Missed Opportunities

Rating: 7/10 (10 September 2006)

First off, this is not a superhero film. It's barely a Batman film. Instead of giving us a straightforward film, Tim Burton sidetracks the film with so many plot twists and story lines, that the whole thing gets bogged down.
The script is badly written. In the beginning, we hear about a power plant. About halfway through the film, the whole idea of a power plant disappears. Later on, Penguin has obtained some plans to the Batmobile. They're not even crude drawings, just plans. Where did he get them from? Unfortunately, we'll never know.
Then we have the villains. The nose-biting, mucus-spewing, deformed Penguin is executed in possibly the worst way. How did the Penguin find the circus? Just how did he return to Gotham City as a lone child? The entire freakishness of the Penguin just makes you not sympathize with him, as Burton no doubt wanted, but want to tell him to "take a hike" and do something that's actually believable. Catwoman isn't so much a disaster, but she is ruined nonetheless. Licking herself, fashioning a whole suit out of a jacket, and becoming a martial arts expert overnight, she also is a sad mock-up of her comic book counterpart.
One of the things I like best about Batman is that he rose out of a tragedy and made the best of it. Keaton, while giving us an excellent performance, loses any heroics Batman had about him in the first film, and instead brings us a dark, rarely speaking, killing creature of the night. He brings us the dark knight, but leaves out the caped crusader.
The sets are cluttered, dark, and sad. Gotham is supposed to be a creepy place, but not a Gothic place. The city is just a twisted reality, but the film gives us a city-in-a-matchbox. That's how cluttered it is.
I can at least say something good about the score. Danny seems to want to try and give us a heroic sense, but is deflated by Burton's "genious". Poor guy.
However, I still like this film. Why? It gives you such emotion with the portrayal of it's characters, it's hard to forget. Also, buried deep within these villains, you'll find the comic-book characters you know. Their original origins are, whether on purpose or not, mixed in with the movie origins.
Overall, it's a good Batman flick, with some missed opportunities. However, there is some good acting and character development found here, that cannot really be explained.