Batman Returns to the Wrong Comicbook

Rating: Null/10 (20 October 2000)

Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns series in the 1980's gave us a darker-than-usual world for Batman. Tim Burton carried this over in his first Batman movie, but the story was clunky and too mean-spirited. This movie is even darker and more mean-spirited than the first, and does not follow the comicbook history of the characters, mostly in the villains.
The penguin in the series is *not* a deformed freak; he is an obnoxious thrillseeker, who was more of a pain in the butt to Batman than a deadly threat. Likewise, Catwoman was a mysterious villain whose motives were never explained; the origins of both these villains have been re-written for this movie, which is fine, except that they are ludicrous and change the entire character of the villains to something one-dimensionally mean. Devito and Pfeiffer are perfectly cast as the Penguin and Catwoman, but they are never allowed to breathe as the characters. If the film-makers had lightened up and gone for an intelligent script, Devito could have had a field-day as a dangerous but lovable munchkin, and Pfeiffer doing much more with her role as Catwoman. Instead, both are lost in ten pounds of gloom, darkness, and leather.
The story is ludicrous, but that's ok, it's a comicbook, so plot doesn't matter. This is *not* the attitude that Frank Miller had when he wrote the successful series; readers didn't buy it because of the look, just as audience's don't buy this movie because of its look. If Miller had sat down and wrote out a story in 15 minutes, it would have been much better than Batman Returns. Would he have written a story about penguins with rockets attached to them attacking Gotham City, while the Penguin tries to escape on a giant motorized Rubber Duck? I don't think so.
This movie was a tremendous, painful waste, all the more so because of the actors involved and what they could have done with an intelligent script. ("An intelligent script? What are you talking about? It's only a comicbook!") Tim Burton is the wrong director for this series. It needs someone with a handle on the story and characters foremost, not the scenery. Whenever a movie is based on a comicbook (except for the first two Superman movies), the producers only look at the art, not the story...because they don't understand the stories. They only understand how to recreate the image. And to assume that comics readers only look at the pictures. That Tim Burton would make such a mistake is what depresses me. I haven't been able to stomach seeing another Batman movie after this one.
Three out of ten stars.