Batman Returns Part 1 of 2

Batman Returns Part 1 of 2

When the first Batman (89) was a huge hit, everyone wanted to know when the next movie was going to be released. WB knew they wanted to make another film, so they asked Tim Burton to return, but there was a problem. Burton wasn’t really interested in doing another movie. This mainly had to do with the fact that Burton had to share his vision with other creative forces, such as John Peters and others. In a sense, the first Batman movie was never truly a Burton film, and that was one of the reasons I enjoyed the movie so much. Burton’s vision was buried under a good script with producers keeping him on a tight harness.

The critical thing that convinced him to return for another movie was a key term, “This time it will be a Tim Burton movie.” This meant he had total control over the film. Burton could reshape the Batman franchise into his own twisted vision without any interference from the studio. Unfortunately, that’s what he did, and what we got was a dreary movie that didn’t remotely resemble the first movie or the character of Batman.

The Burton Vision

I think Burton has some interesting ways at looking at movies, and I actually liked most of his movies. He has the skill to mix the playfulness of a child, while adding the deep dark appearance. Yet, in Batman Returns his version of Batman isn’t very appealing, and doesn’t mix well with Burton’s closed in sets. In Returns, Gotham City is closed and twisted, and it simply has the feel of a set or stage. This wasn’t in the first film. The Batcave is different and not nearly as impressive as it was in the first movie.

Batman has entered Tim Burton Land, the same land that Edward Scissorhands and Beetle Juice live. It is a crowed dark and twisted world that has style over substance, style over logical plot progression. Batman has always been dark, but not kooky Burton dark. Part of the problem was that Burton never really was a comic book fan and didn’t really read them. He didn’t understand that you can’t screw around with mythos too much.

So, Batman was hijacked by Burton’s Ego.

Batman releases one of his most powerful weapons of all: The Bat-Fart!

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Getting licked in the face by a woman dressed in a skin-tight cat suit, I can think of worst ways of dying…

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Batman: “Okay, who wrote this shitty script?”

Penguin: “Do we really have to finish this depressing movie?”