Extroverted, eccentric but brilliant

Rating: 9/10 (29 June 2005)

STAR RATING: ***** Unmissable **** Very Good *** Okay ** You Could Go Out For A Meal Instead * Avoid At All Costs
Welcome back to Gotham City, home of crime and home of the avenger of crime, the legendary Batman (Michael Keaton) a.k.a. millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. While most of the crime emanates from muggers and thieves lurking in backstreet alleys and other grimy places, it's higher up the chain as well. Enter corrupt corporate boss Max Shreck (Christopher Walken), casually putting on a smile for the good people of Gotham whilst secretly running his own dirty little schemes, who's about to make an unexpected new ally. Abandoned by his rich, snobby parents from birth, tossed into the sewer and left to form into a hideously deformed man, The Penguin (Danny DeVito) has grand plans to endear himself to the people of Gotham, run for mayor and secretly fulfill his own hidden agenda to avenge his lot in life on the innocent people. And finally, Selina Kyle (Michelle Phyiffer) a dowdy, nerdy secretary for Shreck who becomes Catwoman, feline avenger of the night and the Penguin's sidekick. It's time for Batman to work his magic and save the city once again...
Following the ultra-successful first Batman movie three years prior, a sequel was as inevitable as night following day. And in 1992, it arrived with Batman Returns, and with the same director, Tim Burton and with the same guy behind the mask, Michael Keaton. Given how much I enjoyed the first one, all of this should spell success. And, unlike in later years, where sequels with the same directors and such would start to suck, this was an earlier one that actually fulfilled.
If you think of it all in this sense, you could look on it as a re-run of the first in a lot of respects, certainly the same formula, the same dark presentation and even the same running time! But it is, of course, a movie on it's own, with it's own qualities and high-points. It's not one of those 'sequel that's nowhere near as good as the original' types.
So, where do we begin? Well, from the beginning. Opening to the sweeping, stirring soundtrack with the same clever camera angles that stylized the original. This is looking raring and set to be another distinctly comic book movie all the way. And it certainly gets stirred up in the eccentricity of it all as events roll on. Secondly, the performances. De Vito works his own unique brand of magic in the role of The Penguin, but he is ultimately side-shadowed by Walken, who manages a quietly menacing, delightfully devilish turn as the evil Shreck. Alledgedly, a vast number of publicity posters were stolen from Warner Brothers marketing department featuring Phyiffer in her Catwoman suit but (call me weird!) I only found her slightly more appealing than Halle Berry in Catwoman at a push. And then finally, there's the script. A delightfully hammy concoction of all the wildest comic book style extroversion you can imagine, combined with Burton's own unique style.
Who cares if a bit too much time is focused on the villains and not on the development of Batman himself? Who cares if some of the action does look a bit rubbery (or maybe things have just moved on a bit too much for me?) Who cares if the ending, with the penguins with rocket-packs on their backs is eccentrically extroverted and even laugh-inducingly ridiculous in one sense? This is the ultimate comic book movie, and the last final, fleeting glimpse of Batman in his true, dark sense before the series deteriorated into the vacuous, colourful, chav-vy gloop it did. So three cheers for this, my favourite Batman movie. ****