Batman Returns

Batman Returns

Batman Returns opens with the birth of Penguin played by Danny DeVito who is seriously deformed.  Penguin’s parents fling their newborn baby into the sewers.  Flash-forward several years later, Selina Kyle played by Michelle Pfiffer a simple assistant who has the unpleasant job of working for Maxwell Shreck Christopher Walken  a corrupt business man.  One night, as Shreck realizes how smart Selina is, and decides she is too big a threat he murders her by pushing her out a window yet  Selina does not die.  Emerging as the new and improved version of herself named  Catwoman, she and Penguin begin to wreak havoc on Gotham City separately.  The resident on call superhero of Gotham, Batman played by Michael Keaton known as Bruce Wayne when he is not off fighting crime enters the scene to protect Gotham. Catwoman and Penguin devise plans to bring down Shreck as he is the mayor and murder all the first-born children of Gotham City, this all makes it very difficult on Batman to balance ffighting them both while holding a day job and a romantic relationship with Selina. A few film elements tha work towards making this film great is its overall gloomy tone which is signiture in many Time Burton films. Burton seems to enjoy making films which are centered around characters whose strange qualities place them too far outside the mainstream in worlds that owe everything to art direction and set design while sad for those characters completely intriguing for us the viewer. The main issue that I am many have had with Tim Burtons Batman Returns is that he created in a world of film noir but as we learned in this class superheroes and film noir just do not mix.  The whole point of  a film made in the noir style is that there are no heroes and Batman is clearly the hero of Batman Returns. Also Burtons uses the fact that most noirs have urban settings, but puts an emphasizes on realism in setting but Batman returns does not have that probably because he wanted to put his signature style on the film which was created by the fact that Batman Returns like all his films, is placed in a dystopian society which just does not work for the overall theme of this movie. Which even though I love Tim Burtons style is why I think he failed in the creation of Batman Returns.