Retro Film Review: 'Batman Returns' (1992) *Repost*

 (the review below was written in 2011)

Welcome to my review of the 1992 summer blockbuster, Batman Returns.

Between marathon sessions of Angry Birds on my iPhone, I popped in this classic film on our new Samsung television, and let me tell you...it's never looked so good.

For those of you who have never seen this film, check out the following link to the movie trailer. It'll only take a couple of minutes, so check it out. And if you HAVE seen this film, watch the damn trailer anyway. I'll wait.

https://youtu.be/Too3qgNaYBE

Okay, and now to the review:

Batman Returns is a thematic Christmas tale so full of themes on the human heart, choice, hope, and interaction with duality that one cannot help but wonder if an early draft was penned by Charles Dickens. 

Yes, THAT Charles Dickens.

It's also ripe with enough fetishistic sex appeal that one cannot help but wonder if the draft after that was penned by Oscar Wilde (that's right...I said Fetishistic SEX. This article is going to be huge. Tell your friends).

Whereas Batman '89 was gothic in its background, Returns brings it to the forefront. If looked at from the Dickensian aspect, Batman Returns is a retelling of A Christmas Carol through a noir perspective which casts Batman as Ebenezer Scrooge, the Penguin as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Catwoman as the Ghost of Christmas Present, and Max Shreck as the Ghost of Christmas Future. They all reflect each other, as well as Gotham City, and most importantly Bruce Wayne himself.

Christmas plays something of a thematic point in Batman Returns. At the beginning of the movie Max Shreck is referred to as Santa Claus, only for us to learn he's a total bastard. Since Christmas is meant to be the best time of the year, when we're all giving gifts and being happy, in Gotham everything is still in chaos. Christmas is a time of renewal and preparation, as we all hope to end the old year on a decent note and hope for a better one in the upcoming. It's about hope; hope permeates rotten through Gotham City during the movie, but it does manage to end on a hopeful note. The only ones who appreciate Christmas are Alfred and Bruce (and Bruce doesn't even appreciate the meaning until the end of the movie). 

Coming off of the first movie, with Batman having solved the murder of his parents, he no longer wants to be Batman. The way he waits for the signal is one of regret, dread, and lamentation. He doesn't want this. When it happens, there's just anger; a look that says he knows it was going to happen, but still disappointed anyway (see above pic). He's more violent this time around, even less chatty, and these actions are so commonplace that the police aren't surprised when they believe he's killed an innocent woman. Since Batman was created by Bruce Wayne as a means to combat his feelings of helplessness and a means of vengeance following his parents' murder, with their deaths now solved Batman no longer has a reason to exist. His line to Selina at the beginning of the movie: "I mistook me for someone else" speaks to that. There's more Bruce Wayne than Batman in this movie because of it. Bruce's attraction to the equally damaged Selina Kyle speaks to his desire to settle down with someone who understands him (Vicki Vale couldn't "reconcile" it and that's why she left.). By the end of the movie he's so ready to call it quits as Batman, he rips his mask off as a way of getting his point across to Selina, who in turn takes her mask off. It goes back to the scene before between the two of them:

Selina: "I guess I'm just tired of wearing masks."
Bruce: "Me too."

By the end of the movie, Batman earns a bit of redemption, and his recitation of a Christmas platitude "Good will toward men....and women" is his way of coming out of the moral hole he was losing himself in. He was going to try to be a better man, and fight as Batman as a choice: hence Batman "returns". He is the iteration of Scrooge in this movie not only because he's a rich miserable prick, but because the villains of the film visit him as representative traits of his personality at different stages of his psychological development.

As Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle, they both attempt to form connections with each other ("He makes me feel the way I hope I really am"), while also, regretfully being forced from each other because of the pull of their other lives. They're desperate, awkward, and dark. Even when they're vulnerable they force each other away from the wounds they gave each other. They were both attracted to the other's darkness while both were trying to push away. They both move closer and engage in subterfuge until they realize the cycle they've been locked in. "Does this mean we have to fight?" is Selina's way of noting this realization and being aware of the fact that despite their feelings for each other they would still inexorably be enemies.

The frank and sometimes odd depictions of sexuality in this movie made it controversial among parents groups and caused Warner Brothers to reconsider allowing Tim Burton to helm their Batman films. This led to Joel Shumacher being hired, and the same groups didn't like him because of his possibly homo-erotic interpretation of Batman and Robin.

 

Will Smith was right: parents just don't understand.

 

Moving on, yeah, there's a lot of fetish in Batman Returns.

 

Batman and Catwoman's relationship starts off with and becomes impelled by violence. Catwoman penetrates Batman, Batman repeatedly beats Catwoman (who is dressed as a dominatrix, whip and all, mind you) in an attempt to overpower her; the Penguin, a bird, attempts to sexually posses a cat, which are usually more predatory. When his sexual advances fail he attacks her, the result of which leaves Catwoman's clothes torn, her body beaten. The sexual curiosity between Batman and Catwoman is formed by the mystery of the other's identity with Catwoman feeling Batman up in an attempt to know where the human part of him is. Their curiosity and attraction to one another grows as does their frequency and level of violence in dealing with each other and others around them. They have a psycho-sexual fixation on one another.

 

 

The relationship of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle is in direct correlation to their alter ego's relationship. At some level they want to make a connection with each other to offset the oddity of their superhero/villain connection and attempt at something normal. This fails because their personalities bleed into their everyday Bruce/Selina lives and had it not been for their emotional distresses they likely would not have found each other attractive in the first place. Selina confirms this mid-film: "It's the so-called 'normal' guys who always let you down. Sickos never scare me. At least they're committed."

 

It's not only the complexity of the sexual hang-ups or the fetish of wearing leather bodices and masks, but of the persistent references to sex and sexual acts (mostly made by Catwoman and the Penguin) that led to such an adult take that made most adults enjoy the film, that pissed off parents groups, and baffled the younger audience. I could go on and list these moments, zingers and one-liners, but you'd be better off watching them yourself. Context is everything.

As I said earlier, this is a retelling of A Christmas Carol. Bruce Wayne, obviously, is Scrooge. He's bitter and angry. His choices have cost him a normal life with Vicki Vale. The police tolerate him but don't seem to lose any sleep when they think he's lost his shit. Alfred seems more complacent because Bruce is just getting darker and more aggressive. Throughout the movie Bruce deals with the darker sides of his personality--personified in Penguin, Catwoman, and Shreck, our three ghosts of Christmas--and come out the other end of the movie with a changed outlook; even though Bruce lost so much, like Scrooge realized he had, he sees his survival and these lessons he's learned as the means of getting a second chance. In Bruce and Scrooge we find the darkness of personality in lives led poorly, and in the end, lives resolved in an honest desire for redemption.

 

Penguin is the sins of Gotham City's past, its elite, coming back to haunt the present; The Ghost of Christmas Past. He shows the darkness of the city not only before the creation of Batman, but before the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne (the comics often took the stand that when "Gotham's First Family" was killed and their killer never found the city went from troubled to screwed); Penguin's outer and inner ugliness is reflective of the city and its citizens. His line to Batman towards the end of the movie: "You're just jealous. I'm a genuine freak and you have to wear a mask" and Batman's reply, "You might be right" shows us that they reflect each other as well. Batman was loved by the city, and Penguin wanted that; in turn, Batman was losing his humanity and becoming more like Penguin. With that loosened morality structure he could do his job more effectively (as seen earlier in the movie).

Penguin is also biblically leaning in his endgame: the murder of the first born sons of Gotham City. This goes back to his desire to be wanted and the fact that he never is. Even when the city loves him, he's still surrounded by his gang of degenerates, he's still sexually rejected by Catwoman and even by plucky impressionable students and the people who work for him. Penguin is the darkened version of Bruce. His parents discarded him, whereas Bruce's parents loved him (the rejection is here as well), and had things been different, perhaps Bruce would have been a psychotic revenge seeker.

Oh, wait.

Moving along now...

The effect Batman has had on the city led to the creation of Catwoman--The Ghost of Christmas Present. Instead of lower crime stats, there are other masked vigilantes running about. I think this incarnation of Catwoman is (don't shoot me) "purrfect", because it takes the fantasy of the superhero and turns it into the fetishistic nightmare that it must be (she wants to play an intricate part in Batman's "degradation"), while also reflecting Batman: She's entirely morally bankrupt, as Batman stands near that precipice himself. They are, as Batman says, "Split...right down the center." Catwoman rebuffs him because this isn't a fairy tale and it isn't supposed to be. While Bruce was becoming a darker personality, she was even worse; she couldn't imagine anything resembling a happy ending anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 With Batman's morality lower than ever, Max Shreck, as the Ghost of Christmas Future, represents Bruce Wayne's future if he continued to darken. Older, more dangerous Shreck has killed his business partner (here's a slight reference to Jacob Marley, from A Christmas Carol), his secretary (here's a Bob Cratchit reference), and cares only for his legacy (his company and son). Bruce as Batman has already killed a number of people and has become more violent in his means. As Bruce Wayne he sees the threat of Max Shreck and they immediately become enemies. The fact that Shreck has more sway in Gotham and its politics is dangerous, but these are relationships that have taken years to cultivate, and one can't help but see Bruce beginning to make the same relationships or he wouldn't have been so close to Shreck in the first place. (A funny thing to note is that even when Shreck attempted to get rid of Mayor Hill and his candidate turned out to be a dangerous criminal, Gotham's most influential--Mayor Hill included--still showed up to his masquerade ball; the Mayor's costume was a plastic knife in his back. Shreck is too influential to ignore.)

By the end of the movie, the repeated "Things change" line isn't a quip so much as a thematic point. The characters are examined, mirrored, changed or killed by the end of the movie; everyone is forced to look at who they really are: Shreck by Catwoman, Penguin by Batman and Shreck, Catwoman by Batman, Batman by his villains.   

The actors, specifically Michael Keaton (who was finally given his due), Michelle Pfeiffer, and Christopher Walken drive this movie.

Keaton and Pfeiffer are given the best material, their scenes together manage to be smolderingly sexy, tragic, dirty, sad and beautiful all at once. Walken has fun walking around in the bastard skin of Max Shreck, playing the evil industrialist; the post-modern devil.

Now, this is all well and good, but these aren't the characters we've had around for sixty or seventy odd years. In this film, Batman isn't as heroic as some would like, Selina Kyle died and was brought back to life by cat bites as a sex object (I still think the 3 awnings she fell through broke her fall, thus knocking her only unconscious when she lands in the snow bank with what would be an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury) and naturally seems to just come to the conclusion that she needs to dress as a cat and blow up department stores, the Penguin is a sex crazed deformed creature who spits tar, and Shreck at times comes off as a poor man's Lex Luthor.

There are penguin suicide bombers, a circus of criminals who know martial arts and can hotwire the Batmobile, a vast sewer system perfect for a criminal base, a very gullible and unobservant Gotham City, a giant car/boat/duck, penguins miraculously in the warm waters of the east coast, Bruce playing DeeJay in one scene, a convoluted  plot involving mayoral control, and an unresolved plothole involving Batman being exonerated off-screen (presumably).

Returns is overburdened with villains, and none of them really seem to have an endgame. The Penguin does, the aforementioned biblical murders, but his run for mayor is incredibly stupid and only seems to succeed in giving Penguin and Shreck more screentime. You can say that Penguin desired the position so he might gain the love and affection from others that he was denied by his parents, but you'd be reaching considering his stance on becoming mayor: "I could really get into this mayor stuff. It's not about power, it's about reaching out to people...touching people...groping people!"

Somebody get that guy a playdate.

Catwoman has a vendetta against Max Shreck directly, and this becomes relevant two times in the movie: when she blows up the department store and again at the end of the film when she attacks him in the sewer. The rest of the time she spends fixated on Batman, which doesn't make all that much sense from what we're given in the film. I understand her problem with a guy that punched her in the mouth, but shouldn't she be more worried about, you know, the guy that pushed her out of a fucking window and sent her on this path in the first place?

As much as I like Walken's Shreck, he doesn't need to be here. He does indeed play the role of a bad guy well, and from his deeds--the sewage dumping, the pollution, the intimation that he killed his friend and partner in a very Cain and Abel concept, and the attempted murder of the secretary--we can believe him as a villain, but why does he matter in the context of the film? There are no seen repercussions, besides the attempted murder of Catwoman, and everyone else from Bruce to the Mayor all dislike him seemingly because he just has more friends. This is only confirmed at the end of the movie when Batman smacks him and says, "Shut up, you're going to jail." For what? What illegal act is Batman referring to? 

They don't have anything on him. They suspect him for these vague ideas of dumping chemical waste but they have no concrete proof. The idea to frame Batman was Penguin's idea, it is only Penguin that seems to know about Shreck killing his partner, and I doubt Selina Kyle was actually moving forward to prosecute him for attempted murder. So why is he going to jail? Because he's a dick. Great work there, Bats (he's the World's Greatest Detective, you know).

Shreck seems to be more of a facilitator, who makes connections between people and has a certain knowledge of their asshole behavior, but nothing sticks to him because, well, there were other things going on in the plot that we needed to see. Like how Penguin is lonely. And how Penguin is...umm...in mating season.

Regardless of the above plot / character issues, I have to say that I simply ADORE this film. It's a darker film than Burton's first outing with the character in 1989's Batman, and it's a better film for it. There's very little in the way of camp and is, in my humble opinion, ON PAR with 2008's The Dark Knight. Michelle Pfeiffer's "Catwoman" character is performed every bit as well as Heath Ledgers "Joker" from the 2008 film and Michael Keaton looks more comfortable in the role than he did in his first outing. The Penguin is scary in his looks and actions, and the film just oozes with Tim Burton-type personality. The sets are amazingly detailed, the costumes are fantastic, and I just couldn't say enough about "The Car" if I took a week to try. I mean, look at this thing:

Before I wrap things up, I want to make note that I haven't gone into the Christian Bale vs. Michael Keaton contest because I think they were the right Batmen for their respective series. Trading out Keaton and placing him in the Nolan series would look as ridiculous if we took Bale and placed him in the Burton movies. They work in their respective continuities.

 If you're willing to accept Returns' flaws and take it as a study of ancient comic characters in modern noir--A Christmas Carol as macabre farce--then you would probably find Batman Returns to be as enjoyable as I do.

I give Batman Returns 4.5 fetish-styled Batman and Catwoman poses out of a possible 5.