'BATMAN RETURNS'; SEQUEL MORE SATIRICAL, DARKER THAN ORIGINAL

By Frank Gabrenya

From The Columbus Dispatch, 06.19.1992

A major surprise awaits the legions of Batman fans who flock to director Tim Burton's sequel of his 1989 blockbuster.

What they will find in Batman Returns is less a sequel of Batman than a darker version of Burton's Edward Scissorhands.

In other words, if you are hungry for more comic-book heroics in a simple world in which good and evil are conveniently labeled, look elsewhere.

Batman Returns is a satirical, disturbing, gruesome fable, much more original than any sequel deserves to be.

Begin with the brilliant, unnerving prologue, in which a deformed baby is born to a wealthy Gotham City family on a snowy winter night. Horrified by its flipperlike hands and appetite for pet cats, the parents dump the little monster into a canal that empties into the Gotham sewers. The baby carriage finally comes to rest among a colony of penguins living beneath an abandoned zoo, where the baby grows to full monsterhood.

That child, of course, becomes the Penguin, once the silliest character in the old Batman comic and the inane '60s TV series. Now, thanks to Burton's direction, Stan Winston's perverse makeup and Danny DeVito's relentless performance, the Penguin is the latest embodiment of Burton's favorite theme: the alienated beast-child, scorned by its creators, shocking to society, bitter and brimming with rage.

Penguin is the pathetic flip side of the childlike title character of Edward Scissorhands, equally victimized but much more dangerous. As repellent as the character is, there is a trace of sorrow.

Then there is Catwoman. She begins as Selina Kyle, a befuddled, lonely secretary, brutalized by her vicious boss. The one bright moment in her drab existence is a chance encounter with Batman, who becomes her fantasy savior.

After uncovering damning evidence about her boss's business dealings, she is pushed out a high window, seemingly to her death. But an army of cats swarms over her and brings her back to life--with a difference.

Now she has an overwhelming craving for milk and a sudden streak of feminist anger.

Michelle Pfeiffer gives the movie's most spectacular performance. Catwoman, embodying sexual impulse and aggression, is the character most caught in the confusion of identities that is the movie's recurring theme. With her whip and razor-sharp claws, she goes on a rampage without knowing quite why.

Batman (remember him?) often fades into the background. Where there was a hint of Batman's disturbing duality in the 1989 film, that agitation is enlarged for the sequel and pitted against Catwoman as his ideal mate, both psychotically and sartorially.

Michael Keaton was criticized as a weak choice to play Bruce Wayne/Batman in 1989, but Burton recognized the underlying tension in Keaton, something he saw as crucial to his angst-ridden vision of Batman. Now, free to follow that original concept, Burton and Keaton bring out the neuroses of a man who dresses up as a bat to fight crime.

All of the film's warped psyches are poured into an even gloomier urban nightmare, as redesigned by Bo Welch.

As always in a Burton film, the story is the weakest link. It sputters along on conventional threads that are soon abandoned. Villainous businessman Max Shreck (Christopher Walken at his most insidious) is planning to build a power plant that will actually suck power out of the city; suddenly that story goes away. Then Penguin is running for mayor, but, after a few cynical jabs at the electoral process, that plot thread is severed.

In the end, it doesn't much matter. Burton is after stylish moments that add up to haunting characters, not conventional stories.

In the guise of a sequel, Burton has created a more personal nightmarish vision than most of the Batman audience expects. Sure, Batman Returns will bring in silos of money for the first several weeks, but whether it rivals the original will depend on how many 13-year-old boys keep going back to ogle Pfeiffer in her cat suit.

The main challenge will be to parents whose 7-year-olds whine to see it. The movie is rated PG-13 but deserves an R for its sexual tension and implied horror. The abandonment of Penguin in the prologue and a later scene in which his minions kidnap the firstborn sons of Gotham's elite can be more terrifying to young minds than bullet holes or dirty words.

It will be a tough call, parents. Movies as daring, dark and personal as this aren't usually promoted by McDonald's.