Batman Returns (1992)

THE BAT, THE CAT, THE PENGUIN

Next on the list for Batman Week is the appropriately titled sequel Batman Returns, in which Batman… returns.  Following the massive success of the first outing (despite some critical backlash, it took just over $400 million from a $35 million budget), Warner Bros. were understandably eager to capitalise on the public’s desire for further adventures of the Batman. Though neither one had signed on in advance, and were even hesitant to agree to a second film, both Tim Burton and Michael Keaton returned to Gotham for the sequel, bringing along two or three new stars for the ride.

It’s Christmas in Gotham City, but the streets are still plagued with crime, so there is still a need for Batman (Michael Keaton). A new threat comes to the city in the form of the Penguin (Danny DeVito), a deformed psychotic intent on being accepted into Gotham society, aided by crooked businessman Max Shreck (Christopher Walken), whom he coerces into helping him, which includes demonising the Caped Crusader. However, plans are complicated by the appearance of Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), a mysterious figure with a serious grudge against Shreck.

When it came time to make Batman Returns, the initial steps were taken almost instantaneously. Right away the original screenwriter, Sam Hamm, was brought back to draft a follow-up script, which was apparently set to be a direct sequel, picking up where the characters and events of the last film left off, before the decision was made to realise not one new villain, but two – Penguin and Catwoman. Warner Bros. also asked for Tim Burton and Michael Keaton to come back. Burton was hesitant, saying that he would only come back if there was the chance to do something interesting with it; Keaton said that he would come back, but with a better paycheque (clearly still a little irked at the huge amount Nicholson made from the first film) and more to do. Agreeing to all such terms, Warner Bros. coaxed the two back, even demoting the first film’s producers, Jon Peters and Peter Guber, to executive producer status in order to give Burton more creative control over proceedings. Upon his return, and in a move very similar to the first film, Burton’s first act was to reject the initial script from Hamm (in which the Penguin and Catwoman went after hidden treasure), opting to bring in another writer to come up with a new direction. As such, Burton brought in Heathers scribe Daniel Waters (we’ll overlook his writing credit immediately before Batman Returns… Hudson Hawk), who decided to take a different approach.

The script for Batman Returns is actually really good. Whereas the first Batman had the villain try to take over the city, but spend most of his time being annoyed that Batman got the press coverage and the hot blonde, the villains here are driven by something different altogether. Max Schreck is a more classic real world-type bad guy, who holds himself in the public image as benevolent, charitable, a wealthy man with the common touch. However, he is a corrupt and amoral businessman with an insatiable desire for power, in this case quite literally as he plans to build a new and completely unnecessary power plant in Gotham that will drain more energy than it gives. He’s greedy, unscrupulous and, if pushed, murderous.

In the corner of more fantastical villainy, there’s Penguin. Drawn here, Penguin is a thoroughly tragic character, born to wealthy parents, but callously abandoned at Christmas because his hideous form and vicious nature are just too much for them to take. Literally thrown from a bridge whilst still in his basket, the river carries him to the sewers, where he spends most of his life as an urban legend to Gothamites, with a brief stint as a sideshow freak in a travelling circus. Looking to return to the city as a kind of long lost son, he manufactures a rescue of the mayor’s child and, adopting a humble public persona, becomes the new “Golden Boy of Gotham”. All the while, his bitter resentment and ferocious anger see him plotting against the citizens, blackmailing Shreck into helping him re-enter society, and culminating in a plan of such homicidal depravity that even his own henchmen start to question it, resulting in a swift gunshot to the gut. What’s great is that Shreck thinks he can benefit from this, believing he can control the Penguin, pushing him for mayoral election and thereby getting his power plant approved.

The one that no one really figured on was Catwoman, who effectively forces her way into the melee for her own reasons. Selina Kyle begins as the meek secretary (sorry, Executive Assistant) to the callous Shreck, but when she pokes around too much, he pitches her through an office window and into the alley below. Whether she survived or actually died isn’t terribly clear (the debate rages on today), she is revived by cats and comes around very traumatised and supremely pissed off. From here on, she assumes the alter-ego of Catwoman and sets herself on destroying Max Shreck. This puts her in the firing line of Batman and the romantic sights of Penguin; but this equally puts them in her line of fire.

Bruce Wayne/Batman himself is put under some stresses as he attempts to stop Shreck’s crooked deal in business, investigate the origins and motives of the Penguin, put an end to Catwoman’s destructive spree, and engage in a romantic relationship with Selina Kyle. It all becomes more complicated when he is framed for a woman’s murder, turning the city against him.

Yes, there is actually a lot going on in this movie. Characters and motivations are played against one another really nicely. Allegiances are made carefully and enemies are made recklessly, with the regular thematic concern of false personas, split identity and the masks worn for nefarious purposes or self-preservation. There’s also the concern of where the line is between hero and villain. In the beginning, the people of Gotham love and trust Shreck, are hesitantly thankful for Batman, are unsure of the existence of Penguin, and have no idea who Catwoman is. Over the course of the film, Shreck’s credibility will be built and diminished, Batman will be demonised, Penguin will be exalted and cast away, and Catwoman always rests in the zone between hero and villain (her first public act is to save a woman from a mugger, only to then attack the woman herself). All the while, for all of the immorality of their actions, the sheer horror of their plans, we are always given a chance to understand why they do what they do. The Joker was someone who liked to create chaos and terror because he enjoyed it; the villains here have much more relatable concerns, even if they appal us.

Tim Burton, having been given a bigger budget and more freedom to work, has gone wild with grim Expressionist flair. Shreck is a direct nod to two different villains of German Expressionism, with his name coming from the actor who first portrayed Nosferatu, and his look coming from the titular character from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. And though the city no longer exists in the filthy shadows of the first film, it has been replaced with a look that’s brighter, but no less dark for its eerie implication and starkness. I said in the Batman review that he had, in Gotham City, created one of the truly great cityscapes of cinema. The city of Batman Returns is equally impressive, with a thick layer of snow peppering the air and covering the dirt. It’s almost like the city itself has adopted a seasonal mask of snow in the hopes that the citizens will forget the unsettling truth beneath the surface.

He’s also crafted some genuinely affecting moments between these characters. The realisation between Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle of their respective identities as they dance is nicely underplayed, and the final scene with Penguin is, despite him being a monster, achingly sad. And his cast do a great job in capturing these moments. Keaton seems more comfortable in his dual role here, still able to be badass, but human as well. Michelle Pfeiffer is absolutely superb as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, beginning so meek and awkward before tearing through with a confidence and swagger that is seductive as all hell, and without screaming as regularly or as pointlessly as the last film’s heroine. Christopher Walken is an unsettling presence as always, mainly because whenever you look at him, no matter what he says, you know something isn’t right with him, that’s he’s not to be trusted. And Danny DeVito is… okay, before I make my point, I’ll just say this. For his performance in this film, Danny DeVito was nominated for a Golden Razzie, the anti-Oscar, as Worst Supporting Actor. Personally, I think that’s a damn travesty, because he’s brilliant as the Penguin. His physicality, his emotionality, his voice, that vicious streak, that angry stare, there’s not a moment when he’s not convincing… that’s not anti-Oscar material, that’s Oscar material. Damn Razzies.

Danny Elfman even ups his game with the score to Batman Returns, from his already excellent work on the first film. There’s still the dark drive and swell of the music that we had become familiar with, but it’s all become so much grander, with things ranging from the hugely operatic to the quiet delicacy of a trinket box or, more appropriately, a musical snow globe. It is a fine soundtrack that rests underneath all of this.

Honestly, I think Batman Returns is better than Batman. The script is stronger, the pace is improved, the action is handled better (although action scenes were never really Burton’s forte), there’s some actual attempts at depth and subtext in the story and characters, and, although I still really like the dark and grimy look of the first film, I much prefer the look of this film, which has a eerily beautiful, almost elegiac tone. It’s more involving, more eerie, more horrific, more tragic… yes, I prefer the second to the first in almost every way. In fact, this is one of two films that are the contenders for my favourite Tim Burton film ever. Oh, yes.

Batman (1989)

Ladies and Gentlemen... welcome to Batman Week. For this whole week, I shall be looking at the movie adventures of the Caped Crusader himself – the two from Tim Burton, the two from Joel Schumacher, the two from Christopher Nolan, and one animated film. Beginning with the first big one, it’s 1989’s Batman. Following the success of the Superman movie in 1978, there was an almost instantaneous decision to bring DC’s other big hero to the big screen. After spending several years in Development Hell, going through writers, directors and stars, production finally began and the mainstream movie world was introduced to a hero far removed from the campy TV incarnation they were all familiar with. From the vision of director Tim Burton, this is Batman.

Gotham City: a dark and dangerous place, peopled by the poor, the criminal and the corrupt. From this darkness comes Batman (Michael Keaton), a caped vigilante who strikes fear into the hearts of the city’s criminal underworld. When his attempts to stop sociopath Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson) during a robbery, the villain is horribly disfigured after falling into a chemical vat. Having survived, Napier returns to society as the Joker, a full-blown lunatic with a vicious sense of humour. Batman must now stop him from trying to kill the citizens of Gotham.

In the initial stages of the film’s development, the job of writing the script was given to Tom Mankiewicz, who did some uncredited work on the Superman script. Apparently, in the early conception of the project, Mankiewicz decided to stick with the formula set by Superman and created an origin story that was very similar in both beat and structure to the previously successful comic adaptation. However, things eventually changed when the script found its way to Tim Burton, who had only one film under his belt by that point, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure. Having a predisposition towards darker, more psychologically compromised characters, Burton was not impressed with the script. And to be fair, he’s right. As many have stated, the two characters, Superman and Batman, represent two completely different aspects of heroism and the human condition. Superman is about hope; Batman is about despair. As such, when Burton signed on, his first act was to dismiss the Mankiewicz script and bring in another writer, Sam Hamm, to take a fresh crack at it. Together, they had decided to eschew the origin story path and construct a world in which Batman already existed, with more of an origin being given to the character of the Joker (Burton has always been more fascinated by villains than good guys, but then who isn’t?). An interesting aspect to the proceedings actually comes from this very idea of origins. Part of the Batman mythos has always been the idea that he is as responsible for the rise of specialised crime, brought on by the infamous Rogue’s Gallery, as anything else. Without crime, there would be no Batman; without Batman, there would be no crime. This cyclic notion is worked in as they make Batman literally responsible for the the Joker’s condition (his failure to save him makes him both disfigured and crazy), but eventual revelations show that the Joker was, back when he was still a young Jack Napier, the one responsible for the deaths of Bruce Wayne’s parents, thus leading to the boy becoming Batman. Personally, I think this is very clever, but also a bit of a misstep. On one side, it does run nicely on the one-begets-the-other principle; however, I think it rather detracts from the character of Bruce Wayne/Batman slightly. That Batman is able to finally confront and indeed kill the man responsible for his parents’ death takes away from that feeling of unresolved anger, which is what drove him to become what he is. It still works perfectly well, but it’s just never sat right with me.

It’s rather surprising nowadays to think that there were harsh protests at Burton being given the reigns of such a big film, although it makes perfect sense on a visionary level. There are genuinely few directors working today (or ever, for that matter) who can rival the uniquely dark and strangely beautiful visuals of Tim Burton. Taking heavy influence from the Expressionist style of the German silent pictures of the 1920s, and filtering them through his own strikingly free aesthetic, Burton can truly create a world like no one else, full of a distinctive idiosyncrasy and style. His design and formation of the city of Gotham is one of the genuinely great cityscape visions in cinema, created with the equally talented visionary stylings of Production Designer Anton Furst and Cinematographer Roger Pratt (In fact, so good was the art direction on the film that it won an Oscar). The streets look grim, dreary, compact, suffocating. There seems to be a permanent shadow hanging over the city, even turning daytime into a downbeat visage. The buildings are so close together that, at ground level, you feel like there’s little room to breath or get away. Considering what was reportedly a very modest budget for effects, they’ve made something quite nice. The lack of real budget does sting a little in the action sequences, particularly the car chase when Batman rescues Vicki Vale from the Joker. Since it really looks like there’s not much room to move, it doesn’t have the complete dynamic impact such a scene should have.

The performances of the film are, mostly, quite strong. As much as there were protests about Tim Burton directing the film, there were virtually pitched assaults on the casting of Michael Keaton in the title role. Again, this was due to the fact that most people had only seen him in light comedies and romance films, so the idea of him donning the cape and cowl was absurd (to really understand it, imagine if they cast Adam Sandler as Batman after only three movies… yes, that’s roughly what people thought). However, Keaton does a really good job, giving a performance that’s understated and based on quiet implication. He also does a pretty good job of being threatening, despite the fact that he’s not exactly the most physically imposing type. One thing I rather do appreciate is that Batman doesn’t really send his enemies off with a dry witticism or flippant remark. He just deals with them and moves on because, dammit, he’s got a job to do. He’s not here for fun.

However, if there’ one performance that you remember from the film, it is of course Jack Nicholson. You could say that for virtually every film he’s in, but he was famous for having stolen the whole film, and you can see why. Never one to be shy of stepping over the crazy line, he’s given free reign to play it big. With a character like the Joker, there’s no such thing as ‘too big’. And he does it so well. Only he could hold the wide grin and dead eyes at the same time, all whilst gleefully dancing, singing or committing a massacre, either on people or works of art. You almost can’t really take his threats seriously because he’s so clearly having fun with it all. A lot of the reason that people remember him so much, aside from the performance, is because, as I said before, Burton prefers spending time with his villains. It’s actually still something of an annoyance to some, those easily identified when they refer to the film as "Jokerman."

The other performances are decent, although suffer from characters being less than fully realised. Kim Basinger’s Vicki Vale is interesting to some degree, though it is the characterisation that lets her down. Already a very well known photojournalist (she got the cover of Time magazine), she comes to Gotham to look into the Batman story, but that’s never really sufficiently explained or developed. It feels more like a convenient way to inject her into the story world, where she then spends a fair amount of time being rescued or screaming. There is one moment that should have been bigger, too, when Alfred shows her to Bruce Wayne in the Batcave. As far as the audience knows, this is how she discovers that Wayne is Batman and… nothing. There’s no kind of reaction from either of them. I know that they tried to make everything as downplayed as possible, but this is a huge moment and it lands with all the drama of a marshmallow.

Other supporting characters are okay, but no one really outstanding, again because no one has much to do. Robert Wuhl’s Knox is dogged in a humorous kind of way, but hardly memorable; Billy Dee Williams as Harvey Dent is cool (because he’s Billy Dee Williams), but nothing is done with him; Carl Grissom, played by Jack Palance, is given some ferocity, but he’s a character quickly removed; and even Tracey Walter’s Bob, though somewhat important to the Joker and beloved by many fans, is only memorable because he’s Tracey Walter. Michael Gough’s Alfred is a good presence, though is rarely more than a good-natured old lackey to Wayne.

Burton’s first crack at the Batman character is, if I’m honest, something of a mixed bag. The visuals are superb, without question. The art direction, cinematography and overall atmosphere of Gotham are really something to behold. The character design of both Batman and the Joker are also very good, with both Keaton and Nicholson doing some fine work in their respective roles, although Nicholson clearly steals the show. Even Danny Elfman’s superb music is almost as famous and influential as John Williams’ work on Superman. And yet, for all of this, there is still something unmistakably lacking in the film. Whilst I don’t think it’s a complete triumph of style over substance, it’s certainly looking in that direction. The pacing is very slow, with little real development of story over such a long duration, so it can feel a bit laborious at times. There’s often a great lack of urgency or tension, with the scene in Vicki Vale’s apartment with Bruce Wayne, which then gets interrupted by the Joker, being one example. For me, it all feels much flatter than it should. Much of the problem could have been addressed by being more streamlined in the narrative, such as excising the subplot about Knox and Vale investigating the existence of Batman. If developed properly, this could have been really good, but at this level, it serves only as an occasional distraction.

This all may sound like I’m badmouthing the film, but I’m not… well, not completely anyway. If nothing else, Batman showed that a dark comic adaptation could work with a mainstream audience. It suitably set the standard of the more grim and sinister superhero films that have been built on, with good and bad results, ever since. Yes, I think there are problems with it on a level of telling a completely gripping story, but there’s no denying the importance of the film and it’s impact on the overall culture of the comic book movie.