Your humble blue-collar servant managed to view ”Batman Returns” this past weekend. Apparently, so did about 7 million of your other humble blue-collar servants; it grossed almost $48 million over its first three days. It`s amazing what undeserved hype can do.
Billionaire superhero H. Ross-I mean Bruce Wayne is back, trying to save Gotham City from evildoers without messing up his hair. This time, he`s confronted by developer Max Shreck (Christopher Walken), freak-show-oddity-turned-villain Penguin (Danny DeVito), and secretary-turned-rubber-clad-”
Thelma & Louise” dropout Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer-mee-ow!). These three have hatched a plot to make Penguin the mayor of Gotham so that Shreck can build some kind of huge, purposeless capacitor (physics students take note!)
as a monument to his son. And no, it didn`t make much sense to me, either.
The original ”Batman” succeeded because it managed to present a comic rather than a cartoon. ”Batman Returns” tries desperately to use the same formula; however, it is cursed with this summer`s most infectious disease-MSS, the Mediocre Sequel Syndrome. While ”Batman Returns” is the most visually exciting film since ”Hook” and features some great performances
(particularly Pfeiffer`s and Keaton`s), it tries too hard to outdo the original and ends up being rather silly. The storyline is also paper-thin compared with ”Batman`s”; pivotal occurrences, most notably Pfeiffer`s transformation into Catwoman, make no sense at all. However, while I`m only giving it (STAR)(STAR) 1/2, I guarantee I`ll see it again.
