Originally published July 17, 1992, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #974
Well, it was better than Alien 3.
Because of my commitment to attending the Atlanta Fantasy Fair, I wouldn’t even have been able to see Batman Returns had not the AFF guest mavin Anne Valentine (with a name like that, you know she’s gotta be a sweetheart) gone to the effort of arranging a special excursion for a bunch of the guests to a nearby theater Friday night, after Julie Schwartz’s surprise birthday party.
My earlier concerns about Batman Returns are on record, of course. I was extremely pleased that Anne had fixed things so that we could see the film, because Saturday morning the very
first question out of a fan’s mouth to me was “Did you see Batman Returns? What did you think?” It was a question that was repeated throughout the weekend.
Well…
It was pretty much what I thought it was going to be. In places where there were differences from my stated concerns, they were differences that were unquestionably for the better. In other words… it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.
In fact… it was pretty good.
But nowhere near as good as I would have liked it to be.
The short version: It was beautifully filmed. Visually very rich. The acting was solid. The score was soaring. And the story was terrible.
Worse than terrible–the story was the classic image of what comic book stories are, with the conceit that it’s all right for the story to be this way because it’s a comic book.
I’ve already become accustomed to the typical Tim Burton film, which is usually a feast for the eyes and a famine for the brain. Most of the stories in his films have little-to-no internal logic. But Batman Returns manages to transcend that, as the Daniel Waters script (story credited to Waters and Sam Hamm) not only has major gaps of logic, but is devoid of some of the most fundamental aspects of good screen writing.
I can’t say the story is unfocussed, because when it comes to Batman Returns, there is no story. There are stories. There are plots and plans and schemes all over the place.
The Penguin (Danny DeVito) wants revenge on Gotham City, and forms a hideous, unspeakable scheme… which he then puts on hold for an hour and a half while he runs for mayor, backed by nefarious businessman Max Schreck (Christopher Walken), who wants to gain political control of Gotham City and apparently can’t find a more suitable candidate than this deformed, nauseating and utterly unstable freak.
And when the run-for-mayor plot is done, Penguin goes back to his original hideous scheme. I’ve never seen a story in which the villain starts with Plan A, switches to Plan B, and then goes back to Plan A. So we’ve essentially got a half hour film and a ninety minute film stitched together, with the half hour film bisected and acting as a prologue and epilogue of the ninety minute film. This is not exactly a textbook screenplay.
Just to further complicate matters is the story of Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer), secretary to the malevolent Schreck, who stumbles onto Schreck’s own evil scheme concerning a power plant. Schreck’s plan ultimately goes absolutely nowhere–but Selina does, straight out a window, and a few awnings do little to slow her plunge as she thuds bone-crushingly to the ground. All evidence would indicate she’s dead… and then…
Well… I mean, I thought it was dumb that the Penguin was raised from infancy by renegade sewer penguins. At least you could argue that humans raised by animals is a standard mythological motif. It’s ridiculous, but it’s so common in classic fiction that you can almost forgive it (although penguins in sewers are just a more incongruous than, say, wolves in the jungle.)
But when it comes to Selina, we move from the somewhat ridiculous clear into the supernatural as Selina is licked back to life by passing alley cats, and is inspired to take up her criminal career as Catwoman. (Thank heavens that both the alleys and sewers of Gotham are apparently devoid of something as commonplace as rats, or we could have had some radically different characters.)
Is she live, or is she Memorex? It’s never made clear… although subsequent events would seem to indicate that Selina was indeed killed by the fall, but somehow infused with the spirits of felines, along with their legendary propensity for nine lives.
So is born Catwoman, who (a) wants to avenge herself on Schreck and (b) use Penguin to take on Batman by framing him while (c) gets involved, as Selina Kyle, with Bruce Wayne.
Let’s recap, shall we? The Penguin wants revenge, the Penguin runs for Mayor, Max Schreck is building a power plant that will suck Gotham dry, Batman is framed for various criminal acts, Catwoman is attacking Schreck, Schreck is allying with Penguin, Penguin is lusting after Catwoman, Catwoman is attacking Batman…
Whew.
How do they interweave all that and build it to a coherent climax by the end of the film? Answer: They don’t. By the time the final credits roll after the herky-jerky conclusion, there are still major plot threads left unresolved. Not to mention story holes far too numerous to list without becoming tedious.
Is it campy?
No.
That surprised me, to a very great degree. It’s not campy. Despite the army of missile-launching penguins marching through the conveniently deserted streets of Gotham, or the Penguin riding around in a rubber duckie that would have Ernie from Sesame Street salivating, it doesn’t play as campy. Because campy has to have an attitude of, “Hey, this is ridiculous, and we know it’s ridiculous because we’re so much smarter. How dumb.” Batman Returns displays more of a mentality of, “Hey, this is ridiculous, but it’s a ridiculous world out there. And this film is a reflection of that.”
It’s more than a reflection of it, actually. I’m quite certain that Burton doesn’t give a flying fig that the story makes no sense. I’ve seen enough of Burton’s films to believe that this guy is really coming from a very, very warped mindset. I’ve read plenty of interviews with him. And I think he really lives in a world where he sees everything as twisted, warped, whacked-out.
When you see a Tim Burton film, you’re seeing an excursion into the way this guy sees the world. To a dreamer, a dream makes perfect sense when you’re in it. In Batman Returns, Burton has managed to sculpt a world where all of this grotesque insanity hangs together because it bears much more resemblance to a surreal dreamscape than the real world. And if you allow yourself to climb along into Burton’s waking dreamworld, you can get carried along with it, too.
The dialogue certainly bears no resemblance to reality. No one talks like people. They talk in declarative exposition or unfunny one-liners… which, unfortunately, is the case in a lot of badly written comics as well. Why is it that it’s the worst elements of comics that get the attention of millions of people?
Which is not to say that there aren’t gems. Some of the exchanges between Selina and Bruce, and Bruce and Alfred, are marvelous. And one observation from Bruce to his stalwart butler sounds like it came right out of fan complaints in the pages of CBG when Alfred makes a comment about the need for maintaining security. Bruce, in the most realistic scripting in the film, retorts, “You’re talking to about security? Who was the one who let Vicki Vale into the Batcave? I’m sitting there, I’m working, I turn around, there she is. ‘Oh, hi, Vicki, come on in.'” Alfred disdains to reply.
(Actually, I was pleased to see that this time around, they didn’t seem as embarrassed by the comic book names of things. In Batman the Batcave was simply called “the Cave”; the Batmobile was referred to merely as “the car.” But in Batman Returns they’re called by their better known appellations. It’s as if, with the success of the first film, they figure they won’t get laughed off the screen if they use those “comic bookey” terms.)
But largely, it’s not about story, and it’s not about dialogue. It’s not about detective work (believe it or not, there’s even less of Batman the crime solver in this one than in the first film, which I wouldn’t have thought possible). It’s not about common sense. It’s about two hours of imagery.
In other words, it’s another Tim Burton triumph of style over substance. Which I had figured it very well might be.
What else did I originally express concerns about? Well, I observed that Batman seemed to stand around a good deal. I said that when I saw Batman standing bolt still while the Penguin made his getaway.
It turns out that was a bad example, because in the film’s context at that point, Penguin is not a publicly known criminal, and he’s not fleeing Batman so much as just leaving the scene in a showy fashion. But the statement still holds. Batman does tend to stand around when he should be in motion (a particularly prolonged moment of inaction proves fatal for someone at one point) and the costume, although improved, still has so little flexibility that, rather than move like a mysterious creature of the shadows, he tends just to stride forward like Robocop. My biggest turnaround in opinion was on Pfeiffer’s work. The trailer made use of all of her most over-the-top moments, which made me extremely apprehensive. But in the context of the film, and when you see the full range of her performance, it all works. Because Selina Kyle, before her epiphany, was the embodiment of every repressed, depressed woman that ever was. And when she becomes Catwoman, it is clear that she’s putting on the character, just as Bruce Wayne “puts on” Batman.
Except it’s even more so in Selina’s case. As Catwoman, we’re not seeing Michelle Pfeiffer badly acting. We’re seeing Selina Kyle trying desperately to be everything she thinks that a tough, biker-babe type woman is supposed to be. Selina probably saw Superman II and is doing an impression of Ursa. What makes it so effective is that every so often, Catwoman’s persona slips and you see something of the scared Selina inside, fully aware that she is, to a large degree, bluffing her way through. What makes Batman her greatest enemy, then, is that he’s the most capable of seeing through the bluff. Why? Because he’s doing the exact same thing. To quote a cliché, You Can’t Kid a Kidder.
We get more of a sense of costumed individuals being human under the masks in this film than in the previous one. At one point a wounded Batman summons Alfred… but he speaks in Bruce Wayne’s voice rather than the whispery, emotionless tones of Batman. In Catwoman’s case, as her mind becomes more and more conflicted in her feelings for Batman/Bruce, her costume becomes likewise unravelled–the shredding seams mirror her rapidly shredding mental state.
As for the Penguin–he left humanity behind a long time ago. For him, it’s a reverse. The monster that he has become is his reality, and any time that he’s acting human or approachable, that’s the sham.
A pity that when the characters are in their relatively normal guises, they’re less interesting. Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne is far more wooden, more distant, than in the first film. Perhaps this is being done to counterpoint the emphasis on accessing Batman’s humanity. Unfortunately, it makes the scenes with Michelle Pfeiffer lack spark. Odd that Keaton and Pfeiffer have difficulty with chemistry considering that they used to go date (although maybe that’s why they broke up).
Indeed, Pfeiffer’s chemistry with DeVito seems stronger. DeVito, for her part, revels as the Penguin. Nowhere near as over-the-top as Nicholson’s Joker, the Penguin really is a Gotham-era monster, evocative of the Phantom of the Opera style of villain. Louie DePalma with the table manners of Conan the Barbarian.
Christopher Walken, an actor I’ve never warmed to, does nothing to change my opinion here. He’s got Albert Einstein’s hairdo, and matches it with Einstein’s present day acting ability–that is to say, he’s a stiff. So uninteresting is he, in fact, that a scene between Schreck and Wayne confronting each other over Schreck’s evil machinations has got to be the single dullest scene I’ve ever seen in a Burton film. There wasn’t this much wooden acting in Pinocchio.
But as I said earlier, all of the negatives get swallowed up in the scope and movement of the thing. Although the story makes no sense, it does have the merit of constantly being in motion. There are no long, stagnant sequences as there were in the first film. It would have been nice, though, if all the sound and fury meant something, or hung together, better than it does.
Oh, and the Danny Elfman score–including the signature themes he develops for Catwoman and Penguin–is some of the best work that he’s ever done.
I could have done without the gore. Silence of the Lambs didn’t come close to matching Batman Returns when it comes to profusely bleeding noses.
And need I add the most import consideration, namely: There are no songs by Prince. A Batman film without Prince songs is more than enough reason to see it.
The bottom line is–I liked it better than the first film. And certainly, having suffered through the indignities heaped upon superheroes by television (remember those awful TV specials with the DC heroes that made the Batman series look like Shakespeare?), I keep in mind that Burton has brought respectability for the superhero genre quantum leaps forward through his vision. For that alone I am greatly appreciative.
The thing I can’t decide is whether a script that featured Batman as a detective–a screenplay that had real cohesion and was a solidly written, compact piece of work–whether such a script could, combined with Burton’s visual styling, make the greatest superhero film ever… or whether it would simply cramp Tim Burton’s style.
Considering Burton’s track record, we’ll probably never have the chance to find out.
(Peter David, writer of stuff, would be interested to hear any good explanations as to how Batman removed his mask and those black make-up rings around his eye magically vanished. Suggestions should go to “Ol’ Raccoon Eyes Is Back,” c/o To Be Continued, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, New York 11705.)
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This post NEEDS a PAD commentary… Almost twenty years later, his take on some aspects of the film must have changed while others may remain the same. I was never a huge fan of the two Burton bat-films and years laters when Burton said something of the sort of “I wouldnt read a comic book, much less a Kevin Smith one” I realized those films never hit the spot with me because they were a lot about the 60s TV show, which hadnt been aired in Spain by the time. After that, and having watched the tv show, I reviewed both films and found them more enjoyable.
I think Adam West’s Batman aired in Spain for years before this film came out. Maybe it was in a local TV and you didn’t get to see it, but I’m pretty sure it did.
I don’t think I’ve seen this movie since its original cable run. The only thing about it I remember liking was the dance seen where Bruce and Selina realize who they are with. The whole moral dilemma of: “I like this person, but they are my enemy” barely begins to surface when the floor blows up. Way to kill a scene.
About the only other redeeming quality of this movie was Michelle Pfeiffer in skin-tight leather suit.
Now that you mention the dance scene, I remember that it was basically recreated and expanded on in the movie “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” Okay, that whole movie was about romantic enemies, but they also had a dance scene where they were getting along pretty well except for the efforts to kill each other. It was almost as if the makers of that movie had shared your opinion that “Batman Returns” killed the dance scene too early.
A quick comment on a comment … that last sentence should read “The only redeeming quality of this movie was Michelle Pfeiffer in skin-tight leather suit.”
This rates for me as one of the worst movies ever made, really. I liked Alien 3 more, and it was horrible. I’d rather have to wear a Batman nipple suit than ever see this again.
I remember seeing an interview with Devito at the time where he grinned and joked that her outfit was edible.
Peter David: The thing I can’t decide is whether a script that featured Batman as a detective–a screenplay that had real cohesion and was a solidly written, compact piece of work–whether such a script could, combined with Burton’s visual styling, make the greatest superhero film ever… or whether it would simply cramp Tim Burton’s style. Considering Burton’s track record, we’ll probably never have the chance to find out.
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Luigi Novi: Well, do the Goyer-Nolan films come close? They trump the Burton-Schumacher crapfests.
You can call those movies a lot of thngs, but “cohesive,” “solidly written,” and “compact” are not among them.
I don’t think Selina was really licked back to life, nor was the “nine lives” thing meant to be taken literally. It was my understanding that the awnings slowed down her descent enough for her to survive the fall. That, and she’s apparently really hard to kill (maybe she’s related to Timothy Olyphant’s character in A Perfecet Getaway).
It looked pretty supernatural to a lot of people. She not only woke up with a completely different personality, but able to fight and flip around with zero training. I’ve heard people say they thought she had superpowers in the movie.
I’ve got to go with Occam’s Razor on this one, particularly in light of the lack of any other supernatural elements in any of the Batman movies. It just doesn’t fit.
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I’m with Jason on this one. The scene played like it was meant to have a supernatural feel to it. If that wasn’t the case you could possibly write it off with someone else to bad film making, but even when it’s a bad Burton film he’s still a fantastically good film maker. So the choices are that he blew the scene in a massive way and just let it go to print that way or that he was throwing out a supernatural twist. This being Burton I go with the supernatural answer.
I really don’t think those are the only two options. The scene plays just fine to me without reading anything supernatural into it.
Well Robert, that’s the impression you and I had, but not the impression my old roommate had. Apparently he wasn’t the only one.
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Plus, there had been exactly one other Batman movie in the series at that point, so people didn’t really know what the limits were. Since Batman in the comics exists along side the Spectre and Zatanna, magic isn’t something that people could rule out because of a single precedent.
“backed by nefarious businessman Max Schreck (Christopher Walken), who wants to gain political control of Gotham City and apparently can’t find a more suitable candidate than this deformed, nauseating and utterly unstable freak.”
That’s the Democratic party for you.
As an aside, I saw the directors cut of Alien 3 recently and thought it was a much much better film than the original edit.
Correction – it’s an earlier cut, but not “Director’s Cut”. Fincher was asked to revisit the film, along with the other 3 Alien directors (not counting AvP), but declined to have any further involvement with the film.
Peter David, writer of stuff, would be interested to hear any good explanations as to how Batman removed his mask and those black make-up rings around his eye magically vanished.
Yes! That has always bugged me too! I have no good explanations though. Bat Makeup Remover?
I have to say, Batman Returns is my favourite Batman movie, and one of my favourite comic-book movies. Maybe it’s because I watched it as a child, and – much like with Star Wars in my case – I didn’t notice the plot holes, or less-than-good acting. But it didn’t really strike me upon revisiting the movie either (…unlike with Star Wars) – I love the look of the movie, the music, the characters, the crazyness. Every main character isn’t quite there when it comes to mental stability, Bruce Wayne/Batman included. Although he doesn’t sleep upside-down hanging from a swing set in this one (that really happened in the first Burton Batman, right?). It’s something I miss in the Nolan movies. I also miss a Batman that speaks audibly, but maybe it’s just me.
As for the detecitve side – …well, at least they got it right in The Animated Series. Neither Burton nor Nolan picked on the ‘World’s Greatest Detective’ vibe.
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I can’t believe how big those two films were back when. Visually the two Burton Batman films were amazing and the scores were awesome, but that’s really all they had. Beyond that… Not much. I haven’t been able to watch either one for a decade or more now. They just bore the hëll out of me.
I loved the 1989 Batman. Thought it was wonderful. Still do.
Batman Returns is a weird duck (and yes, even has a duck). I find myself liking it as a Burton film, though not as a Batman film. And there are still parts that make me squirm in pain.
I initially liked Batman Forever, but detested it more with each repeat viewing.
Batman and Robin remains the worse film I have ever seen.
Batman Begins is strong.
Dark Knight raised the new bar for the comic book / super-hero film. (For me, anyway.)
Actually, I really liked Val Kilmer as Batman. I’ve often wondered what he would have done with a good script. The rest of Batman Forever was, ah, problematic, and Batman and Robin was flat-out terrible, possibly the worst move I’ve ever seen. (On the bright side, Uma Thurman, and possibly the Governator, seemed to realize that the movie stunk and played it for laughs. If only they had asked for script approval in their contracts…)
I enjoyed Batman Returns as a sort of weird dream kind of movie. I think the biggest area where it fell down for me is that early in the film Batman cheerfully blows up a bad guy, but then later ruins his chances with Selina by adopting a no-killing stance, with no explanation why he changed his views from earlier in the movie (as well as the first movie). Had Bruce been haunted by the deaths he caused, the last bit of the film would have worked better for me.
Again I don’t hate this. As a Tim Burton dark vision the movie does have a bit of a hold on me. And it holds up bbetter for me than the next two (in Batman & Robin, Bane’s “Bomb! Bomb! Bomb!” speech suggests a certain awareness the other characters lacked 🙂 ).
I just reviewed this, as part of a 4-movie Batman collection http://thearmchaircritic.blogspot.com/2010/01/long-before-christopher-nolan-and.html
First, anyone saying this was one of the worst movies ever should be forced to sit through *both* Schumacher films back to back. This may be against the Geneva Convention, but it’s necessary to remind ’em what a truly terrible movie is.
PAD is pretty right on there being no real story in BATMAN RETURNS. My two biggest plot holes: a circus acrobat grabs a baby, vaults down a manhole, some words of conflict are heard, Penguin emerges with the baby — and no one questions the extraordinary convenience of his being there *and* revealing himself for the first time? Also, when they turn on the Batsignal, mirrors reflect it RIGHT ONTO WAYNE MANOR! Gee, who is Batman? Maybe the guy in the house where the giant beams of light are now pointing? (Oh yeah, Penguin’s taped confession of manipulating Gotham voters didn’t exonerate Batman from the frame-up.)
The movie never explicitly says whether Selena Kyle’s Catwoman is supernatural — but I’m betting yes. Before her fall, Selena was a mousy (yes, I’m using that word deliberately) secretary we never see showing any sort of agility or physical prowess; afterwards she can do backflips and go toe-to-toe with Batman, she can wield a whip perfectly, and she can get shot seven times, electrocute herself, and still show up right before the credits. To paraphrase Hank Hill, that girl ain’t right.
For all its flaws, I still enjoyed BATMAN RETURNS. While Pfeiffer looked absolutely amazing in the outfit, she also had a campy sense of fun. (She also had the best line: As Selena and Bruce realize each other’s secret identity while dancing, she whispers, “Oh my God, does this mean we have to start fighting?”) The action was good, the visuals were stunning (and not just the Catwoman outfit), the villains were memorable (anyone care about Liam Neeson in BATMAN BEGINS), and I was and am entertained by it.
Has PAD ever reviewed the Dark Knight or Batman Begins for that matter?
I loved Batman Returns. It’s my favourite Batman film, but to be fair, I haven’t seen the newest two.
To me, it didn’t matter that it didn’t make much sense. It was surreal, and it had just enough logic to work within that surreality. (Yes, I say that is a real word, or at least a cromulent one.)
It is a real word.
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And I’m with you on this movie. Love it. It’s a beautiful, Gothic, Dickensian work of art. And Catwoman is simply sublime.
It’s a beautiful, Gothic, Dickensian work of art.
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This, more than anything else (particularly when you look at the next two Batman films) are why I think the two Burton films worked so well. If nothing else, they *looked* like what we would generally expect a Batman film to look like.
I think Craig’s exactly right. Burton’s version of Gotham City had the semi-nightmarish flavor of how the place really should look. Someone in the comics must have agreed; I seem to recall some bizarre storyline a few years later that had a bunch of building facades ripped down in order to make Gotham look more, well, Burtonish.
And why do so many people complain about the Prince songs in the first movie? There’s only two of them, they’re used strictly diegetically and to comic effect, and they fit the tone of the scenes nicely. I don’t see the problem.
The songs didn’t bother me, but I get why they bother some people.
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I drink coke, and I a hot day I might even take a big gulp and then comment on how delicious it is. However, when you see someone drinking a name brand soda in a movie, it’s sometimes hard not to wonder if that’s a tie-in. That little bit of reality breaks the immersion sometimes, even when the product is in a place that makes complete sense.
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That’s exactly the reaction I had to seeing Macy Gray in the first Spider-Man movie. That little bit of reality butted its head into my fantasy, even though I absolutely loved the movie otherwise. I’m guessing some people felt the same way about Prince.
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And there are other possible reasons. Some people might not like Prince as much as I do. And I don’t think he really fit the tone of the movie perfectly, since the criminals largely looked like they were from mobster movies and the architecture looked old and Gothic, the movie was a miss-mash of time periods and Prince was extremely right-that-moment. It worked for me, I can see it not working for others.
Product placement has never bothered me. Movies (well, most movies) take place in the real world, and in the real world we use products. I guess it takes a certain kind of cynicism to sit there wondering about the tie-ins instead of simply enjoying the movie.
Robert, you started off so well. Saying that it doesn’t bother you is fine. But then you had to insult everyone who has a different experience than you.
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It’s not cynicism. There is a lot of product placement, certain kinds are to the detriment of the story, sometimes bringing it to a screeching halt for a full minute as they talk about the cool air conditioning of the latest Prius or the great service of State Farm Insurance. So people are a little wary of it.
I wasn’t trying to insult anyone. I’ve never thought of “cynical” as an insult. But I’ve also never seen a movie in which someone talks about the cool air conditioning of the latest Prius. Although I did see Up in the Air, which was basically a two-hour commercial for American Airlines and Hilton. It was never to the detriment of the story, though. Maybe I’m just not seeing the right (or rather, the wrong) movies.
I think Tim Burton wanted these characters to be his, to create them in such a way that no-one would re-use them.
They would always be his version of what he thought the characters were like.
Danny Devito really did the best he could with an awful awful character here, there 2 digit hand was the worst, there was no excuse for it.
But I like this film as the only sequel that didn’t have robin in it. Who’s only purpose seems to be getting kidnapped and giving the actor who plays batman a break.
I did like the scene where Bruce throws the business proposal at Schreck though, it seemed to be like something that would actually happen in real life, making it seperate from the rest of the film.
So a good film, not great.
But Burton really should have done the next two.
The funninest part of Batman & Robin for me was when a kid in the cinema audience asked his mother if it was over yet, the whole cinema laughed at that.
Sadly there was another half hour to go.
Back when the movie first came out, I was among those whose loathing of the film boiled down to two words: Penguin Commandoes. Returns had left such a bad taste in my mouth that I had actually gone so far as to read the novelization of Batman Forever before deciding whether or not I wanted to watch the movie. I ended up rather liking the book, but when I watched the movie it turned out that all of the interesting bits seemed to be the creation of the novelist and not the screenwriter. Who wrote the book again? Oh, yeah.
I saw Batman Returns again a few months ago and found it not to be as bad a movie as I remembered (particularly when compared to what would come after). It’s a decent Tim Burton movie, just not the greatest comic book or Batman movie.
Actually not everything was my invention in that book. As I recall, there was a ton of stuff with young Bruce Wayne that was in the script that got cut from the film. I thought it was some of the best material in the screenplay.
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PAD
Interestingly my favourite bit in Batman Forever was the same deal: young Bruce material that never made it into the film proper. Young Bruce reads something in one of his parents’ diary that disturbs him and then finds the Batcave. After seeing that I became convinced that a bit had been cut out, namely what he read. I found a copy of the script online and there was a wonderful bit of him learning from the diary that his parents didn’t want to go see Mark of Zorro they day they died but that he had talked them into it. Happily while not scored that scene did get filmed so I finally saw it in the special edition James mentioned. I still thought it was the best part of the movie.
Ok, I got confused reading the above and thought that you had written the novelization of Returns instead of Forever (Brian’s reference to the novel and Returns’ Penguin Commandos threw me; it was a long day today so my brain’s a bit fried). That being the case, then, was the Zorro bit one of the scenes in the Forever screenplay you liked?
Yes. That whole thing was in the screenplay
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PAD
Is surprised PAD didn’t get sued for liable for calling Danny DeVito ‘her’.
First, I’d like to shout: LONG LIVE CHRISTOPHER NOWLAN! Now that that is out of the way…
Never liked the Burton movies much (big surprise). Not that they’re bad, I just don’t think they feel like Batman. Starting with Gotham City looking so sureal and absurd that it just doesn’t convince me as a real environment, and keeps screaming at me “this is a movie! this is a movie!”
I never could get past Keaton as Batman either, and also the way he moves more like Iron Man. Nah, Iron Man has more flexibility. The one thing I dislike in the Nolan movies is how the kept the armored costume. I thought Val Kilmer was an improvement at the time, though a modest one.
But Batman Returns is the only movie of the Burton/Schumacher era that has villains that I don’t hate. The origins of Penguin and Catwoman ARE ridiculous, but once you get past that, I like the performances.