Smitten with a Whip

Rating: 9/10 (10 September 2006)

So what is 'Batman Returns', anyway?
It was marketed as an action film, and many people who've seen it seem to think that they've watched an action film - but really, there isn't that much action, and Tim Burton barely seems interested in it.
People often align it with the 'grittier' superhero comics of the late eighties, but honestly, if you've read 'The Dark Knight Returns', that seems just a little absurd; Burton's excessive imaginings have more in common with the day-glo sixties TV series (the Penguin drives around in a giant plastic duck, for goodness' sake).
Burton's style is often described as Gothic, and that's a little closer to what we see on screen; the Penguin - deformed, malign, with a tangled history and a subterranean lair - is a Gothic menace dressed up in more respectable Dickensian clothes - Udolfo masquerading as Uriah Heep.
But what of Catwoman? She may be raised from the dead, but that PVC catsuit is decidedly Twentieth Century, and her alter ego Selina Kyle's world is all boardrooms and apartments - reminiscent of a 1930s romantic comedy.
And then it clicks. The smart but downtrodden secretary romanced by a lonely millionaire? The ensuing complications caused by deception and disguise? 'Batman Returns' is, quite clearly, a romantic comedy in the old Hollywood style, filtered through Burton's S&M dungeon sensibilities. It has more in common with 'The Hudsucker Proxy' (including expressionist sets) than it does with other superhero films.
Like many a romantic comedy, it centres around the make-over of the heroine; not from ugly duckling to swan, but from doormat to dominatrix. Michelle Pfeiffer gives one of the performances of her (often remarkable) career; she's iconically sexy as Catwoman (poor Halle Berry never had a prayer), playful and vindictive, memorable because she knows how to act with her whole body. In retrospect, though, it's her scenes as Selina that impress; almost every one of them is a little comic gem, particularly the glimpse we get of her lonely home life. It's a delicately balanced tragicomic performance, and it's in these scenes that the film really sparks to life. Nothing moves me quite like Selina and Bruce Wayne dancing under the mistletoe to Siouxsie and the Banshees, a gun held between them, simultaneously empowered and trapped by their alter egos, doomed to conflict. Forget the easy sentimentality of 'Big Fish' or the gossamer emotions of 'Edward Scissorhands' - this is the most heartfelt scene in all of Burton's films. Love, revenge, fatalism, fetishism, insanity, self-loathing and not a little wit, all in a few short lines and absolutely nailed by the actors - particularly Pfeiffer.
Elsewhere, Danny de Vito almost matches her, finding the wounded dignity buried beneath those truly repellent long-johns. The upper-crust villain of the comics is revealed to be nothing more than a sham; Burton's Penguin is a feral creature subjected to his own, Eliza Doolittle-style make-over (almost literally an 'ugly duckling'). It's Burton's most radical - and funniest - reinvention. Christopher Walken's Max Schreck completes a perfect triptych of villains, sliding between casual charm and blank-eyed psychosis with unnerving ease (and is it just me, or does his company's logo bring to mind Mickey Mouse? Perhaps we should ask former Disney animator Burton).
Christopher Nolan's 'Batman Begins' - a real action film - has been much praised as the first film to do justice to Batman; I admire Nolan's film, but it would be a pity if it were allowed to overshadow this idiosyncratic gem.