Batman Returns

26 June 2015

Batman Returns 1992

• Director: Tim Burton
• Based on novel: no
• Cast: Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Pat Hingle, Michael Gough
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Michael Keaton – Batman, Jackie Brown, Much Ado About Nothing, Beetlejuice
• Danny DeVito – Be Cool, Big Fish, Virgin Suicides, LA Confidential, Mars Attacks!, Get Shorty, Twins, Throw Momma from the Train, Ruthless People, Romancing the Stone, Terms of Endearment, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• Michelle Pfeiffer – Dark Shadows, Stardust, White Oleander, I Am Sam, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, A Thousand Acres, To Gillian on Her 37^th Birthday, Dangerous Minds, Wolf, Age of Innocence, Love Fields, Frankie and Johnny, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Dangerous Liaisons, Married to the Mafia, The Witches of Eastwick
• Christopher Walken – Romance and Cigarettes, Catch Me If You Can, Sleepy Hollow, Suicide Kings, Blast from the Past, View to a Kill, Nick of Time, The Addiction, Pulp Fiction, True Romance, Sarah Plain and Tall, Deer Hunter
• Pat Hingle – A Thousand Acres, The Grifters, Norma Rae,TV series
• Michael Gough – Sleepy Hollow, Nostradamus, The Age of Innocence, Out of Africa, Cymbeline, The Go-Between, Women in Love
• Why? Having started…
• Seen:  12 June 2015 

Not having been terribly impressed with the first of the series we’re not expecting much this time. Still, with Pfeiffer and Walken it does have potential.

And they deliver. Christopher Walken is more handsome than ever and as evil as usual. Michelle Pfeiffer is exquisitely scatter-brained – but ah – cats to the rescue. She becomes Cat Woman. A bit creepy but – wow. It’s a pleasure to watch her transformation into demon.

The scenography is very Tim Burton. That I like. But come on, Burton, you can do better than this. Otherwise it’s tedious, irritating or unpleasant. Danny De Vito makes Jack Nicholson seem benignly subtle.

Pfeiffer and Walken do what they can but they deserve a better movie. Come to think of it, Batman deserves a better movie.  Lucky for us we know it’s coming.

2 * of 5