Welcome to Batman Week! From today until July 18th, I'm celebrating all things Batman, in anticipation of The Dark Knight. The centerpiece of Batman Week will be my five part retrospective on the caped crusader in cinema. A new chapter will be posted every day until Thursday, along with other surprises. And on Friday, check in for my review of The Dark Knight.

In 1989, Tim Burton's Batman was released. Audiences loved it, and the film grossed $411.5 million worldwide. A sequel was a no-brainer...

Holy Franchise Batman! The Blockbuster Saga of the Dark Knight

Chapter Two:
Holy Awkward Moment Batman!

Burton wasn't contracted to do a sequel, and thought long and hard about doing one. Burton publicly described a second installment as "a most dumbfounded idea....Often with sequels, they're like the same movie except everything gets jacked up a little. I didn't feel I could do that; I wanted to treat this like it was another Batman movie altogether." For 1992's Batman Returns, that's exactly what he did. The film remains to this day the only sequel that Burton has ever directed, and sadly, that's a bit obvious. Burton's unease with the idea of a sequel, and the fact that he was still a young, learning filmmaker makes Batman Returns an incredibly frustrating experience.

The film takes place at Christmas; the Red Triangle Circus Gang, led by the mysterious Penguin, is terrorizing the city. Business tycoon Max Shreck is trying to gain political power, and when the Penguin blackmails him, they form an alliance to make the Penguin mayor. Shreck's assistant, Selina Kyle, discovers a dark secret a power plant Shreck is building, and is pushed out a window because of it. Driven insane, she turns herself into pseudo-vigilante figure Catwoman. And it's up to Batman has to stop all this and save Gotham.

Batman Returns is a dark film, dark in the way only a man like Tim Burton could make it. Beyond the heavy themes of death and revenge, the Penguin is a purely macabre creation that will most certainly disturb you, and the portrayal of Catwoman is nothing less than avant-garde. This is all good news for those who consider themselves Burton fans; Batman Returns defines the term 'Burton-esque,' but those who don't usually go for Burton's style will be tortured.

I personally love Tim Burton, but this sequel proves that he was the wrong man for the job. The studio allowed him full creative control, which means his off-beat style was unleashed and combined with Batman. Sadly, those two don't really go together, and the outcome is a film that's too Burton-esque to be called a Batman film, but with a little too much Batman to be called a Burton film. It doesn't work either way.

Don't get me wrong; there are lots and lots of things to love in Batman Returns, and had some of the key problems been dealt with, this would have possibly been the definitive Batman film.

The main problem is that Bruce/Batman simply isn't the main character. Batman makes one short appearance near the start to stop the Red Triangle Gang, and doesn't appear again until the 35 minute mark; even then, it feels like a cameo. For the first hour, it seems like this is a spin-off, with only occasional appearances by the caped crusader. Eventually, they put Bruce in the spotlight and begin to explore his character. But it's too late; the other characters have taken over and there's no room for character development. Though the first film led us to believe that Burton understood the character, Batman Returns makes it obvious that he doesn't have a grasp on the Dark Knight.

The film's two comic-book villains are the Penguin and Catwoman. The Penguin is played very well by Danny DeVito, who makes the character a sympathetic villain. We can understand why this deformed man would do these evil deeds. The problem with this character is not the performance; the problem is that in this story, the Penguin has no relation, thematic or otherwise, to Batman or his journey. While the character is grotesque and interesting, his plot always seems separate from the story of Bruce Wayne, and because the Penguin gets most of the screen time, it seems like this movie should have been called Penguin.

Selina Kyle, better known as Catwoman, is portrayed brilliantly by Michelle Pfeiffer, and should have been the villain the film focused on. As a character, Catwoman is essential to the character journey of Bruce Wayne. In the comics, they were often portrayed in a romantic light. Bruce and Selina were lovers, but Batman and Catwoman were enemies. This is important; Bruce and Selina are both, albeit to different degrees, psychotic. Bruce chooses to use that psychosis to help others, while Selina succumbs to it and becomes a villain. They both choose animals as their mascots. This relationship is extremely interesting because Bruce is essentially looking in an alternate-reality mirror.

The film only touches upon this extremely interesting relationship; Bruce does court Selina, but their romance is confined to a date at Wayne manor and a dance at Shreck's Christmas Ball. The best scene in the film is when Bruce, trying to stop Selina from killing Max Shreck, takes off his mask and tries to connect to the insane Catwoman.

This scene feels like a clip from a different movie, where the focus of the film had been their relationship. But the focus of this film is the Penguin, and the Bruce/Selina relationship is a minor sub-plot. As I said, this could have been the definitive Batman film, if one element has been excised. The Penguin. He's a famous comic villain, but he has no thematic relationship to Batman, and as such, is useless in what should have been a character driven film. You could get rid of the Penguin and still have the film's most interesting character, Max Shreck, played wonderfully by Christopher Walken. Catwoman works better as a secondary villain anyway, so Shreck, as a tycoon trying to run Gotham, could have been the main villain.

Burton said himself that he wasn't sure how to approach the sequel, and because of his relative in-experience as a filmmaker, it seems like he put Penguin in just so that more comic villains could enter the fray. If you look at some of Burton's later films, like Big Fish or Sweeney Todd, you'll notice how sharp an eye he has for deep, emotional human drama. But at the point in his career when he made Batman Returns, he wasn't this experienced and as such, tends to ignore the deep human drama that Bruce Wayne provides in favor of something he was more experienced with; big, grand visuals and a plot with twists and turns.

Another annoying element is that Batman kills mercilessly in this movie. The first film showed Batman killing the Joker; that was wrong, but it didn't ruin the movie, and in the situation he was in, I suppose the Joker had to die. In Batman Returns, Batman slaughters maniacally. At one point, he straps a bomb to a member of the Red Triangle Gang, shoves him into a manhole, and watched with a smile as he blows up. This couldn't be further from what Batman stands for. When he kills the Penguin at the end, it just goes too far.

Batman Returns is the kind of film that will frustrate endlessly. It's the kind of film where the individual ingredients are excellent, but the final product that mixes them all together is a failure. It can barely be called a Batman film because it's so Burton-esque in nature (and because it doesn't focus on Batman) and it can't be called a good Burton drama because it doesn't have a clear focus from beginning to end.

To add to that, the film ends on an extremely depressing note. Bruce Wayne defeats the Penguin, but doesn't save Selina or Max Shreck (though the final shot of the film suggests Catwoman lives). Gotham is still a dirty rathole, and the citizens have all been turned against Batman.

The End.

While the first film ends triumphantly, with Batman saving the city and being embraced by its citizens, this film ends in one of the most depressing ways possible. This isn't necessarily a bag thing; the same was true of The Empire Strikes Back, but Return of the Jedi used that depressing end and built the fictional universe back up to a triumphant note. I'm sure Burton would have done the same in a third film; I would bet that Burton's third installment would have been drastically superior, because he would have had some experience with sequels.

But Burton didn't return for a third film. Batman Returns is the end of the short series that Burton created, and as such, Michael Keaton's Batman is left beaten and depressed. There's a chance Burton would have redeemed his series with a third film, but we'll never know. In the end, it seems like Burton was doomed to fail. While the first film was very good, the second film shows a strong misunderstanding of what the Dark Knight represents, and as such, it seems as though Burton might have been the wrong man for the job from the start.

Batman Returns gets a disappointing C+.

To Be Continued...

Come Back Tomorrow for Chapter Three!