Like its predecessor, the sequel received rave reviews and was a box office smash - however, I'm almost embarrassed to admit that it's the only Batman film out of the four '90s ones that I hadn't seen prior to doing this blog. Time to put that right I think...
The film begins by showing the origins of the Penguin - born a freakishly deformed child with a hunger for eating cats, he was dropped into a sewer as a baby where a colony of penguins living down there raised him.
Thirty-odd years later, it's Christmas in Gotham City and the annual festival is being held supervised by the mayor and wealthy industrialist Max Shreck. However, it's interrupted by a group of circus freaks with machine guns called the Red Triangle Gang with Batman eventually showing up to drive them off.
However, the RTG manage to kidnap Shreck and take him into the sewers to meet their leader the Penguin. Penguin, we discover, has some serious dirt on Max including industrial malpractice and the fact that he offed his one-time business partner. He proposes a deal where by Max will help the Penguin rehabilitate himself into society and Shreck begrudgingly agrees.
Returning to the surface, Shreck discovers his secretary Selina Kyle has been doing some research in the office during the evenings regarding his shady dealings over a new power plant. Furious, he attacks Kyle and throws her out of a window into an alley below, seemingly killing her. However, a group of stray cats swarm over her and attempt to eat her, bringing her back to life as the demented Catwoman who vows revenge on her former boss.
Frustrated by the mayor's attempts to block his building a nuclear power plant, Shreck invites Bruce Wayne to his office to propose a partnership but Wayne unsurprisingly refuses. However, during the visit, Wayne is introduced to Selina (whose return from the grave understandably shocks Max) and the two begin dating.
Meanwhile, Penguin is introduced to the outside world via a setup by Shreck whereby one of the Red Triangle Gang kidnaps the mayor's baby son at a press conference and jumps into the sewer with him only for the Penguin to re-emerge with the baby a couple of minutes later having seemingly "saved" him.
Penguin is initially treated as a novelty by the Gotham public and his attempts to trace his parents, the Cobblepots, become the tabloid story du jour. However, it turns out that both have died during his time underground. Max, though, sees potential in the situation and, given his continuing frustrations with the Mayor, decides to organise a smear campaign so that a mayoral election will be called. His plan is then to put the Penguin forward as a "useful idiot" candidate who will do his bidding regarding environmental guidelines, relaxing regulations etc. And yes, that does all sound a bit familiar in this day and age, doesn't it?...
The first part of Shreck's plan consists of having the Red Triangle Gang carry out a series of attacks on the citizens of Gotham. This leads both Batman and Catwoman (who gets caught in the crossfire while smashing up one of Shreck's department stores) to intervene but the pair both end up getting into a tussle due to not recognising each other and both believing the other one to be siding with their enemies and Catwoman ends up falling off a roof and into a passing lorry full of sand.
Angry, Catwoman tracks down Penguin and proposes an alliance whereby the pair will frame Batman for a crime he didn't commit in order to take him off the scene and allow them both a free reign to achieve their respective goals. To this end, Penguin and Shreck announce that they're re-organising the Christmas ceremony that the Red Triangle Gang originally interrupted at the start of the film. Obviously, it's all a setup and in the run-up, Penguin and his goons kidnap the festival's Ice Queen using the Batarang that one of the RTG stole from Batman in the previous skirmish.
Realising from the news reports that Batman is being framed, Bruce Wayne quickly scoots it to the Batcave, gets changed and heads down to the scene. He rescues the Ice Queen only for Catwoman appear and abduct her again, taking her up to the roof. However, as he's on the way over to save her, Penguin appears and releases a sackful of bats causing the Ice Queen to lose her balance and fall to her death below with the crowd spotting Batman up on the roof and concludes that he's the guilty party. He attempts to escape in the Batmobile only to find that Penguin's goons have placed a remote control device on it allowing Penguin to steer the vehicle on a destructive rampage until Batman finally gets rid of the device and escapes.
Catwoman and Penguin's alliance also comes to an end as the former is angry at the latter for killing the Ice Queen when he promised he wouldn't. Penguin's response is to tie her to one of his umbrellas and send her drifting off into the atmosphere. She eventually manages to extricate herself and crashlands back to earth by landing on a rooftop greenhouse, vowing revenge on the Penguin.
Also out for revenge on old Pengo is Batman, now back as Bruce Wayne, who uses his audio technology to interrupt the Penguin's latest campaign speech by playing a set of soundbites he'd recorded on CD when Penguin was taunting him in the remote controlled Batmobile of Penguin describing the citizens of Gotham as a bunch of gullible morons who he'd been conning easily. Penguin's campaign is derailed faster than you can say "David Cameron" and he finds himself booed offstage under a shower of rotten fruit and veg.
Swearing revenge on Gotham, Penguin unleashes a plot to kidnap all of the city's firstborns and dissolve them in the toxic sewer created by the outflow from Shreck's factory. He does this by crashing a Christmas party thrown at the Shreck mansion and kidnapping those present including Shreck who he blames for double-crossing him. Also at the party are Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle who upon talking to each other realise the others' secret identity and that they'll need to team up to help stop Penguin's scheme. Do they succeed? Well I think you can guess but I've got to leave some stuff for you to find out by watching this film, haven't I?...
I'm inclined to agree with the general consensus that "Batman Returns" just to say shades it over its predecessor as the best of the '90s Batman films. Equally as dark as its predecessor, it does a good job of juggling several characters but painting them both in terms of light and shade rather than flat-out good vs evil, building slowly to a heart-stopper of a climax. Keaton, DeVito, Pfeiffer and Walken all deserve credit for rising to the task but if you really want to know why so many people consider Tim Burton a genius of the goth film genre then this should answer your question. More than anything, the idea of an amoral and sleazy supervillain being rehabilitated enough to run for public office is something that seems depressingly relevant in this era of Trump, Johnson, Rees-Mogg et al.
Unfortunately this would be Tim Burton's last Batman film with Joel Schumacher taking up the mantle for 1995's "Batman Forever" which we'll be dealing with on here come Saturday and there was definitely a bit of a quality drop-off (although it wouldn't become really pronounced until 1997's disastrous "Batman And Robin", more of which in a fortnight). Micheal Keaton would also leave the franchise after "Batman Returns" with Val Kilmer stepping into the batsuit next time out. But more of that in our next entry, for now suffice to say this comes highly recommended and has just to say displaced the first Batman film at the top of our table.
FINAL RATING: 🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇 (9/10)
CURRENT DC FILM TABLE
1. Batman Returns (1992) (9/10)
2. Batman (1989) (8/10)
3. Superman (1978) (8/10)
4. Superman 2 (1980) (8/10)
5. Batman (1966) (8/10)
6. Superman 3 (1983) (5/10)
7. Swamp Thing (1982) (5/10)
8. The New Wonder Woman (1975) (5/10)
9. Superman and the Mole Men (1951) (5/10)
10. The Flash 2 - Revenge Of The Trickster (1991) (4/10)
11. The Flash 3 - Deadly Nightshade (1991) (4/10)
12. Wonder Woman Returns (1977) (4/10)
13. The Flash (1990) (4/10)
14. Wonder Woman (1974) (3/10)
15. The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) (2/10)
16. Superman 4 - The Quest For Peace (1987) (2/10)
17. Supergirl (1984) (2/10)
NEXT WEEK: Batman gets a new director and everything goes a bit neon...
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