BATMAN RETURNS
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Three angry costumed neurotics battle in a big, silly, lovable comic book on the screen. Two lesser villains from the comic turn out to be much more intriguing than the Joker on the wide screen. This is a terrific, surrealist film. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4). Warning: minor plot spoilers in this review, almost all taken from the film's publicity.
A book may be very amusing with numerous errors, or it may be
very dull without a single absurdity.
Oliver Goldsmith, preface to THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD
In 1983, for the 50th anniversary of KING KONG, engineers tried to inflate a fifty-foot gorilla balloon on the Empire State Building. It was a real fiasco. It never got more than half inflated, looked absurd, and became a real embarrassment. When asked what he thought of it, a Japanese tourist said, "I love it! It's so American! It's big, it's silly, and it doesn't work." BATMAN RETURNS is a film that could be made only in America. It's big; it's silly; it doesn't work. And above all it is lovable. It is a mammoth King Kong balloon of a film that is nearly as endearing for what doesn't work as for what does. It is one of those rare films that could end up appealing to art film fans and to Friday-night fun-seekers. It is genuinely one of the most bizarre films ever made. Its explosions of surrealism and its warped characters make its predecessor BATMAN seem pale and lukewarm. Rather than one villain, this film offers three and manages to make two of them much more interesting than Jack Nicholson was as The Joker. In BATMAN film the viewer knew how the Joker became the Joker. In this film the viewer goes the additional step of saying, "Yeah, if that happened to me, I think I'd become like the Penguin or Catwoman."
The film opens with a monster child being born to a rich household. Rather than keep this horrible little creature, his parents set him adrift in a basket in a sewer. There he is adopted by the penguins living in the sewer. ("What penguins in the sewer?" you ask. Shhh! Let Mr. Burton tell his story! Just accept it that there are a lot of intelligent penguins living in the sewer ... with the clowns.)
Meanwhile, a big industrialist who pollutes the same sewer and is planning to steal a giant electrical charge from the city. (No, don't ask about that one either.) Max Shreck (played by Christopher Walken) is the industrialist and he is *really* nasty to his mousey, frumpy secretary Selina Kyle (played by Michelle Pfeiffer). Between him and her lackluster lifestyle, she is getting ready to explode. Selina comes home each night to her lonely apartment, calls, "Honey, I'm home," reminds herself that she is not married, feeds her cat, and listens to her mother's brow-beating phone messages. Eventually when circumstances make Shreck see Selina as a threat he throws her out a very high window. Miraculously she is not killed and in some mysterious way is rescued by alley cats. (Hey, look, if the sewer penguins can save a monster baby....) Selina completely makes herself over as the super-feminist, militant Catwoman, complete with skintight vinyl cat suit. ("Life's a bitch; now so am I!" she says.) Suddenly she is wreaking havoc with a bullwhip and doing amazing athletic flips. ("How come she can do that now?" you asked. Shhh! Now I've warned you.) VARIETY aptly calls her "a kitten with a whip." About this time the adult version of our monster baby emerges from the sewer with his army of clowns to make himself loved and to find his parents. He is nicknamed the Penguin (and played by Danny DeVito). Shreck decides to use the Penguin in a plan to discredit Batman and to have the Mayor ousted and replace him with the Penguin. He is going to create a crime wave and make the Mayor look so bad that the people will replace him with the Penguin. ("If that scheme works, how come Dinkins is still Mayor of New York?" you ask. Shhh! Now I'm not going to warn you again.) Catwoman and the Penguin team up, knowing that with the Mayor thrown out they will be sitting in the catbird seat. After that the plot gets strange and a little hard to believe.
To say there are gaps in the plotting of BATMAN RETURNS is a gross understatement. This is a film that somehow survives major lapses in logic. You never know what is going to turn up in the sewer next without rhyme or reason. There seem to be whole rooms of furniture, troops of clowns, and colonies of penguins. Also in this world anyone who dons a weird suit suddenly becomes an athlete ready for the Beijing Circus. We see Batman, the self-appointed vigilante, use lethal force on criminals in the street. Then later he lectures Catwoman on the importance of letting the law punish the bad. In another inconsistency Batman berates Alfred for revealing his identity to Vicki Vale, but carelessly allows Catwoman to learn who he is, and later intentionally reveals his identity to Max Shreck. (It is interesting that the film does go back and explain a plot hole from the previous film.) Other places the plot assumes impossible capabilities for the Batmobile (it can be wider on the inside than it is on the outside). Then it assumes that every family in Gotham would make the same mistake of leaving the same valuable unguarded.
And with all these gaffes there is a lot to like in the new Batman film. The late Anton Furst's set designs from the first film have been made more dreamlike and often given an EDWARD SCISSORHANDS feel by the new production designer Bo Welch. There are numerous allusions and touches in the film. The Batman character was initially inspired, at least in part, by the idea of a crime-fighter as stealthy, dark, and mysterious as Dracula, the original bat-man. The first screen adaptation of the novel DRACULA was the 1922 German classic NOSFERATU, in which the actor who played the animal-like vampire was Max Schreck (whose name was slightly modified for the allusion, but is still noticeable).
A rather nifty but probably nearly unnoticed allusion is a woman clown dressed in 18th Century French attire who delivers her lines in a sleepy monotone. Could this be an allusion to Glenda Jackson playing a manic- depressive playing Charlotte Corday in MARAT/SADE? There are multiple allusions to Burton's best previous film, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS. Much of the photography has very similar visual images. Statues in the snow, such as are shown at the old zoo, look a lot like Edward's topiary. The opening logo is over snow, not unlike the snow of the opening of EDWARD SCISSORHANDS. Danny Elfman, who scored all three films, in BATMAN RETURNS has borrowed themes from BATMAN, but also style from his EDWARD SCISSORHANDS score. Choral voices under the snow scenes show up a lot in this film as they did in EDWARD SCISSORHANDS. One almost wonders, incidentally, with all the Christmas imagery if this film was really intended for a summer release. One nice visual touch is that what looks like a line of virile Batmen standing in line in one scene is a closet of costumes. The only thing missing from the Batmen are chins. If Batman is a dramatic-looking figure in costume, it is the costume that looks so impressive, not him. You could put Rick Moranis in that costume and he would look dangerous.
Indeed, after all the discussion prior to the first film as to whether Michael Keaton could really play Batman, the role has once again turned out to be surprisingly undemanding. The suit gives Batman his stature, the script gives him a little complexity, and Keaton steps through the role fulfilling its demands without contributing anything extra. While that made him the best thing in the first installment, this time it just did not hack it. This is Pfeiffer's and DeVito's film. Living secretly in the sewers, hatching his plans, the Penguin clearly borrows heavily from THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. Yet at the same time he can turn hot and angry in seconds, like Joe Pesci's character in GOODFELLAS. He has not in my memory had a role that allows him such rage or such range.
Until now I have always considered Michelle Pfeiffer to be a marvelously sexy woman who wears a lot of make-up and who does not have a whole lot of talent. Sex appeal and make-up pulled her through DANGEROUS LIAISONS and THE FABULOUS BAKER BOYS, but not for one moment of her acting have I ever considered her impressive. However, I can no longer imagine anyone else being better as the Catwoman. Her uncompromising fury makes her a male chauvinists' worst nightmare. One moment she is pretending to be shocked that Batman would dare hit a woman, the next striking out at him for so much as daring to hesitate. Forget chivalry--this woman wants blood and will do whatever it takes!
As a side note: it is good to see Tim Burton taking a risk for a friend: Paul Reubens is back working again in spite of what is now rumored to be a rather unfair rap.
There is a surprising richness of themes in this film. Batman's own story is distorted and reflected in the two colorful villains. All three have their origins in pain. All three have donned their costumes to work out their own personal neuroses. All three characters seem to live by the motto that in rage and solitude there is strength. Even animals are compassionate compared to the brutal humans. The two tortured villains are each save in their moments of weakness by animals. The Penguin, like Edward Scissorhands, longs to be normal instead of a freak. Does Batman wear the animal costume to set himself apart from humanity and to make himself a freak?
To extent the sentiment of the Japanese tourist, BATMAN RETURNS could have been made only in the United States. Only in the United States could $80M be spent bringing a comic book story to the screen, unembarrassed. One need only look at BARBARELLA or the Perry Rhodan film MISSION STARDUST to see how it could have gone wrong. I think America still leads the world in big, brash, silly films. That may not be much, but it still something in which to take some pride.
While I thought the first Batman film rated only a 0, I'd give this one a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. You ain't seen nothing like this film.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzy!leeper
leeper@mtgzy.att.com
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
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