 Batman Returns (1992) That summer, McDonalds was running a promo, giving out "free" cups with the purchase of certain food items. The cups weren't exactly high quality; they were pretty much the flimsy plastic kind you always have a million of in your home, though you can't recall how most of them got there. These particular cups, however, were different, for a very important reason: they were plastered with pictures from Batman Returns. Everyone was talking about the film that summer, so those one or two badly drawn pictures of Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito transformed seemingly ordinary crappy fast food cups into highly sought after "collector's items." At least that's how I saw it, as I scrambled to get however many cups there were in the series. It got to the point where I was ordering certain foodstuffs I don't even like, just to get a specific cup. I remember my girlfriend at the time asking me what I planned to do with all the cups. I told her that as they were collectibles, I would sell them someday, for what would no doubt be a vast fortune. She told me that the ten zillion other pathetic cup collectors were probably thinking the exact same thing. She was very negative, that gal o' mine. (On the other hand, she was also right.) By the time I got around to actually seeing Batman Returns, I owned all the cups and felt very sure that the second Batman film would be everything I hoped it would be, an opinion based entirely on the images from the cups. Few of my friends wanted to see the film, but I had no intention of missing it. Which is odd, seeing as I didn't really like the first one and had never been much of a "Batman" fan to begin with. What I am a fan of, however, is hype. Like most good-hearted people, I was and still am highly susceptible to it. As soon as I heard of the film's existence, I knew then and there that I'd be seeing it, my actual disinterest notwithstanding. I finally managed to convince a couple of people to come with me, using the "Hey, how bad can it be?" method of persuasion. Some of those people are still talking to me, some of them are not. Batman Returns is not what you'd call a "good" movie. However, it's not quite what you'd call a "bad" movie either. It kind of falls into that third category of "bad/good" that's shown up in recent years. You know, you ask someone how a movie was and they say, "bad." And then you say, "Was it bad/bad, or was it bad/good?" If the movie in question is Batman Returns, the answer is "bad/good." Not so much "so bad it was good" as "eh, kind of bad but kind of good." Are you following me? What do you mean you quit paying attention around the first paragraph? This is my life I'm talking about here! Oh, and to a certain extent Batman Returns as well. The film begins with Pee-Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) and his wife dumping their deformed baby off a bridge. So far, so good. The baby is raised in the sewers of Gotham City and grows up to be The Penguin, a disgusting, malformed criminal genius who looks a little like Danny DeVito, but considerably more attractive. Meanwhile, Michelle Pfieffer gets pushed out a window by evil businessman Christopher Walken (playing himself) and then goes home and makes a really amazing costume out of a coat. Studies have shown that getting pushed out a window often transforms people into excellent seamstresses/tailors. Once she's made the costume, it's "Catwomen are doin' it for themselves" as Michelle hits the town causing all kinds of wacky trouble. Through a series of utterly forced plot contrivances, The Penguin and Catwoman team up to frame Batman and therefore turn Gotham City against him. Batman manages to clear his name and expose the Penguin, but by the time this happens you don't really care anymore, you just wanna see some more special effects and fighting, which you do get to see. Stuff blows up left and right and Batman and Catwoman beat the crap out of each other on the rooftops of Gotham City. As the film draws to a close, Batman foils the Penguin's scheme to kidnap and kill all the firstborn sons of Gotham, saving the day. Now, my main beef with the first Batman film was that it contained absolutely no attempted child-killing, so to its credit, Batman Returns remains the finest "attempted child murdering" film ever made, right up there with Annie and Honey, I Killed the Kids. Batman Returns does look great. No, seriously. The whole film has a stylized, artistic look that really catches the ol' eye. The look of this film is itself almost a character; you pay as much attention to it as you do to Batman or the Penguin. More, in most scenes. That's good, because at least you can count on having something nice to look at when the rest of the film is going haywire, which is quite frequently. But once you get past the admittedly amazing scenery, you can't help but see that Batman Returns is just a big mess. Too many characters, too many plot points, too many special effects, too many everything. It's an overpacked suitcase that someone is desperately trying to get closed, much to the detriment of the rumpled dresses, Lladro figurines, and heroin bags inside. The film's best scenes are the ones that just contain Batman and Catwoman, as they wrestle with dual nature of their respective personalities and beat the shit out of/make out with each other. When Batman and Catwoman are on screen together, the film comes alive as you cheer for them to either kill each other or to just start screwing already. Unfortunately, Batman and Catwoman don't share much screen time together, most of it going to the Penguin, ranting and raving about his revenge plans, his penguin army, and a bunch of other crap you could care less about. The bottom line here is that while Batman Returns isn't a terrible film, neither is it terribly good. Much like the inner conflict Batman himself must face, this film seems torn down the middle between two personalities. One is a thought-provoking, unique action film and a the other is a typical kitchen-sink Hollywood moneymaker attempting to hit every possible filmgoing demographic. My sense is that they would have been better off just picking one type of film and sticking with it. If you're making an artistic film, fine. If you're making a typical Hollywood blockbuster, equally fine. But it's a rare film that manages to encompass both elements, and when it does happen, it's not likely to contain the word Batman in the title. The really sad part is that series just got worse from there, and the next two films make this one look like A Passage to India/insert-your-favorite-artistic-type film-here. At least Returns made some kind of stab at art, whereas the next two films in the series are about as artistic as a g'damn Lladro figurine. On the plus side though, none of the subsequent three films in the series contain Robert Wuhl, so maybe they're better than I thought. By the time the summer of '92 was over, I'd done three things: broken up with my girlfriend, discovered that almost all of the pills I was taking as a medical experiment guinea pig were placebos, and finally accepted the fact that my Batman Returns cups were really nothing more than mass produced plastic crap. Within six months I'd managed to either foist them upon some other sucker, or throw 'em out (mostly the latter). After I got rid of the cups, I vowed that I'd never get sucked into the "collectibles" game again. Guess how long that vow lasted… Three years later, I almost missed a close friend's wedding, because I insisted upon stopping at three or four McDonalds on the way, trying to find the one glass in the Batman Forever series that I didn't have. It featured The Riddler and I just had to have it to complete my collection. Sure, you think I'm nuts, but six years later, my friend is divorced and I've still got the glasses. And you know, I still use them. In a way, I guess Batman glasses are a lot like Batman films. Poorly made or not, they serve a purpose – one of them keeps me occupied for a couple hours, the other holds my beverages. As long as I'm not totally bored and/or covered in liquid, I say job well done. Oh and by the way, I just checked eBay and those Batman Returns cups aren't selling worth a damn. I'd say that my girlfriend got the last laugh, but she died from a fall off a ski lift a few years back. So clearly I got the last laugh.
Review by Snaithbert Collins |