Tim Burton's Best Work Ever!

Rating: Null/10 (15 November 2003)

"Batman Returns" was my favorite film in high school as no matter what grade level I was in, it kept getting weirder. The more I thought about this film, it looked like a three way circus dealing with a hero torn apart, a freak show who wanted the majority popularity and a Cinderella story where the woman wanted a better life for herself. To most fans, "Batman Returns" was a better adaptation of the comic book than the original, and you know what, they were right.
The film's prologue takes place in 1962 of Gotham City where the Cobblepots couldn't be happier with the birth of their first child; yet to know that there son looked hideous like a burned kid going to school, the parents decide to get rid of their son by dumping him in the lake where it takes him to the sewers of Gotham City where thirty years later, the hideous son would grow up to be the mysterious Penguin.
Gotham City is pretty quiet on Christmas Eve where no mouse would be stirring, and the deal on making a power plant in Gotham City from Max Schreck (Christopher Walken) is no laughing matter. What the mayor and everybody else don't know is that Max wants to take all of the surplus energy from the sources in Gotham City in order to keep the plant alive. During a speech in Gotham City's fairground, a group of clowns called The Red Triangle Circus Gang attack the citizens of Gotham as it is up to Batman and not the cops to handle it.
After battling it out with The Joker and losing Vicky Vale, Bruce Wayne (Michael Keaton) returns as the dark knight and dukes it out with the gang members as he saves Schreck's mousy secretary Selina Kyle (Michelle Phiffer) from getting killed. After the incident, Schreck gets kidnapped by some sewer thugs and take him to see the local crime boss The Penguin (Danny DeVito) as he tells Schreck that he wants to be a citizen of Gotham without anybody getting wise and to be loved as he bribes Schreck by showing him all the crap that he once destroyed. So the deal is made and Schreck needs to come up with a plan.
Selina Kyle's life is never easy as her comes home from Schreck's Enterprise where from phone call after another, its another story. Until she gives herself a message that she has to file some paperwork for the Bruce Wayne meeting for Schreck's appointment. She discovers what Max is trying to do with the new plans for the power plant and is killed from Schreck as he throws her out the window. Street cats resurrect her as she wakes up dazed and fed up of the life she once lead and starts a new life, calling herself Catwoman.
The Penguin's popularity in Gotham City is more than a jock or a hustler would have, as Batman wants to find out what angle the Penguin is getting at. Now with Schreck on the wing of a dragon, he gets The Penguin involved in politics where if the original mayor can't take his job anymore, then The Penguin would win leaving him and his gang of clowns to wreck havoc on Gotham City.
During the film, Batman encounters The Penguin as he finds out the schemes he's trying to pull, not to mention the new female vigilante that has been all over Gotham newspapers. During a fight scene with the caped crusader, Catwoman has a thing for the man in black where like Spider-Man and the Black Cat, the new vixen wants to be in the bat's world. Sooner or later the two lovers find out each other's identity in a famous dance sequence where The Penguin crashes the party.
I know there are some people out there that might not like "Batman Returns" but you know what, that's okay. The film is much better in set designs, original score, even more erotic than the first film. Just like my days in high school, Batman Returns is a fun house with surprises coming from left and right and there's no stopping the madness.