Superhero Media: Batman Returns

When critics and commentators react to the 1989 though 1997 Batman films, Batman Returns is typically highlighted as the last "good" one, before the collapse into high camp that was the Joel Schumacher films. That's bullshit. Sorry to spoil you memories, but Batman Returns is only 'less' camp than Batman Forever for a given value of camp, where one doesn't count circus and bondage motifs, so long as they're coded heterosexual, that is. Sorry to begin this one in such an aggressive manner, but I'm a tad weary of the Batman fandom currently, having been in several arguments of late spawned by Joker; I'm just so sick of the grimdark. Anyway, hot on the success of Batman, Tim Burton helms Batman Returns, which, as well as being bigger and more expensive, is also way more Tim Burton, complete with an evil circus and zombie sex symbols. Yes, although Batman Returns is pretty decent as far as pre-MCU superhero films go, but man, does it hit all of the Burton cliches that we're kind of all sick of these days. Despite this veneer of cliche, however, Batman Returns is mostly pretty excellent.

The film begins with a more established Batman being called into action with the Bat-signal to combat a gang of circus-themed criminals, which are soon revealed to be working for the Penguin, who is an embittered freak rather than a glamorous, yet avian, would-be gentleman of leisure. That said, he does pretend to wealth and privilege and even plots to become Mayor of Gotham for the second act. And I would be remiss to mention that the army of penguins with missile launchers in the climax are delightfully silly. Michelle Pfeiffer is a solid Catwoman, even if her origin is far more weird than it really needs to be, though the conflict between Selina and Bruce's damage in their relationship is an interesting take. Keaton is still a good live-action Batman, but a better Bruce Wayne, though the scene where he unmasks to Selina is probably one of the best he gets in the film. I'm not a fan on the Batman Returns take on Penguin, though more so because of his tendency towards sexual assault than being an "evil circus freak". 

I'm not sure how deliberate the comparison of Max Shreck to Fred Trump is in Batman Returns, but it certainly reads in a very interesting manner with the orange muppet in the White House (though hopefully not by the time this gets published); with Max Junior being portrayed as a well-meaning imbecile just trying to impress daddy. There's a lot of interesting elements of Batman Returns that really encourage closer examination than I tend to do in these articles, or frankly have time to to currently. The film sits in an odd place in the Batman continuum, having a link back to the Adam West camp, Animated Series anachronism and the Dark Knight/Miller grimdark. Given the complaints from Parents' Groups about the sexually charged and grimly violent scenes, it's not overly surprising that the next film in the series became lighter in tone and presentation. Not as good as Batman, but probably still stronger than the next two films overall.