For his follow-up to 1989’s money geyser Batman, Warner let Tim Burton do whatever he wanted. It shows. At no point does Batman Returns even try to make sense.
I’d like to say that I’m posting this in anticipation of The Batman, the new movie starring Robert Pattinson that’s due out March 4. But the truth is I’ve become fascinated with Batman Returns (1992) while I’ve been writing a book about the history of superhero movies, Vengeance is Mine: How Superhero Movies Conquered the Box Office (tentative title. Pub. date 2023 from McFarland Publishing). Upon a third viewing a few nights ago I came to believe that it may be a work of genius. Accidental genius, and by committee. But still. Genius.
First, some background. Sometime after the release of Batman in 1989, the gears started grinding at Warner Bros. The movie had been a massive hit and the studio wanted a sequel. Tim Burton, who made the first one under extreme duress, agreed to come back but wanted more creative control.
Batman Returns screenwriters—the blame game
Burton hired Daniel Waters to rewrite a screenplay by Sam Hamm. Hamm was the main writer on the first one, a movie that is batshit crazy in its own right. But Burton had liked Heathers, a high school dark comedy written by Waters. After Waters completed his work, Warner hired rewrite man Wesley Strick to give the script a once-over.
The reason for my fascination is that nothing in this movie makes sense from a narrative perspective. In his review of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice for Mother Jones, Ben Dreyfuss writes, “It is incomprehensible! Nothing makes any sense! We all understand that plots in these movies don’t make sense. Of course they don’t. That’s standard. But in this movie nothing makes sense on a scene level.” I feel the same way about Batman Returns, except that it makes so little sense that it starts to make its own kind of sense. Like a Mobius strip.
One note: apparently the decision to use two villains, and that those villains would be the Penguin and Catwoman, was Warner’s. Both had been popular characters on the sixties Batman TV series. Maybe that was their thinking.
So anyway this is what happens in Batman Returns
It’s Christmas time in Gotham. A newspaper vendor carrying the latest edition of the Gotham Globe shouts “Grotesque Penguin man living in Gotham sewers.” In Gotham Plaza, a woman in a low-cut figure-skating-type dress and sash reading “Ice Princess” announces that it’s time to light the tree. In Shreck Tower, entrepreneur/industrialist/department store owner Max Schreck (Christopher Walken) is trying to talk the mayor into letting him build his new power plant. The mayor tells him that Gotham has a surplus of energy. Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer) interrupts to ask if she can make a suggestion. Max demeans her. She doesn’t make the suggestion. Chip Shreck, Max’s college-age son, shows up. The men leave to attend the tree lighting. Alone, Selina calls herself “a corn dog.”
In Gotham Plaza, Max Shreck makes a speech at the tree-lighting ceremony. Suddenly, a giant gift-wrapped box is wheeled into the plaza by unseen forces. A motorcycle gang in clown outfits and oversize skull masks bursts out of the box. They drive around the plaza, scattering the Gothamites. More circus performers arrive including an organ grinder and his monkey. The organ grinder reveals a machine gun in the box on his chest and opens fire on the tree. A strongman hits a man dressed as Santa Claus with a sleigh. Seeing this Commissioner Gordon calls police headquarters and tells them to turn on the Bat-signal. Bruce Wayne, brooding in his study in Wayne Manor, bathed in blue light, sees it.
Batman arrives
In Gotham Plaza the organ grinder demands Shreck. Shreck runs. Batman arrives in the Batmobile and uses it to disable gang members through various accessories. He pulls up in front of Selina Kyle and a clown grabs her and threatens her with a taser. Batman takes him out. Batman leaves. Selina picks up the taser and uses it on her unconscious assailant.
Shreck, still on the run, falls through a grate in the street. He wakes up in Arctic World, the former penguin sanctuary at the abandoned Gotham Zoo. He is in the headquarters of Oswald Cobblepot, aka the Penguin. Oswald is there with members of his gang. They are all dressed as circus performers.
Cobblepot threatens to expose Max’s unethical business practices unless the millionaire industrialist agrees to help him, Cobblepot, find his parents. (The film opens at Cobblepot Manor, where we see meet said parents, who are alarmed at the appearance and behaviour of their caged, cat-eating child. They put him in a basket and send him down the river. The infant ends up in a pool at the penguin sanctuary in Gotham Zoo where, it is implied, he is raised by penguins.)
That’s right, raised by penguins
Selina returns to her apartment. She plays her answering machine messages. One of these is a woman’s recorded voice that says, “We’re calling to tell you about exciting new Gotham Lady Perfume.”
Realizing she has forgotten the Bruce Wayne file at the office she goes back to Shreck Tower. She encounters Max and tells him that she has discovered that his power plant is actually a giant “capacitor” that will suck power from the city. Max explains that the power plant will be his legacy for his son Chip and throws her out of the window and she falls at least 10 stories onto the snow-covered ground.
Many cats emerge from the alleys and run around Selina’s prone body. She comes to in a zombified state. Back at her apartment, she drinks a quart of milk. Turning on her answering machine she hears another ad for Gotham Lady Perfume, “on sale now at Schreck’s Department Store.” She screams, stabs a sock monkey and stuffs it into the garbage disposal. She smashes up her apartment, spraypaints the walls, smashes a dollhouse, finds some black latex and begins to sew.
Penguin rides a giant duck
The next day (maybe) there is another gathering at Gotham Plaza. The mayor makes a speech in which he promises to clean up crime. Seated with the other dignitaries on the platform are his wife and infant child. As the mayor speaks a circus performer appears behind him. The performer backflips several times across the platform, grabs the baby from its mother’s arms and disappears with the infant down an open manhole cover.
In the sewer, the acrobat hands the crying baby to the Penguin, who is in a giant rubber duck. Rising via hydraulics, the duck lifts the Penguin, baby in hand, up through the manhole. He hands the baby back to the mayor.
At Wayne Manor, Bruce watches the Penguin on the news. “All I want in return is a chance to find my mom and dad,” the Penguin, now a hero, tells Gotham.
Penguin goes to the House of Records. Max gives another speech to the press who have gathered outside.
At the Batcave, Bruce reads old newspaper stories on microfiche. The stories are about the Red Triangle Circus, a circus that had come to town years earlier that may have been responsible for “several missing children.”
A new attitude for Selina
The Penguin visits his parents’ graves. Catwoman beats up a rapist in an alley. Bruce visits Shreck in his tower office and tells him, billionaire to billionaire, that he’s going to fight him on his power plant proposal. Selina walks into the meeting as though she’s just mainlined Sheryl Sandberg‘s Lean In.
Bruce is enchanted. Who is this woman?
Max visits Oswald, who seems to have taken an apartment in downtown Gotham with the rest of his crew. Oswald is wearing what looks like a dirty grey jumper. Max pulls out a raw fish and lures the Penguin downstairs. Eating the raw fish Oswald pauses on the stairs and sees dozens of people occupying what looks like a campaign office festooned with balloons and streamers. The people applaud when they see him.
Shreck introduces Oswald to his image consultants Jen and Josh. Jen tries to fit the Penguin, who has flippers for hands, with gloves. “Our research tells us that voters like fingers,” she tells Shreck. Josh puts a cigarette holder in Penguin’s mouth and says, “Here, reclaim your birthright.” Oswald spits out the holder and bites Josh’s nose. Shreck convinces Penguin to run for mayor.
Batman vs. Catwoman
The Red Triangle Gang riots. Batman stops them. Catwoman breaks into a department store. She uses her whip to behead mannequins and break open a jewellery display. Batman runs into the strongman who hit Santa Claus at the previous riot. Batman attaches a bundle of lit dynamite to the strongman and knocks him into a construction hole. The dynamite explodes.
Inside the department store, Catwoman puts some aerosol canisters into a microwave, turns it on and severs the gas line. In the street, Batman comes across the Penguin. Catwoman backflips out of what is revealed to be Shreck’s Department Store. She stops before Batman and Penguin and says “Meow.” The department store explodes.
Catwoman runs off and begins climbing up the side of the building. The Penguin leaves with one of his flying umbrellas. Batman follows Catwoman. They fight. Batman knocks her off the roof of the building. She falls into a truck full of cat litter. “Oh, bastard,” she says.
At his office, Penguin denounces the Mayor for failing to protect Gotham. Catwoman is waiting upstairs in his downtown Gotham pied-a-terre. Penguin delivers his psychological assessment of Catwoman. She puts a live bird in her mouth. He threatens her cat. They release the animals. They agree to frame Batman.
Bruce and Selina, the perfect match
Penguin goes on GNN (Gotham News Network) to challenge the mayor to relight the Christmas tree and for Batman to show up as well “to protect the peace.” The next day Bruce runs into Selina downtown. He invites her to come over to watch the tree-lighting ceremony on TV. She says she can’t but agrees to come over earlier for dinner before the ceremony.
Oswald and a gang member who looks like Marie Antoinette and carries a French poodle enter the Ice Princess’s dressing room. Oswald throws a Bat-a-Rang at the Ice Princess at close range.
At Wayne Manor, Selina and Bruce talk about Bruce’s history with women and his dual nature in front of a roaring fire. Bruce makes a pass. Selina jumps him. She freaks out. A TV news reporter says that the Ice Princess has been kidnapped. Commissioner Gordon holds up a Bat-a-rang in a plastic bag and says the evidence is circumstantial. Bruce says he has to go and rushes out. Selina is also in a hurry to leave.
Batman v. Catwoman round 2
Batman parks the Batmobile on a downtown street. The Mayor reassures the people who have come out for the tree relighting ceremony that everything is under control. Batman leaves the Batmobile. Members of the Red Triangle gang begin sabotaging it. Batman climbs to the roof of a building. Through the window of a neighbouring building, he sees the Ice Princess bound to a chair.
He is untying her bonds when Catwoman falls from the ceiling. They fight. She drags the Ice Princess off and up to the roof. Batman follows. Catwoman has left the Ice Princess standing on the ledge. The Penguin arrives and throws an umbrella that lands a few feet away from her. A flock of bats flies out and swarms her. She falls backwards several stories and lands on a box in Gotham Plaza. The tree lights up.
Commissioner Gordon and a couple of police officers reach the roof. The police fire at Batman who falls over the edge of the building but hits a sloped roof. He slides down and lands on his back on a balcony. Catwoman straddles him. She tells him that she has seven lives left and gives him a psychological assessment. He tosses her off of him and disappears into the night using his cape as a hang glider. The Penguin appears on the roof and propositions Catwoman (again). When she rejects him he attaches an umbrella to her. The umbrella sprouts helicopter-like blades and lifts her into the sky. Freeing herself she falls into a rooftop greenhouse.
The world’s greatest detective has an off night in Batman Returns
Batman gets in the Batmobile. Oswald appears on a screen on the dashboard to tell him that he’s fucked. Oswald is controlling the Batmobile in a Batmobile mock-up in his campaign campervan. As the Batmobile runs amuck in the streets of Gotham Batman records audio of Oswald’s rants onto a CD. The Batmobile computer locates the device being used to control the Batmobile. It’s on the undercarriage. Batman easily kicks a hole in the floor of the armoured vehicle. He grabs the device and turns it off.
The police, not satisfied with having shot him, pursue. Batman drives towards a narrow alleyway. The sides of the Batmobile fall off and the now bullet-shaped car easily fits between the two buildings. The police are not as lucky and there is a three-squad-car pileup at the alley entrance that at the very least would have caused multiple injuries to Gotham’s finest.
It’s a new day (I think). Citizens have gathered in Gotham Plaza to protest the mayor. Oswald gives a speech. At Wayne Manor, Bruce calls Alfred out on letting Vicki Vale into the Batcave in the previous movie. The two men descend into the Batcave and Bruce plugs into the Gotham Plaza p.a. and interrupts Oswald’s speech with the incriminating statements that he recorded during the runaway Batmobile incident. The protesters throw vegetables at Penguin and he pulls out an umbrella and begins firing bullets into the crowd. He returns to Arctic World where he decides to kidnap and murder all the first-born sons of Gotham “while their parents party.”
Bruce and Selina part 2
That night Bruce attends the “Max-querade Ball,” an annual event held by Max Shreck. He sees Selina. They are the only two not wearing masks. As they dance Selina propositions him, then shows him the gun that she says she’s brought to kill Max. They kiss. They figure out that they are Batman and Catwoman. The floor explodes and Oswald rises through the floor on his motorized duck to announce his plan and to collect Chip Shreck. Max convinces him to take him, Max, instead.
In Gotham, the Red Triangle gang is loading up the cars of a circus train as the organ grinder drives it through the streets. Batman removes the organ grinder from the conductor’s seat. (We see a couple of arms reach down from the top of the cab and grab him.) The organ grinder’s monkey delivers a note to the Penguin from Batman taunting Oswald. The Penguin, furious, gives a speech to hundreds of penguins. The penguin army swims towards Gotham Plaza with explosives strapped to their backs.
In the tunnels under Gotham Batman pilots his Batskiboat through Gotham’s underground tunnels in search of Penguin. With Alfred’s help, they jam the signal from the Penguin to his penguins and they turn around. Batman is getting closer so Penguin drives his duck outside and Batman launches the Batskiboat out of a tunnel and crashes into the duck.
Penguin Army
The penguin army arrives. Batman and the Penguin fight over the switch that will launch the missiles that are strapped to them. Penguin hits the switch and the missiles shoot into the air. Bats swarm the Penguin and he falls through a window and back into Arctic World. The outside of Arctic World blows up.
Max, who is in a cage hanging from the ceiling of Arctic World, convinces the organ grinder’s monkey to bring him the keys. He escapes the cage but then Catwoman arrives. Then Batman arrives. Batman talks about their duality and takes off his cowl. She scratches him. Max pulls out a gun. Selina counts how many lives she has left and Max shoots her five times. She still has two lives so grabs an overhead electrical cable and puts the taser from earlier between her mouth and his. There is an explosion of electricity and smoke. Penguin arises from the water, which he had earlier turned into a toxic pool using Max’s chemicals. He stumbles around for a bit and collapses. Six penguins escort him back into the pool. Batman/Bruce watch the tragic denouement.
The next night or six months later, Bruce and Alfred are cruising downtown Gotham in the Wayne limo. As they pass an alley Bruce catches a glimpse of movement. He gets out to investigate. A black cat emerges from the shadows. Bruce lifts up the cat and carries it into the limo. They drive off. The Bat-signal lights up the night sky. The back of a latex-costumed head appears staring up at the signal.