Buy the DVD:

Sponsored Links:

Batman Returns

When Tim Burton agreed to film the second adventure of the Dark Knight one of his demands was to have complete creative freedom over the project. The result was a typical Tim Burton film, full of bizarre and peculiar characters.

The story brings two antagonists from the comic books to plague the hero, the Penguin (Danny De Vito) and the Cat Woman (Michele Pfeiffer). Penguin couldn’t be more Tim Burton, a deformed child rejected by his parents and dumped in a river to die in the Christmas eve.

Raised in a freak show, he grows up to become the leader of a criminal gang. Constantly drooling black saliva, the Penguin from the comic book (a gangster) became a disgusting freak and was one of the fans’ complaints about the production.

The Cat Woman, Selina Kyle, is a secretary (executive assistant) of a corporation run by the unscrupulous Max Shreck (Christopher Walken), a criminal executive planning to build a Power Plant in Gotham City, but not to provide energy, rather, to steal energy from the city as a huge transformer. When Selina finds out about the plan, Shreck tries to murder her. Surviving the attempt, she becomes the Cat Woman, planning to revenge of her boss.

But that’s not the main reason for Selina’s transformation. Living an empty and lonely life, Selina becomes the Cat Woman also as a symbol of her life change, she not only becomes a criminal, but also transforms herself from a behaved and childish woman to another person, someone violent and with overspreading sex-appeal.

Things get complicated when the Penguin kidnaps Shreck to help him come back to the real world. Blackmailed by the man/aquatic bird, Shreck helps him to achieve his goal and induces the Penguin to become Gotham’s mayor.

The curious aspect about the first four Batman movies was that they were specially focused on the antagonists, leaving Batman in the background, something that was only fixed in "Batman Begin" and something that really pleased the audiences. The tormented personality of Bruce Wayne/Batman was never deeply explored in the first movies.

Another problem in the first Batman movies was the plots. Some aspects that could be used to enhance the mysteries or kept in secret for the Dark Knight to unveil were quickly taken out of the way, presumably to leave space for the action sequences.

"Batman Returns" was also rejected by audiences because of some “adult” aspects. Suggestions of sex, crude murderers and violent scenes made some parents afraid to let their children watch the production. Tim Burton’s Batman movies are mostly for adults, but even so, nobody created the dark appearance needed by the character’s universe as him.

Written by: Edward Olivier

Reviewers Rating: 8.5
Reader's Rating: 0
Reader's Votes: 0

Rate It