The much better Batman. The most delicious character in the superhero movies: Selina Kyle

Rating: 9/10 (17 September 2007)

This second Batman is much much better than the first one. It is plastically more accomplished, much better played, and maybe better written also.One thing is obvious:here Burton pushed the masquerade towards a vision.This is the Batman installment that has a vision,an inner principle;this is surprising. It has not atmosphere; but then no Burton movie has an atmosphere. The second Batman is much more suspenseful than the previous one. That one had Mrs. Basinger,it is truebut this one has Mrs. Pfeifferand this is even better. And these two fine ladies should not be compared, as they have entirely different roles in the two movies. But Mrs. Pfeiffer seems to be even more fun than Mrs. Basingerand Mrs. Basinger is great fun and a good reason to watch a movie.
The second installment looks goodit looks VERY goodand I am not a fan of Burton's visual style. There are several amazing things in this filmI leave you the pleasure of discovering them. This is a stylish film indeedand, if not a vision, at least a spectacular masquerade. It does achieve several moments of truly fantastical texturealmost a twisted fairy-tale.
It somehow reminded me also of some big '60s farces,such as Blake Edwards' The Great Race (1965) ,or Roman Polanski's Dance of the Vampires (1967).Yet,this one is made within the postmodern stance,so it is a spoof multiplied with itself.
I am one of those who believe that Burton did not prove Keaton is such a good Batman character.A few days ago I was discussing the Batman '89's cast with a pal,and he found fault with Keaton casting as an ultra-cool enigmatic avenger and 'justiciary. But I didn't like any of the actors cast as superheroes in the '70s-'90s feature movies. They had Gibson and Gere and Willis and they came with  Keaton.
Batman II has a sense of wonder and of dream, it's good this thing was made. It is fanciful and well-paced.
I don't like Walken in Burton's movies,but Mrs. Pfeiffer is outstandingshe brings a charm and a note of poetry that are one of the main qualities of this movie.She is so very good for such an action role . In fact,for me, Batman II is her movie. I would even suggest that Selina Kyle is one of her signature roles.
The Penguin was a very well-written character, a very well suited one, and an enjoyable notion in the movie. He is more interesting, as a villain, then the Joker. And increasing the number of Batman's enemies, or pseudo-enemies, or quasi-enemies proved to be an inspired decisionit's more fun this way, and it makes the narration more compact.
I consider that Burton 's best films are Ed Wood (1994), Mars Attacks! (1996) and Batman Returns (1992) (but I have seen only 6 of themeverything he made from Batman Returns (1992) till Planet of the Apes, plus, of course, Batman ,1989). So everything that follows is based only on my experience with these 6 movies.
Burton's poetics is one of the unreality it is a deliberate attitude, of course, but it must be also a thing of temperament. Unrealityas in Godard -but in an entirely different way, and with different means and purposes. But unrealityas Godard pumped it. There are no 'evocating angles in their films-no seizing of a piece of the world. A Golan-Globus film from the '80s contains more atmosphereof a street corner, etc., or of a pub, than all Burton's movies. Hence their quasi-academic look. The viewer's response depends on whether he enjoys this kind of postmodern take, or not. I do, sometimes. (By the way, I consider Godard, since I named him here,I consider Godard infinitely superior to Burton, it was not my intention to imply they are equals. )Burton's principle is a postmodern one, hence an epistemic one. Emptying the representation of any impetus towards imitation. Postmodernism is the epistemic response to realismmore of a crisis than of a response. Burton 's films are giant vacuum machines. I see he wants them to be thishe plans them to be this way.
Camping up the camp is itself a very camp thing to do. Mocking the camp is still camp; or it is rather even campier. It is true that the camp-aware camp is odd. It betrays, yet it still does belong.So, camp comes to have an odd relation with itself. Spoofing a movie is no way of doing homage (the presupposition is that "we" can not enjoy those referenced movies as they are, and that we need some spoofing versions .)
Burton pretends not only that the ingenuity is lost forever,but also that he is much smarter than those he says he quotes.You see that he is proud he's not Ray Harryhausen, Vincent Price,Edward D. Wood Jr, he would be ashamed to be one of them, for where are the humbleness, the ingenuity, the straightforward camp?The mere and humble enjoyment of the camp?
Batman could of been a great chanceit needed the vision of a William Dieterle or Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell and Tim Whelan (as a triplet ).Burton's movies would not have made Price,Price. Spoofing is not continuing.
Burton's movies are spoofs, parodies, masquerades, and they discredit the films they spoof.They seem to be made by a man who did not understand the movies he was spoofing. Even for his genre of masquerades, Burton has an unique inability of creating life.
It has to be acknowledged that Burton shares with Soderbergh and the Coen brothers the top of the snobs' preferences.They are glad they were told what to think about these guys' movies,and so they can play the same repertory of clichés about post-modernism et Al. Burton, Soderbergh, the Coens live by discrediting genres. But that's not such a bad thing. Sometimes it is amusing and funny.