No Difficulty with Duality

Rating: Null/10 (13 December 2002)

Spoilers herein.
What Burton brings to the table is a quirky design sensibility. All other elements of his films are conventional Hollywoodisms. But when he hits a sweet spot with that situational and production design, it works. At least it works as a voyage to another planet.
His first Batman film was a disaster in this respect: it visually lacked both imagination and control. He knew he screwed up, and this time he fixes nearly everything that was broken the first time around. He still has that dead melodramatic third act, but everything else is great.
The city bears some similarities to the Gotham of the first, but he lives in this one. It has a perverted life, rather than the carcass of the first. He literally places his camera among architectural elements of the city this time. The batcave is completely reinvented to be more jagged, dark and schizophrenic. The contrasting ice cave really does contrast: it has light and color and movement and life of a twisted sort. The chemical factory and cathedral of the first was just a set of large props.
Someone paid attention: the `world' of the city is blunt industrial, an anti `Metropolis,' largely broken. Michelle's apartment is modeled after the building in Welle's Kafka movie I think. (You can visit that building today.) The cave has organic roughness, a completely different world altogether. This craftily sets the `two-world' theme of Bruce's mind in which we presume this all happens. But the clever introduction of a third design consciousness is what makes this really fly.
The ice cave is part sewer and part 1964 New York World's Fair. The structural elements here are so radically different in conception that I can only think that three different talents created these three architectural notions. (Incidentally, we saw these structural elements revived in the recent interiors of the ice cave in `Die Another Day.') Keaton does change character depending on the forces of the surrounding built space. This is a fantasy that perhaps only an architect could appreciate: a visual drama of dual forces within the mind.
Even Elfman's honking is better. The `girl' in this one participates in the split world dynamics as well. Very clever writing, this. Michelle's architecture is what she wears, which is another element of the genius in the art design. The problem is that something happened -- I do not know what -- and the effect was messed up at the end when they changed the costume all around. This was in the days when Michelle still had something to offer, and because I have hit her hard on some other films, have to note some informed work here. Most of the body acting is by doubles of course, but her face shots in costume use a knowing device: in `real' life, she acts with her eyes and as Catwoman, she acts with her mouth.
That mouth is borrowed from Helena Bonham-Carter. (In fact, when a film actress makes something work, many lessor actresses appropriate it. Its part of the game, and one can have some fun with Michelle's later films guessing who she's imitating.)
DeVito is one of our most intelligent actors. Not as an actor, but in his understanding of reflexive notions in humor: his `Momma' was based on Nabokov! As with the Joker before, he's just a disgusting prop here.
Esther Cobblepot is a redhead.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.