BATMAN RETURNS (1992)
After Tim Burton directed Batman in 1989, he went on to complete a very haunting fairytale of Edward Scissorhands, where he was now developing what would become his signature in filmmaking, thus includes Gothic settings, bizarre characters and dark storytelling. The film sparks the imagination of film audience everywhere as well stinging them in their heart and soon people began to realize his own trademarks in his film. This notion would soon apply for the sequel to the movie of one of the greatest superheroes ever known. One idea would include a dark redesigning of Catwoman and the Penguin. The film's introduction depicts the haunting tale of birth and origin of the Penguin, born as a grotesque monster and was abandoned by the sewer's river by his parents and was raised by zoo penguins. Its a hideous retelling of the Ugly Duckling where an ugly bird-like baby blossom into a evil disgusting grotesque maniac, played by Danny DeVito who has a growing grudge against the city of Gotham. Another villain is an original for the movie, Max Shreck played by Christopher "We Need More Cowbell" Walken, as he helps the Penguin run for mayor of Gotham. He also serve the purpose of transforming doormat Selina Kyle into the wild and sexy Catwoman. And I tell you, this is the REAL Catwoman, not the crap Halle Berry and some dude pulled off to make Catwoman a Spider-man clone. Michelle Pfeiffer stayed along the line as being ferocious, untamed and damn sexy while mildly laying out some feline puns. And I ask you, who can stop all these three villains? Why Batman of course, played once again by Michael Keaton.
A sequel means bigger and longer, so while the first Batman was dark, this Batman movie doubled its darkness. There are many things in this film that will even traumatize a child, let alone question the heroism of Batman. Not as a social commentary, but really comparing between the film Batman and the comic Batman, I mean, Batman doesn't kill anyone. While I was amazed by the adventure and action in the first Batman movie, most of the time in this movie I was completely freaked out by all the horrifying images displayed on the screen. One scene shows the Penguin bite the nose of some guy and he was gushing out blood! I was 6 years old when I first saw this in the theater with my parents and that bit alone scared the hell out of me. Not to mention the part when they kidnap little children, the charred corpse of Max Shreck and even the horrifying yet pitiful death of the Penguin. Sure the movie has balls, but come on, you have to know when its too much.
Despite all that, it was still a great Batman movie and you could say its slightly better than the last. While the Penguin isn't what it was in the comics and cartoons, he was still a cool Penguin. Catwoman is still the reigning feline mistress and Batman showed off many cool action sequence and many cool gadgets for his utility belt. After the release of Batman Returns, was there a sequel in mind? Hell yes! Is it gonna be like that? Hell no! Warner Bros. are not going to risk having Batman fans and kids drawing out from its scary and dark ideals. What do they do? They do what parents do when their child had a scary nightmare: lighten up the room and comfort them with fun and toys. And thats what they did with the next Batman film. Of course, that means they'll be going back a bit...
Up on my next blog: BATMAN FOREVER(1995)
No comments:
Post a Comment