Everything about Batman Returns totally explained
Batman Returns is a
1992 superhero film based on the
Batman character created by
Bill Finger and
Bob Kane.
Tim Burton directed the film, which has
Michael Keaton reprising the role of Batman, as well as
Danny DeVito,
Michelle Pfeiffer and
Christopher Walken. The film's plot primarily concerns Bruce Wayne struggling to provide peace in
Gotham City after the appearance of a mysterious "
Penguin-like man" and the sudden transformation of Selina Kyle into
Catwoman. In this wake, Bruce romances with Selina, both as Bruce Wayne and Batman while trying to prove Penguin to be a criminal towards the citizens of Gotham.
Burton originally didn't want to return for a second installment due to his mixed emotions from the original film. After being impressed with a script by
Daniel Waters, he thought otherwise.
Wesley Strick would later be brought on for an uncredited rewrite, deleting characterizations of
Robin and
Harvey Dent. The film was entirely shot at
Warner Brothers studios in
Burbank, California (the
first film was shot at
Pinewood Studios in
England), with
Danny Elfman returning to compose the film score, citing it as a stressful experience, but still overly positive.
Batman Returns was both a commercial and critical success, but did spawn controversies (being seen as "too dark" for younger children). Comic book veterans would express mixed thoughts and reviews. The film would also receive nominations at the
Academy Awards,
MTV Movie Awards and the
Razzie Awards.
Plot
Around
Christmas time in
Gotham City, the aristocratic Cobblepots give birth to a baby boy. Due to him being deformed, they lock him in a box, where he shows his first sign of homicidal tendencies when he kills the family cat. They drop their deformed infant baby in the sewers, abandoning him because of his ridiculed look.
Thirty-three years later, it's Christmas time again as the city is being run by Mayor Hamilton Hill, who deals with the ambitious but ruthless business tycoon, Max Shreck. Gotham comes under attack by the "Red Triangle Circus Gang" in a recent ceremony, although the heist is disrupted by the crime-fighting
Batman. Shreck's timid secretary,
Selina Kyle, is caught in the fray, but is soon saved by Batman, after which she steals a
stun gun from one of the gang members. Shreck is kidnapped by the Red Triangles and is brought to their leader, a short, deformed man known as "
The Penguin." Penguin blackmails Shreck with incriminating evidence of his more dubious activities, prompting Shreck to agree to help Penguin run for Mayor of Gotham.
Shreck arranges for the Penguin to "rescue" the mayor's infant child from his own gang members. The plan works, and Penguin becomes a hero to all except a suspicious Bruce Wayne (Batman's alter ego). After finding out his original birthname of Oswald Cobblepot, Penguin eventually wins the approval of citizens of Gotham and intends to run for Mayor. Shreck, however, is soon troubled by Selina's discovery of a dark secret behind his new power plant. Shreck tries to murder her by pushing her out of a skyscraper, but Selina survives the attempt, and is revived amid a huge crowd of
cats. It is assumed through this event that Selena inherited her new abilities.
Dazed, Selina goes back to her apartment and goes
ballistic. She destroys her apartment and crafts a homemade black vinyl costume to pursue a new life, as a vigilante figure named "
Catwoman." Carrying a whip as her weapon of defense, she bombs Shreck's department store and battles with Batman, losing another life in the process. As Selina, she then forms a romantic relationship with Bruce Wayne, while also allying herself with Penguin to get back at Batman for 'killing' her.
When the subsequent plan is put into action, Batman is framed for kidnapping and murder and finds himself trapped in the
Batmobile under Penguin's control. Catwoman and Penguin's alliance falls apart when she rebuffs a sexual advance from him, and Penguin opts to kill Catwoman himself. His campaign to recall the current mayor is quickly destroyed when Bruce Wayne plays selected comments he stated while controlling the Batmobile; comments insulting the people of Gotham at one of Penguin's speeches. The people of Gotham get angry, forcing Penguin to defend himself with his gun umbrella. The police chase after him, but Penguin flees into the sewers, and reveals his original plan: to kidnap and kill the firstborn sons of Gotham's most prominent families in revenge (comparable to
King Herod in the
Bible).
Bruce meets Selina at a dance party hosted by Shreck, where she reveals to him her intentions to kill Shreck. While dancing, the two subsequently discover the other's secret identity, but before they can leave to discuss this development, Penguin storms the hall and tries to take Max's son, Chip. Max successfully pleads with Penguin to take him instead. Batman attacks Penguin's Red Triangle Circus goons and puts a stop to the kidnappings. Penguin then dispatches an army of rocket-armed Penguins to bomb all of Gotham. Batman manages to jam the birds' control signals and turn them around so that they attack Penguin's base instead, apparently killing the Penguin and what is left of his gang inside.
Batman then discovers that Catwoman intends to kill Shreck inside Penguin's base. Shreck tries to
bribe Batman, but Batman simply ignores him, and tries to talk Catwoman out of her planned murder. He promises they could live happily together, but Catwoman refuses to listen, and scratches him on the cheek with her claws. During this argument, Shreck draws a
gun he took from a Red Triangle clown and fires it at Batman, but it only scrapes him. Catwoman then starts to approach Shreck, who shoots her four times, leaving Catwoman alive but wounded. Catwoman then exacts her revenge of Shreck by inserting the stolen stun gun into her mouth, activating the spark, and pressing her lips to Shreck's, while also ripping a cable out of Penguin's electrical generator with her free hand, sending the electricity everywhere. A huge explosion follows, and as the smoke clears away, Batman tries to find Selina in the debris, but only the charred corpse of Shreck is found. A gravely injured Penguin then emerges from the water and tries to kill Batman once again before ultimately succumbing to his wounds.
Some time later, Bruce drives around the city, with his butler, Alfred, when he sees Selina's shadow on a wall. Alfred stops the car and Bruce searches for Selina in vain; however, her cat rubs itself up against Bruce, who takes the cat with him and leaves. The camera then pans up to the top of the city, amidst the sky scrapers. The film ends as
Catwoman appears, watching as the
Bat-Signal lights up the night sky.
A
post-credits scene, omitted from most versions, shows Commissioner Gordon and Mayor Hill standing by the lit Bat-Signal, quite a while after they turned it on. Hill begins to wonder whether or not Batman has forgiven them for pursuing him for the Penguin's crimes, but just before they can turn the signal off, Batman appears before them.
Cast
Keaton wasn't signed for a second installment and only returned after a significant raise in his salary. DeVito was the first and only choice for the Penguin, and writer
Daniel Waters claimed he wrote the character with DeVito in mind. According to producer
Denise Di Novi, every single actress in Hollywood between the ages of 25 and 42 desperately wanted the role of Catwoman. Among them included
Raquel Welch,
Jennifer Jason Leigh,
Lena Olin,
Ellen Barkin,
Cher,
Bridget Fonda and
Susan Sarandon.
Annette Bening was originally cast in the role after Burton was impressed with her performance in
The Grifters. She would eventually drop out during pre-production upon finding out she was pregnant with
Warren Beatty's child.
Production
| "I think I probably got a little carried away. We tried to give The Penguin a foundation and a psychological profile. I liked the fact that some people couldn't decide whether or not Catwoman was bad. She never was bad. When they were bad on the TV series they were never really bad. That's the thing, I never saw any of them as bad, and I never believe it when they say people are bad." |
| — Tim Burton on the villains of Batman Returns |
Although a sequel was an obvious move,
Tim Burton hadn't been signed up in advance and after the release of hugely successful
Batman (1989), Burton publicly described a second installment as "a most dumbfounded idea." Burton briefly spoke of the situation as well, thinking of the idea to be interesting of using Williams as Two-Face for a possible third Batman installment before giving the directing reins to
Joel Schumacher.
Hamm's draft was considered disappointing, so Burton brought in
Daniel Waters.
Wesley Strick was solely brought in to come up with a solution with "Penguin's lack of a master plan". The writer claimed he was presented with "the usual boring ideas to do with warming the city, or freezing the city" (the latter ended up in
Batman & Robin). Strick pitched an alternative approach, inspired by the
Moses parallels of Walter's prologue, in which the infant Oswald Cobblepot is bundled in a basket and thrown in the river where he floats helplessly until he's saved (and subsequently raised) by Gotham's sewer denizens. He came up with Penguin's "master plan" to kill the firstborn sons of Gotham City. Both the studio and Burton were impressed with the idea, though Strick claims the toy manufacturers were worried. Strick went uncredited for his work.
Although Warner Brothers had, at great expense, kept
Anton Furst's sets of
Gotham City in
Batman at
Pinewood Studios, Burton felt the sequel should have a completely different production design and instead went to the studio's lot in
Burbank.
The sets were also kept frozen to simulate the winter time period of the film and for the pleasure of the penguins at stage 12. Filming was to remain very secretive. Picture ID cards were issued to everyone on set, with a code name, "Dictel" (short, Burton insisted, for "Dictatorial"), being stamped on sensitive documents. Art department personnel were advised to keep their office curtains closed at all times and no visitors were allowed near the sets, with even
Kevin Costner being refused. Everyone involved was required to sign a document guaranteeing that they wouldn't specifically hold interviews with news sources. About midway through filming, however, a few test shots of DeVito in costume found their way into an American entertainment magazine. Warner Brothers hired a group of
private investigators to track down the source, though the ploy ultimately failed. unlike his work for the first film, where he'd to impress producer
Jon Peters. Elfman claims he wouldn't have been interested if he were "to basically perform the same notes from the original film", Burton thinks otherwise, feeling that
Batman was far darker than
Batman Returns. To this day, he favors
Batman Returns between the two. and was also the third highest grossing film of 1992 (behind
Aladdin and ). Based on 42 reviews collected by
Rotten Tomatoes,
Batman Returns received an average 81% overall approval rating; the film received a 57% with the seven critics in Rotten Tomatoes' "Cream of the Crop."
Those who supported the film were largely enthusiastic. Phillip Thomas of
Empire was highly effecting stating, "Burton continues to capture the essence of the Batman legend and more importantly his audiences imagination."
Peter Travers of
Rolling Stone supported the main themes that included the story, characters, and visual citing that "Burton uses the summer's most explosively entertaining movie to lead us back into the liberating darkness of dreams." Todd McCarthy of
Variety went further, feeling "Where Burton's ideas end and those of his collaborators begin is impossible to know, but result is a seamless, utterly consistent universe full of nasty notions about societal deterioration, greed and other base impulses."
Batman Returns, however, was met with negative feedback as well, due to its controversial elements.
Roger Ebert commented that it was "odd and sad, but not exhilarating", feeling that it "didn't spring into the free world." Rita Kempley of the
Washington Post stated, "like a hyperactive 11-year-old, the director [Burton] seems both uncomfortable with adult emotions and unable to focus on the overall portrait."
Comic book veteran
Matt Wagner felt it was strong on atmosphere but felt Burton was more interested in the villains and that he was a terrible action director. He openly stated, "
Batman Returns is often credited as being a better film [than
Batman] but I fucking hated how it made Batman little more than just another costumed creep, little better than the villains he’s pursuing."
Paul Dini was impressed with the characterization of Bruce Wayne, while other comic book enthusiasts thought otherwise. One criticism was that the script lacked any character development for Batman, and instead focused on the villains. In response to this, writer
Daniel Waters claimed he originally had an excessive amount of screen time and dialogue for Michael Keaton, though claimed it was personally Keaton's idea to delete objectionable material. Having Batman killing criminals also caused some controversy among comic book fans; they argued that in the comics Batman refrains from killing, fearing he may himself become a criminal. Waters stated "you can't drop bad guys on a spider-web in front of
city hall (when referring to
Spider-Man)."
Bruce Timm was impressed with Michelle Pfeiffer's performance while
Alex Ross was embarrassed to have liked
Christopher Walken in a role that was created specifically for the film. Pfeiffer was nominated for "Most Desirable Female" at the
MTV Movie Awards, but lost to
Sharon Stone in
Basic Instinct. Both Keaton and Pfeiffer were nominated for "Best Kiss" but lost out to
Marisa Tomei and
Christian Slater in
Untamed Heart.
Danny DeVito would be nominated for "Best Villain" though he ended up losing to
Jennifer Jason Leigh in
Single White Female. DeVito was once again nominated for "Worst Supporting Actor" in the
Razzie Awards before losing to
Tom Selleck in .
Further Information
Get more info on 'Batman Returns'.
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