[Vwing]

Ok, I probably should watch the movie again so I can give it its proper grilling, but I'm not willing to give up another 2 hours of my life. If I miss anything, you guys can help me out. So, without further ado, here is my list of why Batman Returns sucks.

1. Gratuitous violence - This is one of the main reasons why Batman Returns is so horrible. Obviously, the biggest case of this in the movie is the innocent Ice Princess being pushed to her death by Penguin. It was sickening to me when I saw it. It was a pointless killing. This, of course, is in addition to Penguin's pretty gruesome death scene, Catowoman's burned and skeletal body, and a number of other violent moments, whether it be with regular characters or gang members or Penguin's cronies. Yes, Kill Bill was perhaps a more violent movie than Batman Returns, it did have more blood. But while the violence in Kill Bill was really stuff you could smile at, that no one took seriously, in Batman Returns it was so disturbing. It is a joke that the movie was rated PG-13, especially based on the fact that a number of children walked out of the theater in tears because of this movie. The violence was graphic, disturbing, and, as I've said, gratuitous.

2. Gotham City, aka HELL, USA - OK, I know Gotham's not supposed to be paradise. It's got its fair share of gangs and bad guys. But Batman Returns took the Gotham City from the first movie, which I would say was a little more violent version of New York, and made it so that it mever sees the sun, and every inhabitant is either crazy, disturbed (like Batman himself), a gang member, a cronie of the Penguin's, or power-hungry. Oh, and there's also Commissioner Gordon, Alfred, and the Ice Princess, who are apparently the only semi-normal people in the entire city. As with the violence, Batman Returns just went too over-the-top with the darkness of the movie (again, if I remember, there was no scene in daylight), and it never gives us a moment to at least contrast the dark with the light, one of the most important things you must do, even in a dark movie. You must put a little bit of light in there, so that the darkness comes through stronger, and in that moment of light, the light comes through stronger. Instead, this bombards us with darkness all the way through until we are desensitized to it or disturbed and disgusted with it by the end of the movie.

3. The Penguin - Danny DeVito may be short, fat, and ugly, but he is not the Penguin. Oswald Cobblepot (the name of the Penguin), despite being deformed and evil, is a man who prides himself on his class. He dresses well, he doesn't constantly foam at the mouth, and he speaks with a dignified accent that is not quite British. This movie took the character of the Penguin, who is a very fun one to work with if done right, since he is so upscale, and takes him down to the level of the movie. He becomes a disgusting character with no redeeming quality other than his tragic past. Even villains have to have a little charm, but Penguin was just horrible, even when he dressed in suits he looked like an undignified, filthy little rat. This movie did not show the true Penguin, who could have been a great villain. Instead, it shows Danny DeVito with more evil and a little uglier. And on a lesser note, he didn't have the monocle!

4. The Plot - The plot must have been the reason they had all the gratuitious violence in the movie. It was so stupid, so bland, that they had to spice it up with something. The Penguin runs for mayor! That's interesting, now, isn't it? Perhaps, if he was the upscale Penguin that I mentioned above it would have been more believeable, but no one in their right mind would elect this filthy little asshole to mayor, even out of pity. Oh no, Batman was framed for murder (but only suspected, of course, after one loudmouth in the crowd yells "Batman pushed the Ice Princess!"). How will he ever get out of this one? The only plotline that could have been decent was the duality of Batman and the duality of Catwoman, but that as well is handled stupidly, which I will get to later. The story is just so unBatman-like.

5. Max Schrek - Now I love Christopher Walken. But this was the most pointless character in the movie. It's almost like they wanted to have the upscale Penguin, but decided to make him a separate character, and make him less classy and more strange. His character should have been incorporated into the character of the Penguin. It's that simple. We already have 2 villains (which also messes things up, but I'll get to that later as well), we don't need a third despicable bastard in there.

6. More than One Villain - The first Batman got the villain-hero relationship right. You have one villain who you develop throughout the movie and who faces off with the hero. That works best. But now, you have 2 villains, Penguin and Catwoman, neither of whom is developed well enough to warrant us caring about them. Despite being a villain, we cared about Joker (perhaps even more than Batman, but that's another argument for another time), and we liked him as a villain. We don't care about Penguin or Catwoman, because having both of them means that neither will get treated well enough. But, because this is Hollywood, and everything has to be bigger than the last, we got 2 underdeveloped villains crammed in instead of a developed one.

7. Duality - If anyone should be able to direct a good movie about duality, it's Tim Burton. He has 2 people inside of him, a good director, and a bad director, and you never know which one you're going to get. In the first Batman, you got the good one. In Batman Returns, as we all know, you got the bad one. The subject of duality can and should be so interesting. But Burton just mixes things up. By the end, the title character is neither Bruce Wayne, nor is he Batman. He is a mess. Now I'm not saying it should be clearly stated who or what he is. But we are left with a character who isn't a chracter anymore. He is a jumble of ideas and emotions that leaves us, as the audience, not able to really care about him anymore. Not to mention that the subject is soon used to have "humorous" moments of sexual innuendo between Bruce Wayne and Selina, or Batman and Catwoman, or Batwoman and Catman or whoever the hell they are. The scene on the couch I just felt was embarassing. "Oh no, she's going to find out he's Batman because she's gonna touch his cut...oh no she's not, now he'll find out who she is while touching her hip...nope. Wow, this is really great writing!"

8. The music - The first Batman had an incredible score by Danny Elfman. But this one really doesn't have too much. It is not a powerful performance, the themes are so dark and low that sometimes you can barely hear them, and even the Batman theme seems to have lost its edge. It was just another disappointing thing about this movie.

9. Catwoman - She is an intriguing character...if she is used to explore the question of duality with Batman. That occupies Burton and the writers for about 5 seconds before they decide to use her either for gratuitious violence or for sexual innuendo and humor. They just said "You like this movie, because Michelle Pheiffer looks so hot in that black leather outfit, and look, not only that, but she has total disregard for the law and kills many innocent people!" She, like everyone else, comes across as a 2-dimensional character, no matter how good a performance Pheiffer gives (and it actually was an entertaining performance, the best in the movie).

10. The Penguin's Penguins - It's very touching how his Penguins give The Penguin a funeral by putting him in the water. Until you realize...those are penguins, not humans! I just couldn't suspend disbelief here. Not to mention that you would think using the penguins as kamikaze penguins probably should upset them, since they were smart enough to give him a funeral. Of course, maybe if they had developed the Penguin more, it would have been a better scene since I would actually CARE that he died, but we'll never know that, will we?

11. The ending - It is a complete ripoff of the ending of the first Batman. Show car drive away, pan up and up to a high building, show Batman. Only there's a twist this time! Catwoman's there, so that she can have her very own spinoff movie 12 years later! But, as stupid as that movie will no doubt be, I highly doubt it can reach the stupid, disturbing, and horrible mess of a movie that is Batman Returns.

Again, if I missed anything, please tell me, if someone wants to have a nice argument about the movie's "merits", then by all means post.

[Just your average movie goer]

Thank you, Vwing. I have just finised reading the post. All your points were very true.

You saw children walking out of the cinema in tears because they were so upset? I think I probably wasn't far off. It certainly left me in a pretty sour and depressed mood.

Actually, I remember seeing two guys walking out and one of them muttering. "Ten bucks down the drain."

I'm not sure who will aruge the film's merits, if anyone, but it sure as hell isn't me.

I wanted to add some comments of my own but yours is pretty comprehensive...

There is heaps of gratuitous violence in this film, for sure - and lots of gratuitous fighting. There really are only three main action sets in the first Batman film and they are well-placed in the story - the Axis Chemical incident, the escape from the Joker's henchmen and the finale. This is wonderful.

But in Batman Returns, Batman and the Circus seem to come to blows every few minutes just for the hell of it.

Batman: So when do you want to fight again?
Circus croney: Ah, same time tomorrow night?
Batman: Ok, sounds good. See you then.

And the Circus croneys! What the hell was the go with them? Who are these weirdos, where do they come from and why are they wreaking havoc on Gotham City for no apparent reason?

In the first Batman, we knew who the Joker's henchmen were... the Joker inherited all these guys from Grissom's organisation when he took over.

The circus guys make no sense to me. Neither do the penguins. So one of the bad guys is called the Penguin. Why does it follow that penguins will respond to this by offering their loyal services?

I know the movie opened with him being found by penguins in Gotham City's sewers but that just doesn't work. There is no way those penguins could have reared him into adulthood and also teach him the English language. And what the hell were they doing putting so much of the movie into the sewers for - as if it wasn't as dark and disgusting enough.

Gotham City, aka HELL, USA

That is so true! The city had become a nightmare landscape now. Everyone in the city, except for Bruce Wayne, Alfred and the Ice Princess looked really nasty now and I was wondering where the mayor from the first movie was and where was Harvey Dent (when he was still being played by Billy Dee Williams) and Alexander Knox? I got the feeling that these people simply no longer existed in this film.

It was as if it was happening in an alternative reality like the nightmare version of 1985 in Back to the Future II.

I've only seen the movie once as well.. but I think you are right about the darkness, Vwing. I cannot remember ONE single daylight scene.

The Penguin

I actually thought that given the fact that the Penguin was already a little strange and difficult to work with that they should probably have left him out of the movies altogether.

However, if they were going to include him then they needed to make him the sophisticated upper-class man that you described... not the appalling nasty little villain who always wore the giant baby suit and ate still-wriggling fish like Gollum.

He was absolutely disgusting and they made him far too grotesque as well - they really went over the top. He has deformed hands? Why not give him a deformed face as well and purple coloured monster teeth?

I agree that nobody in their right mind would vote for him as mayor. He was repulsive. And did everyone just forget the fact that he bit that man's nose and crushed it so that literally gushed blood? That was bloody awful (and seriously, no pun intended).

even when he dressed in suits he looked like an undignified, filthy little rat.

And that's probably the nicest thing that's possible to say about the penguin.

I missed Jack Nicholsan so much when I was watching this movie.


Oh, and Batman being framed for murder? What the hell was that about? Suddenly Gotham turns on its hero, forgetting the fact that he saved the lives of thousands of people in the first movie?

This felt really barbaric to me. They got the population of a modern city and turned them into a 16th century blood-hungry Elizabethan crowd... the same types of people who accused women of witch-craft and burned them alive.

Come to think of it, the whole movie felt like it was 16th century Elizabethan England and none of Batman's vehicles or gadgets could change that for me.

5. Max Schrek - Now I love Christopher Walken. But this was the most pointless character in the movie. It's almost like they wanted to have the upscale Penguin, but decided to make him a separate character, and make him less classy and more strange. His character should have been incorporated into the character of the Penguin. It's that simple. We already have 2 villains (which also messes things up, but I'll get to that later as well), we don't need a third despicable bastard in there.

Absolutely! I hated this character with a passion - and just like the other characters, he had no plausable motivation for his actions either. He also contributed greatly to the movie feeling like 16th Century Elizabethan England as well. That hair! Nobody in the 1990s had hair like that....

More than One Villain

Just plain stupid... cramming two villians in there meant neither got a proper character development and we had nill chance of getting the one-on-one conflict that made the first film's story so powerful.

I agree with you completely on everything you said about that.

The music

For the life of me, I can't remember the music at all. In the grand finale when Batman was going through the sewers in his bat-boat (or whatever).... boring scene anyway.... I couldn't hear any music what-so-ever.

And while I'm on the subject, I will say again... I hated having all these scenes in the sewers. This is not Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Sewers are dark, wet and awful (and they STINK!) and no-one in their right mind would set up shop down there.

Catwoman

What the hell was her motivation? Max Shreck threw her out of a building (another horrible, disturbing scene in the list of many horrible, disturbing scenes). I understand how upset she must be about that. But why doesn't she just kill Max Shreck? Why does she kill all these other people?

There needs to be a better reason why a good woman goes so terribly wrong. Tim Burton needed to create a better backstory. Or if he couldn't think of one, then he should have just made Catwoman as someone who was always evil. There was no reason given as to why Jack Napier/the Joker was so evil. There was a reason why he went out-of-his-mind evil but there we never learned why he was evil to begin with... and this did not damage the movie in any way. So they could easily have just started out with Catwoman already being evil.

I also hated that scene when she brutally stabbed her teddy bear with a kitchen knife. I know a teddy bear is not a living thing - so maybe I will cop some flak for being overly sensitive - but it just felt gratuitous and nasty... and the movie was already far too nasty to begin with.

I also felt that the character of Bruce Wayne had almost nothing to do in this movie. It felt as if he was hardly in the movie at all. I can remember only two scenes with him. I can remember him moping in the dark and I can remember him moping in the dark on a lounge with Selina Kyle.

What other things can I remember? Oh yeah, I can remember the Penguin making a big entrance on a giant duck! Well, just how stupid was that?

That was unbelievable.

Vwing, I am behind you 100% for grilling this movie. I hate it with a passion.

[Just your average movie goer]

I just re-read this and must apologise for the tonne of grammatical errors in my last post. I hope that it's still comprehensible.

I was also just trying to think of one scene in the movie that I actually enjoyed but it is really hard - nothing's coming to mind. This was a bland journey that over-indulged itself in darkness and gratuitous violence without delivering one moment of entertainment to atone for it.

And what the hell were all those penguins doing in the sewer? I know Gotham City is a make-believe location but I've always thought of it as being the New York of the comic book world - and Vwing, you sound as if you feel the same way.

Now for those people who live in the United States, in and around New York... are there penguins wandering around in New York?

I will be very surprised if there are.

[Vwing]

Well I live close to New York, and I go there a lot. No, there are no Penguins in the sewers. There are a crapload of pidgeons on the streets and sidewalks who walk around like they own the city, but no Penguins. Maybe if they had made a new villain called the Pidgeon it would have made more sense. But then again, there are no pidgeons in the sewers. Any way you figure it, having birds in the sewers was ridiculous. Alligators fine, but no birds

[Heccubus]

Gratuitous violence, Christopher Walken, and Michelle Pfeiffer are what make that movie worth watching, though.

[Just your average movie goer]

Michelle Pfieffer maybe... but you know, having pretty girls is not always enough to save a bad movie.

Have you ever seen Coyote Ugly for example?

[Heccubus]

There were pretty girls in that?

[Just your average movie goer]

Errr... now that you mention it, I think there were just girls in neat leather outfits....

... good point...

[Just your average movie goer]

Hmmm.... I'm kind of disappointed that nobody came along to defend Batman Returns. It would have been fun to have another fight.

I guess everyone agrees it's a dreadful, violent, charmless piece of rubbish.

[Esco]

wait a minute there, fellas.

I will have to disagree with all of you!
I for one liked this movie exactly because of all your statements made.
Yes, its horribly dark. Yes, its violent. And yes, the characters all are nuts.
Sounds like a winner to me! Seriously, whats not to like. Batman is bonkers, this Penguin is most grotesque looking villain ever captured on film, and catwoman is...well catwoman.
I believe Tim wanted to make this film unaccessable to mainstream audiences, and
show more of his artsy colors. He succeeded in that respect.

[Heccubus]

He didn't really do anything "artsy" at all, but I give the movie credit for being better than the Joel Schumacher ones.

[Just your average movie goer]

Whoa... cool.... it looks like there is potential for an argument here!

If I didn't have to go to work in 10 minutes... , I could start now...

[Esco]

Bring it, baby!!

[Vwing]

He didn't really do anything "artsy" at all, but I give the movie credit for being better than the Joel Schumacher ones.

No. Batman Forever was better than this. At least that was light and fun, and I could WATCH it. Yeah, Batman and Robin sucked, and this was probably better-MADE than B and R, but still, at least B and R's intentions were good. This was just horrible.

And I'll agree that he certainly made the film inaccessible to mainstream audiences. Check that - ALL audiences. So yeah, he did succeed in that respect.

Batman Returns is a bunch of fighting, 5 second moment of subtle duality concept, more fighting, grotesque scene, stupid scene to advance plot, more fighting, gratuitous death scene, more fighting, chase scene, more fighting, 5 second subtle moment of duality, sexual innuendo, explosion, more fighting, kamikaze penguins, grotesque death scenes, ripoff ending of first movie. And again. Darkness without light is just stupid. There has to be at least ONE moment in the whole frickin movie where something semi-happy happens, at least just to contrast the dark with the light, making each all the more powerful. But this just bombarded us with darkness, pointless fighting, and pointless violence, along with a ridiculous plot and ridiculous, grotesque characters who I didn't give a rat's ass about. That's not artsy. That's just plain bad.

[civilian_number_two]

I think that the interaction between Batman and Catwoman presents some of the best dialogue in the series. Not that I think it is particularly good. Gone from the story is any idea of what motivates Catwoman; in the comics, her chief desire was to interact with Batman and to experience adventure. In the movie "I am Catwoman; hear me roar" summarizes the approach the film will take to her character: silly and camp.

(The upcoming film with Halle Berry may well be bad, but it is probably motivated more by the success of the Marvel comics movies and Catwoman's own comic book series than by the BATMAN franchise)

The penguin is a terrible representation of the villain from the comics, but a well-drawn character for the movie, such as it has characters at all. His desperate need to be loved parallels Batman's psychotic reaching for stability. I see what Burton was going for there. The actual penguins in his lair were a sad, sorry move, since they didn't round hm out in any way, and for all the usual complaints about the availability of penguins. Also, those animatronic penguins were terrible, and they came in all shapes and sizes, something I think penguins do not.

Schreck (sp?) was an awful idea, as was the dumb fiction that Catwoman has nine lives, because of some apocryphal proverb about cats.

The use of Gotham City showed the weaknesses in the budget; every street scene was either borrowed from the first film (this has the effect of making the city seem small) or it was a huge underground lair that stank of "film set."

Alfred was well-used in the first film, a character right out of THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS (all that is good in BATMAN came from Frank Miller); in BR he was noticably absent, and I for one considered that a loss.

Second-best film in the series, by far.

This post has been edited by civilian_number_two: 10 May 2004 - 08:24 PM