’s taken pretty much 25 years for a decent black superhero (Black Panther) to feature on the big-screen (give or take lesser known side characters like Falcon and War Machine). Considering the success of Batman Returns and Forever (we’ll conveniently ignore Batman & Robin), we could have got a major black comic-book film character much sooner had Wayans been cast as Robin.
Eh, no love for Blade?
Stupid me!Good point. The first two Blade films are great. Still, I’d have loved to have seen an African-American Robin during the Burton/Schumacher era.
Yes. Marlon Wayans, which is something I personally would have loved to have seen.
I always thought that rumour was apocryphal, seeing as Harvey Dent isn’t mentioned in the film’s first draft (in which Max Shreck turns out to be the Penguin’s elder brother), and Dent, particularly Billy Dee Williams’ version of the character, was always supposed to be a tragically heroic character who only turns evil after he is facially scarred by one of the gangsters he’s prosecuting.The Harvey Dent of Batman ‘89 comes across as a fairly decent, albeit beleaguered, guy, rather than the type of greedy businessman who’d push his personal assistant through a skyscraper window.
“Batman Returns would pull in $267 worldwide.”Wow, I didn’t think it would be THAT bad…
The “harp from hell” line has always stuck with me as perhaps one of if not the greatest line ever spoken in a superhero flick. “wait till they get a load of me” is also up there. Imagine a world where they used Two-Face in this movie with Billy Dee Williams playing him instead
Is this the one with the nipples on the bat suit?
That was good enough to make it the third-highest grossing movie of 1992 (behind Aladdin and Home Alone 2: Lost In New York) You missed an opportunity for another Trump reference with Home Alone 2.
Oh, I guess you’re only familiar with the new Batman movies. Michelle Pfeiffer? Ha. The only true Catwoman is Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether, or Eartha Kitt.
It’s Newmar or nothing.
Newmar was always my favorite, but Kitt did run a close second
Kitt did run a close secondWhich was a shame, because frankly speaking, she was purrrrrrfect!
Eartha Kitt for me, I prefer black pussy.
And why doesn’t Batman dance anymore? Remember the Batusi?
Catwoman is supposed to be liquid sex in a body suit. Eartha Kitt and Michelle Pfeiffer are the 2 that have totally pulled it off. And I’ll have to give the nod to Kitt as even her voice was liquid sex poured into your ear. The female equivalent to Leonard Cohen.
My god that VOICE. It was so perfect
Catwoman is supposed to be liquid sex in a body suit. Eartha Kitt and Michelle Pfeiffer are the 2 that have totally pulled it off.Agree to disagree.
Pure. West.
Kitt. By far my favorite
“Batman Returns would pull in $267 worldwide. That was good enough to make it the third-highest grossing movie of 1992 (behind Aladdin andHome Alone 2: Lost In New York) but still well short of the first Batman.”Inflation is crazy!
That Cap movie is fascinatingingly awful. Love how he redirects the rocket by kicking one of the fins at the last minute.
Captain America’s greatest power is to pretend to have to throw up before stealing a car.
That Cap movie is fascinatingingly awful.
This. And why wouldn’t Red Skull cut Cap’s hand off instead of his own?
I think Skull tried but Cap jerked Skull’s wrist into the path of the blade (which is a neat trick, seeing as how Cap’s arms are clamped to the rocket). Of course, that hack Pyun stages it in such a clumsy way that making sense of what’s happening is virtually impossible.
The one thing I’ve always wondered about this movie….How did the Penguin come across the blueprints for the Batmobile? Either Batman got really lazy and he left them on the counter at Pep Boys, or there’s a wonderful story that’s left out on how Penguin did some cool CSI-level investigative stuff to track those down.
Batman Returns would pull in $267 worldwide.Christ, 92 was a rough year for movies
Let me guess, the author was born in 1995 and thinks corruption didn’t exist until George W. Bush, or even more recently with Trump? What a pretentious headline.
I liked this article and all, but folks, when you’re sitting down to write your review and think of a hot fresh way to tie it into the Trump presidency, maybe don’t?
Surprisingly, I’m in part agreement with you on this one, although I do think that the greedy and misogynist straight white businessman, Max Shreck, and his dopey son, who goes about murdering women in order to build power plants that will siphon energy from the 99%, is arguably a good proxy for Trump and his cronies.
It’s pretty relevant this time, though. Like Back to the Future Part II, it’s hard to watch this movie today and not be reminded at least a little of Trump. (And like BTTF, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was actually an inspiration for it.)
Not the Trump presidency*. Just Trump. He was a scumbag ratbastard in 1992, too.
This article leaves me with a quick notion: given how perfect Burton’s run of 90s goth was and how hard its been to reboot The Crow franchise, why hasn’t anyone attempted to have Burton take a crack at it?
That Captain America movie! I’ve never seen it, but as a massive fanboy reading Comics Scene (Fangoria for comics c. 1991) and soon after Wizard, I was waiting forever for that movie (and soon after Corman’s Fantastic Four). It looks pretty bad, and though I would have watched it, I don’t think I would have liked it.Trivia stuck in my brain after all these years: the actor, the director, I don’t remember which, one is related to J.D. Salinger. I don’t know why that factoid never left my brain,
This is my FAVORITE Batman movie.
Batman? Okay but kind of dull at parts and the goofy reporter is too much.Batman Forever? It’s fun in a campy kind of way, but not the best.Batman & Robin isn’t as apocalyptically bad as it’s current reputation, but it is so long it takes forever to hate-watch it.
Batman Begins is… okay. There’s no chemistry between Bale and Holmes and that really throws me off.
The Dark Knight is PERFECT… until after the Joker crashes the party. Then it starts to drag, in signature Nolan style.
The Dark Knight Returns is a steaming pile of illogical shit.
Baffleck’s reign is… boring. Not great, not bad, just… there.
But BATMAN RETURNS? It is amazing. It makes no sense, I shouldn’t like it, but there’s something magical about the way it all comes together. Selina Kyle is a Rhoda Morgenstern-type (sorry moderns, I mean Liz Lemon-type), and Keaton has a great balance between Wayne and Batman. And Alfred is perfect, as always.
It’s illogical to love this movie as much as I do but I LOVE it. Absolutely enjoy every second of it. It has a penguin army! Jan Hooks! Weirdly biting criticisms of local governments pretending everything is okay when it isn’t!
Proof that Dark does not have to mean Grim or Gritty, and all the better for it.
Hot take: Batman Returns is the best superhero movie, bar none.
We must never, ever, ever forget just how fucking good Keaton was in this role. You youngsters who only know Keaton for this or for the Vulture or for his VOD crap can’t understand. This was the Night Shift, Mr. Mom and Gung Ho guy being cast as one of the three most iconic superheroes.
It would be like Will Ferrell getting Tony Stark or Jim Parsons getting Peter Parker. That was just how much people were like “Dafuq?”
And he killed it.
To be fair, those of us who had seen “Clean and Sober” said “Oh my yes.”
I didn’t see that until after Batman. Yeah, we should have known all along.
Tom Hanks vs. Michael Keaton is the great “Market Correction” of our era. They were neck-and-neck and Keaton made some god-awful choices while Hanks slapped out Philadelpha/Forest Gump/Apollo 13/That Thing You Do right in a row and kicked Keaton into the cheap seats.
Other examples: Kevin Costner sending Mark Harmon back to TV for good. Hugh Jackman destroying Gerard Butler. Others?
That Costner/Harmon thing is great. I thought I was the only one who saw a resemblance between them. I always think that Jake Gyllenhaal triumphed over Tobey Maguire.
You can add Don Johnson in to the Costner/Harmon thing and make it a Triple Threat match where Costner destroys them all.
I think Ted Danson and Scott Bakula may have been able to become movie stars if only the other one wasn’t there. (This was back in the days where the idea was to graduate from TV to movies, like Hanks did)
Jake/Tobey is a good one. I feel like Jackman may have taken out Clive Owen as well as Butler too.
As for the women, I can’t decide. I think Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock may have tag-teamed and knocked out all comers.
Danson and Bakula hung around in their respective series way too long to make the jump. You can’t stay on a sitcom past a few years to go onto Movies…It’s just a sort of unspoken rule.
Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke.Also, I’d put League of Their Own in that list instead of That Thing You Do, which wasn’t commercial or very highly regarded at the time.
Corey Haim vs Corey Feldman?
I would agree with the latter ones but….Was Hanks and Keaton doing the same thing, really? I always took Hanks as an actor who could be funny vs. Keaton being a comedic actor. His roles were more explicitly funny where Hanks was just sort of enjoyable funny. Big is kind of a perfect example of Hanks’ ‘aw shucks’ humor vs. Keaton in all of his 80’s work upto and including things like Beetlejuice…But I totally agree, Keaton post-batman really struggled because pretty much he got this huge serious role, killed it, then tried to go back to being a regular goofball and it just sorta floundered.
Birdman was a pretty strong comeback though.
Batman was just a prelude to Michael Keaton’s true magnum opus. That’s right, I’m talking about Multiplicity.
I saw a copy of a copy of that. It wasn’t as good.
Multiplicity is a seriously underrated movie.
One of the best movie adaptations of a Calvin & Hobbes plot!
I remember reading that Burton was skeptical about Keaton but immediately sold once he put the mask on.
I remember reading that Burton was skeptical about Keaton but immediately sold once he put the mask on.I dunno. They had already made Beetlejuice together. Did Keaton have to lobby him for the part? I honestly don’t remember.
Amen. In a completely unrelated discussion I had a friend yesterday mention that he’d like to see a live-action close adaptation of The Dark Knight Returns with Keaton, and it blew my fucking mind that I’d never considered how awesome that would be before.
Agreed. He’s awesome. Such great dark horse casting. I love that he’s back – he killed it as The Vulture.
The best scene in that movie is (SPOILERS, obviously) him slowly realizing as his daughter talks Peter up over the course of the drive that this kid is really Spider-Man, and Peter can TELL he’s figuring it out, but all he can do is nervously look at Keaton looking back at him in the rearview mirror.
It’s like some horrific game of chicken played within the car. Is one of them going to do something? Which one? And when?
The response was REALLY close to Heath Ledger as The Joker. “Wait, the ridiculously pretty dude from all those teen rom-coms and Brokeback freakin’ Mountain? What the fuck!”
See, I never doubted that one for a second. Not for one hot second. Joker and Bats are, in my head-canon, about the same age. (The one flaw with Nicholsen/Keaton)
But I thought Ledger’s Brokeback was one of the greatest acting perfomances I’ve ever seen. And, since I’m not 12, I can assume a man who plays an LGBT character in one movie can play an action role in the next.
To go from Keaton’s Beetlejuice to Keaton’s Batman would be like Jim Carrey going from Ace Ventura to Clark Kent.
(Having said that, if you move back the MCU 10 years, Jim Carrey would have been an amazing Tony Stark)
Ledger as the Joker is like some being from another Universe manifested, fully formed, in our own.When I watch Nicholson, I say, “Boy, Jack sure does a great job in this role.” But Ledger is like, “What the hell is this creature and where did they find it?!?”
I loved the complete lack of a backstory (or rather, the constantly shifting backstory). The Joker is best as a character when he’s a complete unknown . . . a random agent of chaos and insanity that can’t be understood or predicted. Any attempt at an origin just takes away from that.
Let’s not forget Keaton’s best work here:
The problem for me isn’t Keaton himself, it’s that because Burton cares so little for the hero and so much for the grotesque villains, he doesn’t get to do anything all except watch TV and rock cool turtlenecks. In a movie called Batman Returns — which would imply that Batman is returning — Keaton makes up a mere 38 minutes of its 126-minute runtime (that’s 10 fewer minutes than what Kilmer got in “Forever”). Imagine if he got the meaty material Bale did.
I actually thought that he should have played both Batman and The Joker in the first movie.
Michael Keaton was the best Bruce Wayne.
My problem with the Burton/Michael Keaton take was that he was a rich weirdo and, apparently, no one knew what he even looked like. A millionaire who holds giant-ass fundraisers and he can walk around anonymously? That’s why I preferred the Nolan/Bale take on the character. Remember, Bruce Wayne was described as a playboy even in the early days. The Bale Bruce Wayne is much more of a conscious cover, acting like an entitled rich asshole is a great cover for being Batman. Personally, I fucking hated “The Dark Knight Rises”. I really thought it should have gone in a very different direction (basically both Batman and Bruce Wayne fighting gentrification after the “Dent Act” allowed Cobblepot Industries to steal homes away from poor people in The Narrows for minor misdemeanors). Nolan Batman kept talking about criminals like they were a special class of people, different from normal citizens. I really wanted to see that change, where Batman recognizes that “criminals” and “citizens” are largely one and the same, taught by Catwoman. It could’ve been really cool, Batman learning to understand what it’s like for people who aren’t billionaires, who struggle to get by and might sometimes fail. And then realize the people who take advantage of that are the real villains, even if they don’t break the law. My idea for that movie is a Penguin who isn’t directly a criminal, but who is still definitely a bad guy. How does Batman handle that?
The thing is, once you’re in the suit, a lot of the work of playing Batman is done for you. It’s playing Bruce Wayne that’s the challenge, and Keaton is probably still the best I’ve seen at that. (Kevin Conroy being the best I’ve heard.) He mastered appearing like a clueless, spoiled dimwit around other people, and an utterly hopeless shell of a human being in private, mostly without speaking a word.
Marisa tomei fucking killed it in my cousin vinny
These days, thinking human beings know that every President (and most high-level politicians) we have had have been amoral sociopaths. Pretending otherwise or not knowing otherwise is a testament to the shitty education, journalism and life choices we have made.
I’m glad the disgusting monster lost even though she had all the media lying for her though.
I thought for sure “Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm” would be the one for 1993, but I forgot about “Meteor Man.”
Pfeiffer’s Catwoman is basically a queer icon at this point. As a little gay boy seeing Batman Returns in the theater, I was completely obsessed with her from beginning to end. Same with every other gay guy I know. I’d argue that Thurman’s take on Poison Ivy is equally fantastic and campy, but she’s stranded in a much worse movie and doesn’t get the same respect.
As a little hetero boy seeing Batman Returns in the theater, I was completely obsessed with her as well. She is amazing in that movie.
I think there is arguably a lot of gay subtext in this film, with various oppressed and repressed characters finally ‘coming out’ and embracing their true selves by donning outlandish costumes and personas, and fighting against a very patriarchal and homogenous society.
She’s definitely an icon in the fetish scene. This movie inspired many people’s imaginations.
that is an astoundingly ignorant headline
The tone and Christmas setting makes it completely shocking to me now that Shane Black didn’t write this.
I unapologetically love Tim Burton’s Batman films, and IMO Michelle Pfeiffer is one of the best cat women (For me it goes Eartha Kitt>Michelle Pfeiffer>Julie Newmar and everyone else is way, way inferior). The Max Shreck character is just a perfect villain from start to finish.
“Mister Cobblepot was simply making a joke. It’s a shame that so many humorless liberals are taking him literally but not seriously when they hear him say things like, ‘I played this stinking city like a harp from hell’, instead of paying real attention to his plan to build a wall around Gotham to keep the Canadians out.”
Literally anyone from that cast > Trump in 2020. Either the actors, or the characters they play. I’d definiteely vote Keaton – DeVito, and if I must, I’d vote Catwoman – Penguin.
I watched this recently And was struck by all the religious overtones
“Batman Returns would pull in $267 worldwide.”
Hey, I respect your position and arguments (and writing), but since I really hated this movie then (and, upon rewatching it a few weeks ago out of morbid curiosity, still hate it now), this typo tickles me pink.
the captain america movie does include one of the greatest lines ever though
Why hasn’t Ronny Cox been cast to play more presidents?
He can play the real president at this point, starting tomorrow.
I love the weird motif of him just stealing peoples’ cars, too.
I would’ve really liked to see Keaton and Burton return for a third Batman. People crap on what Burton became, but he had the right tone for Batman Forever and stuff like Arkham Asylum and The Riddler could’ve been interesting in his hands. Keaton had settled into the role nicely and could’ve done more… Not that there was that much continuity even between Burton’s first two Batman films, but it would’ve been nice to have it just be a trilogy moving on from Batman Forever and close out on a similar tone. Rather than what we actually got…
The campaign subplot was so weirdly pointless. In terms of what it does to move the plot forward…* It makes Penguin somewhat respectable and giving speeches, for the purpose of Batman being able to reveal he’s a bad guy. Except Penguin was already somewhat respectable and gave a speech, which is why Schreck wanted him as his patsy.* It gives Batman an excuse to fight the Red Circus gang, as they are causing a crime wave to make Penguin an alternative to the mayor. Except the Red Circus gang opened the movie in the middle of their crime wave.And… that’s kind of it. After the campaign is over, Penguin goes “Welp, time for my real plan”. And Schreck goes “Wait, do I still have a power plant subplot?” And Batman goes “I sure hope that Gotham police no longer think I pushed a beauty pageant winner off the roof”.———————
Also, the weirdness of Schreck setting up campaign headquarters directly below Penguin’s lair where Penguin meets with henchmen, Penguin being lured to the headquarters with a raw fish, Penguin biting someone’s nose at his first campaign meeting, and trying to run a recall election in the middle of December.
I guess I’ll be the oddball. I never liked Batman Returns, I always thought it was a very self-indulgent film that cared little for it’s own subject matter. I thought DeVito and Pfeiffer were overacting to an insane degree, and Keaton really just showed what a complete non-entity in the role he truly was, making for a Batman that hardly needed to be there. People complain about Bale’s Batman just being the voice, but that description is far more suited to Keaton. And the less said about his deadly dull take on Bruce Wayne the better. Frankly, Batman Returns just proved how much Nicholson really was the MVP of the first film.
Pity the people at Marvel, who just could not figure out how to turn their heroes into movie characters. They certainly learned.
I still prefer Burton’s original Batman. Making three antagonists each represent one facet of Batman makes them individually less interesting (despite the best efforts of Pfeiffer), and less threatening than the Joker had been. And Batman himself, as you noted, is sidelined.
Yeah, I guess if it only pulled in $267 worldwide, that would be bad. Hee hee.
Disgusting monsters who were President in The 20th Century:WilsonNixonClinton
Reagan.
Serious question: what’s your beef with Wilson?Not saying your wrong. I just want to understand where you’re coming from.
Horrible bigot who got us into an unnecessary war in Europe because of his idiocy.
Thanks for the education. ☺Clearly I need to do some more reading up on Woodrow Wilson, because most history books seem to present him favourably as a liberal progressive, but as with most political figures it seems he was more complicated than that.
Many progressives were white supremacists along the lines of a David Duke.
He had KKK members dine with him in the White House.
He was definitely a huge racist, at least by the standards of 20th century Presidents. IIRC, he was such a fan of Birth of a Nation he played it in the White House.
And if we extend past just last century, hoooooooo boy. Andrew Jackson certainly didn’t set the bar high for the office of president . . .
That’s the reason Trump scares me. He idolizes Jackson who is the closest we had to Hitler or Stalin.
That’s only one of many, many reasons to be scared of Trump (but I don’t blame you for putting it at the top of the list).
I think you’re forgetting Carter, history’s greatest monster.
Just think of the millions of peanuts he had put to death!
This was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I have a weird/slightly gross story that I always think of when it pops up now. My grandparents were all fancy and bought a car adapter for a tiny tv with a VCR so that my cousins and I could watch movies during the long drive from Arkansas to Texas or Georgia, wherever they were living at that point. I was with my step-cousin driving down to Statesboro and we put this movie on and the ending made him get carsick (the bit where DeVito is just drooling black blood and bile while he’s dying) so we had to pull over, and it seriously irked my grandparents as the entire reason they got the television setup was to distract us enough to make a 5-8 hour car ride not feel like a 48 hour car ride. He also got carsick during the cake-eating scene in Matilda. Dude had a weak stomach.
Scary how this movie even holds up today.Let’s consider 1997’s (that 5 years after Batman Returns, folks) “Justice League of America”, which probably had the hokiest costumes and effects (even if it was a TV show—remember Star Trek TNG was running at about the same time):
Deep Space Nine and Voyager were on in 97. TNG ended in 94.While those costumes are god awful, I think that might’ve been the point. I think they were going for the Giffen/Maguire-era JLI vibe, which is often reduced to its comedic elements. TV could certainly do good superhero costuming. 1990’s The Flash looked awesome.
Man, must have been watching the re-runs. Was just finishing med school, so I kind of lost dates of when things started and ended. But DS9 and Voyager were way ahead in effects.However, I like how this reviewer put it in their review of the show: “This JLA wants desperately to be Friends with superpowers. Instead, sadly, it comes off as Mystery Men without the jokes.”
Oh, Mystery Men. That better damn well be the 1999 installment of this column series.
GREAT CAESAR’S GHOST!! You sure that isn’t ‘87??!!
Speaking of those annoying kids on my lawn, these days I am continuously impressed by practical effects that I completely overlooked when I was younger, before everything was green screened and accomplished with the “magic” of CGI. The shot of Catwoman using her whip to smack the heads off of those mannequins in the department store is done in one unbroken shot (except that they cut to a close up on the last one). To pull that off, Michelle Pfiffer had to actually learn to use a bull whip! These days, that type of commitment to a role is unheard of. In the MCU, that scene would have been inexplicably filmed in front of a green screen, the mannequins would have been entirely CG, and there would have been soooo many needless edits and close ups that it would be difficult to tell exactly what’s happening.
And in the contemporary DCCU, the background used in the final cut of the movie would be an entirely different setting than the scene was supposed to have taken place in as written in the script.
Absolutely. I also appreciated the use of real and animatronic penguins, as well as little people in suits. Anything to be done to make the film feel more tangible, they did.
(Some of those movie penguins got to be celebrities at my local aquarium.)
As a 10-year-old in the movie theater I was put off by how many people the Batmobile killed.
(I was also annoyed that I was supposed to just understand, “The cats bit extra lives into her, totally normal unexceptional alley cats,” and couldn’t really invest in the movie after that. The “it’s a children’s movie” excuse has never impressed me much.)
Great movie, but oh my god, this idea that politics was somehow angelic and respectful up until a couple years ago needs to fucking die. Yes, objective monsters ran for office all the time, well before this movie came out. Some of them even won! That was the whole damn point, the reality that the film was explicitly commenting on. More than that, it also reflected the reality that said monsters often slip by us unnoticed for however long. (The two major presidential candidates in 1992 were George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The former has since been accused of serial groping and harassment, the latter of literal rape.) Politics was never “civil.” Dear god.
I seem to be the only person who thinks this film did not age well at all. It’s just so freaking silly. An army of penguins with little rockets strapped to their backs, and the Batmobile with a radar screen full of little penguin icons representing them (a move that would have made the ‘60s show proud). A pair of emperor penguins staging an impromptu funeral march for the Penguin. Bruce Wayne’s record scratch (with a CD no less). And Catwoman’s awful one-liners.
It was bad then, is still bad.
fun fact: one of my art school teachers worked on these films and the batmobile is 100% meant to look like a big ol’ dick.
Batman Returns shattered my childhood trust in movies. I spent most of it feeling betrayed that Vicki Vale just disappeared between movies. The first movie had sold me on their love! How could I trust anything I saw after that?
Funny enough, the recurring theme of Batman movies seems to be love interests being forgotten.
Huh? Monsters have been doing this for ages.
Yeah, the last year one could credibly have claimed such people had never held the presidency would have been, like, 1828.
“Batman Returns would pull in $267 worldwide”
The only good thing to come of these awful Burton Batmans was that they inspired the Animated Series.
I know this is silly, but I wish you guys would look at the original 1978 pilot movie for The Incredible Hulk. It was released theatrically in many markets and, for some reason, is better than it should be for a TV pilot film.
I’m just reminding everyone that the script sucked.
I loved the movie for it’s dark and creative weirdness; I thought it was the right blend of clever comic book fantasy mixed with wit and just the right amount of camp. Anyone else enjoy the SNES Batman Returns side-scrolling game?
* Monsters running for office has existed since the beginning of running for office.* I love DeVito’s Penguin but Walken’s villain was so good he felt like an unnecessary addition.* I can’t believe we were denied the glory of Jeffrey Combs as Dr.Strange. Dr, Modrid looks campy, but in fun way not out of sync with the early Dr. Strange comics.
If you’re so obsessed with Donald Trump that you can’t watch Batman Returns without thinking of him, you have a problem.
To be fair, I think there are parallels (particularly with Max Shreck who was supposedly based in part on Donald Trump, when he was merely an obnoxious property developer rather than a white supremacist President), and shifting events in our politics and culture are always going to prompt fresh analyses of certain pieces of art and entertainment.
If you can’t watch a movie with a character based on Donald Trump without thinking of Donald Trump, you have a problem.
That none of us can go through a minute of our waking lives without thinking of Donald Trump, means we all have a really big problem.
What I don’t understand is, since whites are so horrible, why do brown-skinned people keep moving to predominantly white countries?
Im a marvel diehard, but this is still by far my favorite superhero movie.
Holy shit – a Charles Band adaptation of Doctor Strange?Starring Jeffrey Combs?That. Would. Have. Been. Awesome.
I’ve long held the opinion that Burton and Schumacher should have swapped villains, instead of giving us a gothic Penguin and comical Two-Face.
Plus it has Souixsie and the Banshees on the soundtrack! Face to Face is quite mainstream for them but a great song! I love Batman Returns and especially Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman. Penguin was a little TOO grotesque for me but Walken is fun and Keaton is pretty low key.
Not really a Tim Burton fan, but I remember I did enjoy watching this back in the day. Too bad Warners went with Schumacher; he destroyed the franchise until Chris Nolan resurrected it.
1992 – “When disgusting monsters only ran for office in the movies”. Weird that you would say that, when 1992 is EXACTLY the year that rapist Bill Clinton ran for office.
I see what you’re going for with that headline, but it really isn’t true. There has always been monsters making their government power grab, they just at least tried to hide that back then. Now it’s just cartoon villains and Republicans in Democrat costumes.
ISIS-inspired vehicle attacks have become alarmingly common in both the United States and Europe over the last couple years, but interestingly, Breihan only compares vehicular mayhem to Charlottesville (where one person died). Hmm.
Nice analysis sir. My brother did a good one too, around four years ago. He points out that this Batman owes a lot to Charles Dickens. It was all a tribute to a Michelle Pfeiffer marathon. Please check it out, you’ll see you agree on many things.
https://criticafterdark.blogspot.com/2014/05/batman-returns-tim-burton-1992.html
BATMAN RETURNS! In spite of its 3rd act story flaws (which veer into Adam West territory), this is still my 2nd favorite superhero film behind Superman: The Movie. So many reasons to love this flawed gem…
1) This remains the only superhero movie to ever be SEXY. That masquerade ball scene was so good that Nolan tried to rip it off for The Dark Knight Rises (too bad human emotions are not his forte).2) This remains the best interpretation of Catwoman in any medium. As with Reeve’s Superman, it’s the human alter-ego that’s the key to making us care about the super identity. Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Waters nailed it.
3) This remains the best depiction of any comic book city. Bo Welch took Anton Furst’s Gotham to the next level — what a living, breathing, beautiful beast of a city! Fuck realism in its grounded, boring old face.4) This remains the second-best superhero film score ever (after John Williams’ legendary Superman score). Danny Elfman topped his classic Batman (1989) score with an even more twisted and emotional work. Speaking of which…
5) This remains the most beautiful ending to a superhero film ever. Elfman’s score + Keaton’s haunted expression + that epic pan up over Gotham + Catwoman’s giddy shimmy = perfection. That shot was added last minute and cost something like half a million dollars…it was worth it.
This movie has only one flaw, which is the moment when Bruce Wayne does a riki-ricki-record scratch on a fucking CD. Other than that, there is nothing wrong with this movie. It is impervious to flaws. Fuck your superhero and your logic, that’s what this movie has to say and it ain’t shy about it.
It’ll never happen, but I would love to see Burton, Keaton and Elfman complete their trilogy with a Batman Beyond-inspired movie set 25-30 years later.
Anytime I think of Burton’s Batman movies, I think of a Kevin Smith interview where he talks about an exchange with Tim Burton. Smith had joked that Burton stole the ending to his Planet of the Apes movie from a Jay and Silent Bob comic. Burton replied that he doesn’t read comic books. Smith then said something to the effect of “That’s obvious to anyone who’s seen your Batman movies.” This was not too long after the Superman Lives debacle, so I’m sure there was a lot of animosity between the two.
I remember seeing 1989’s Batman in the movie theater in elementary school and instantly becoming transfixed by it. When this one came out in 1992, I mostly enjoyed it, but I wasn’t quite as fascinated. Then, for whatever reason, my family got this one on VHS around the time we moved one summer, and I watched it obsessively. As an adult, my opinion of the Burton Batman’s has basically flipped: I’m utterly gobsmacked by this movie, whereas whenever I see the 1989 film on T.V. I’m almost disappointed, because it reminds me enough of this film to make me want to watch it again.There are many reasons why I like this film so much, but a big part of the reason is that it is barely a superhero movie at all. I was never really into superheros as a kid. But Batman was sort of the exception, and that is likely because the character and the stories tend to hew much closer to crime fighting than to fighting monsters from outer space and other dimensions. The kid obsessed with playing “cops and robbers” naturally matured into the film noir obsessive, and the style of Batman Returns definitely shares noir’s expressionist roots. In fact, it’s not so hard to imagine tweaking the characters a bit and transforming this into something like one of Fritz Lang’s or Orson Welles’ nor films.
It’s been a long time since I first saw Batman Returns, and I’m not sure it was actually a sexual awakening, but I do remember looking at Michelle Pfeiffer in skin-tight black vinyl and being aware of something beyond superhero punch-ups.And I may be in the minority here, but even though Batman is my favourite superhero, I don’t mind his limited screentime in this movie as much as some of the commenters here. For me, a little Dark Knight goes a long way.
Michelle Pfeiffer is obviously iconic as Catwoman, but now I really, really wish we had a version with Annette Bening.
Batman Returns is a relic of an age when disgusting monsters only ran for office in the moviesThis is a joke, right? Part of what prompted the Penguin arc of Batman Returns was H. Ross Perot’s improbably successful White House run as the head of the newly-formed “Reform Party”, and the early successes of batcrap crazy Republican Presidential Candidates as Far Right Columnist Pat Buchanan & ex-KKK Grand Wizard David Duke!
I’m not sure it’s been brought up in other comments, but I’m sure it’s going to come off as pointless nitpicking to many but it’s honestly a detail that always tickled me about the movie: I don’t think that this article’s characterization of the Penguin’s relationship with the Red Triangle is quite fair. To see it this way, that the Penguin was raised by the penguins and was an urban legend before creating the Red Triangle gang, is buying into the Penguin’s own fake backstory a bit. I always thought that the implication was that the Red Triangle already existed when the Penguin was found by the circus, and that they had a part in raising him and making him the criminal that he is. But he exceeds them. While they were more common criminals (I don’t recall the exact content of the newspaper articles Batman finds on the subject) he has this grand scheme and in the super-heightened comic book universe that means he rose to be their leader.
You guys really need to ease up on Hillary.
Looking at how Tim Burton handled The Joker, The Penguin, and Catwoman, I can’t stress enough how badly I wanted to see what he could do with Two-Face. Unlike Nolan, where it would be impossible for some villains to exist, or they’d have to be be scaled down, imagine the absolute visual madness that would be a Helena Bonham Carter Poison Ivy. The Riddler, Mr. Freeze, The Ventriloquist, The Mad Hatter, and my god, a true Scarecrow, with a haunting theme scored by Danny Elfman, would be a heavenly nightmare. Burton’s world remains the best suited for Batman’s rogues.
Is it just me, or was the Captain America clip…not that bad?
This is an excellent point. The Burton films have amply documented flaws but we were robbed of Billy Dee Williams’ Two-Face and that still stings a bit.
Walken’s Max Shreck is a parody of Donald Trump in the early 90s while Devito’s Penguin is in hindsight a spoof on him now. Curious
As someone who thought this film was substantially better than it was generally given credit for at the time — and a significant improvement on the essentially turgid 89 “Batman” — it’s been awesome to see critical opinion finally come around on it. It’s a deeply strange and personal take on a character somehow done under cover of what was supposed to be soulless corporate franchise. You could never, ever make this movie today, and that’s a poor reflection on all of us.That said, one thing that I don’t think Burton gets enough credit for in this film is actually upping his game a bit with regards to the fight and action scenes. Nobody would ever mistake Burton for an action director and it’s obviously not even what the movie was about, but in a few scenes here he managed to figure out how to make fights starring a non-martial artist actor locked into a nearly-immobile rubber suit feel reasonably kinetic and interesting. Even Nolan struggled repeatedly with this in his films, so I feel like Burton should get some props for doing some good work far outside his normal element.
(Also, this movie does not get proper respect for how ridiculously quotable it is. “A LOT OF TAPE AND A LITTLE PATIENCE MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE!” Has Danny DiVito done a Random Roles yet?)
I do see many similarities between Cobblepot on Cliton, Sanders, Trump, and many other politicians. More Clinton than anyone else. Evil incarnate.
Burton Batman in a nutshell for me:
Sadly plenty of disgusting monsters have run for office.
When they eventually film The Flashpoint Paradox I hope they get Keaton as Thomas Wayne, or even better, an alternate dimension Batman. Hell, they can even thrown in a little Linda Carter as Wonder Woman while they’re at it.
“but that doesn’t make it much easier to watch post-Charlottesville.” I can’t imagine being enough of a pussy to even have this thought
I’ll just leave this here.
I personally hate Tim Burton’s gothic aesthetic, and he really turns it up to 11 in this one. I mostly can’t watch it because it seems to be a film made about characters whose names Burton knew but didn’t really understand or care anything else about them. OH GEE I WONDER WHY THAT IS?Anyway, I hate this movie.
Tom Breihan YOU’RE SON OF A BTCH HOW MUCH NOLAN PAYS YOU TO SCK HIS
DICK? YOU ARE SO IDIOT AND IT’S NOT SURPRISING YOU ARE NOT ABLE
TO UNDERSTAND BURTON’S BATMAN MOVIES..
“disgusting monsters only ran for office in the movies”