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BATMAN FILM REVIEWS Part 2: Batman Returns (1992)

After the success of the first film, director Tim Burton was urged by Warner Bros to film a sequel. For the sequel, titled Batman Returns, Burton was given more creative control. As a result, Batman Returns was even darker than the previous film and was often depressing.
Michael Keaton returns as Bruce Wayne/Batman and delivers another satisfying performance. However, the central focus of the film is no longer on Bruce Wayne/Batman. Instead, the film focuses on the villains. Unlike the first film, where there was only one villain, Batman Returns has three villains.

The main villain is the Penguin, played by Danny DeVito. The Penguin is a deformed man who was abandoned by his parents as an infant and dispatched into the sewers beneath the Gotham City Zoo. The Penguin teams up with Max Shreck, a business tycoon who intends to build a power plant for Gotham City in order to drain the power of the city and make a huge profit. The Penguin, who later learns his true name: Oswald Cobblepot, plots to become Mayor of Gotham in order to help Shreck build his power plant.

The third villain of the film emerges when Shreck’s secretary, Selina Kyle, discovers Shrecks intentions with his power plant proposal. Shreck attempts to kill Kyle, played by Michelle Pfieffer, by pusher her out of the window of their office. Kyle survives the fall, but then a strange scene occurs where she is on the ground and a bunch of cats are biting at her. She goes insane upon returning to her home, and her aggression leads to her taking the persona of Catwoman. Catwoman joins forces with the Penguin and offers to keep Batman out of his plot. At the same time, however, Selina Kyle develops a romantic relationship with Bruce Wayne (not knowing that he is Batman). This connection between alter egos is a nice touch because both characters interact with eachother in both of their personas: Catwoman with Batman and Selina Kyle with Bruce Wayne. This is done without either character knowing about each other’s alternate identity.

In the end, Batman ruins the Penguin’s plot by playing a recording of the Penguin saying harmful things about Gotham during his campaign speech. This enrages the citizens, who chase the Penguin back to the city Zoo, where he is attacked by a swarm of bats and falls down to the sewers below. Then a confrontation between Batman, Catwoman and Max Shreck follows where batman takes off his mask, revealing his identity to Kyle, who had removed her mask as well. Kyle kills Shreck by envoking an explosion and is suddenly nowhere to be found.

The story ends leaving the audience with an empty feeling rather than the triumphant feeling the first film had. Batman Returns was an effectively dark and depressing film that some people like and some didn’t like. It focused on the villains and made them seem more tragic. I enjoyed the performances from DeVito and Pfeiffer as their respective villains. It wasn’t nearly as great of a film as the first one, and I think it depends on how dark you want a Batman film to be in order for you to enjoy it. This is by far the darkest of all of the Batman films.