In some ways, best of the best

Rating: Null/10 (19 January 2003)

**Spoilers below**

One of Tim Burton's better films; in some ways the best of the modern Batman films. (I've always felt the first was one everyone likes because on some level they know they have to; B2 is one you can like even though you know you shouldn't.)
When people review this film, there's always the requisite mention of Michelle Pfieffer's sexiness as Catwoman. But I think one reason she worked so well was because she was truly SCARY as well. The Penguin, hard as he tries, is too gross to be scary. With Catwoman, any dime-a-dozen actress could've done the oversexed dominatrix act (see Uma Thurman's crash-and-burn Poison Ivy in the later 4th film). Michelle somehow made Selina (post-mortem) truly eerie. Her wish for revenge against her "murderer" boss Max Shreck, feels completely justified, as opposed to the Penguin's "vengeful" act against the haves of Gotham, with their happy families. That's a nice idea, but too oblique to really identify with. Selina is completely relatable as a working stiff, shoved over the edge, turned bloodthirsty hellcat.
A mention must be made here of the creepy subtext that seems to go on between Selina and Max-- both before, during, and after he tries to kill her. The writers were probably trying to give Selina more of an "abused wife" facet. This hint is impossible to ignore in the office scene, when Max catches Selina going through his files, and slowly manuvers her over to the window he's going to drop her out of, quietly scaring the crap out of her the whole while. When he leans in, we wonder if he's going to kiss her or bite her (a direct allusion to the other Max Shreck-- the actor who played the vampire Nosferatu in silent films). It's a skin-crawly scene-- perfect amounts dread and shock as the inevitable comes to pass, yet full of weird chemistry between Michelle and (the awesome) Christopher Walken-- almost more than in any of the later scenes with Catwoman/Selina and Batman/Bruce.
Bottom line: one of my favorites from that era. A stranger "Batman" than the first, and definitely better than any since.