A sequel is a tricky thing.  What do you do?  Make a carbon copy of the original or be even more ambitious.  For the sequel to the mega hit Batman, Warner Brothers had no choice but to do the later (unless they were willing to give Jack Nicholson over $100 million).  So what did they do?  Have two villains instead of one, make the sets and action more elaborate,  focus more on the psychological effects on Bruce Wayne’s personality, and have a more developed female character.  I still remember as a 13 year old being ecstatic for the release and even went to see the film during a family trip.  So the studio was confident that they had all the ingredients for another mammoth hit.

When we last seen Gotham City, we witnessed the demise of the Joker and a hopeful optimism that the city may finally have a promising future.  However, the city and the caped crusader now have a new nemesis in a freakish figure the Penguin who is just as diabolical.  His forays into crime and his backstory of being orphan bring the attention of an ambitious business tycoon, Max Schreck.  Schreck encourages the villain to make a run for mayor and offers his support in a bid to gain more power over the city.  However Schreck is also responsible for many illegal business dealings which were discovered by his secretary Selina Kyle.  Max responds by attempting to kill her by throwing her out of a window of his headquarters, but she miraculously survives and begins to undergo changes that ultimately lead her to become her alter ego Catwoman.

Bruce Wayne meanwhile meets Selina and is enthralled by her new confidence and her personality.  Little do they know that their alto egos will soon clash as Catwoman and the Penguin form an alliance in an effort to get eliminate Batman.  They decide to frame him in the kidnapping of Gotham City’s Ice Princess and paints him as a public menace to the city.  Batman eventually escapes and soon destroys the Penguin’s candidacy for mayor.  As Bruce and Selina’s relationship grows more intense, they soon discover that they are Batman and Catwoman respectively.  This leads to a final showdown, as Batman has to also thwart the Penguin’s master plan of his destruction of Gotham City.

This is a film that despite it’s best intentions, doesn’t come close in capturing what made the original so good.  Michael Keaton’s performance as Bruce Wayne, one of the best parts of the first film, is surprisingly very lethargic.  His charm and comic timing are absent and in an attempt to make him more serious and intense, make him wooden and stiff.  Also, while replacing Nicholson was next to impossible, the Penguin is one of most unappealing, grotesque villains ever in a comic book based film.  Danny DeVito’s performance doesn’t help either, as he is either quacking or snarling in an attempt at charisma.  .

Michelle Pfeiffer is very good as Catwoman, but she’s somewhat wasted.  Her mix of fierce intensity and sensuality perfectly captures the persona of this complex character  While her character is a big improvement over Vicki Vale, she is overshadowed by the other two villains in the film.  She is hampered not only by DeVito and but also by the unnecessary addition of Max Shreck as another antagonist in the film.  Christopher Walken is usually great, but in this film he’s just going through the motions with a huge wig.  The film should’ve just relied on Catwoman and not have her anchored down by the other characters.  Her transformation and her love/hate attraction to both Bruce Wayne and Batman would’ve been more interesting and revealing if it had more focus and attention.

Tim Burton’s ambition was another hinderance in the film.  As much as I like the look and the dark setting of the original film, Burton goes overboard in the sequel.  There’s nothing happy or cheerful in the film.  It was almost as if there was an unofficial quota on how much sunlight should be used in the film.  Also using circus performers as henchmen is a little nightmarish and bizarre. The action sequences aren’t very fun to watch and the encounters between Batman and Penguin don’t have any chemistry and flow.  The romance between Selina Kyle and Bruce potentially could’ve been ok, with Keaton and Pfeiffer having some good moments together, but their scenes seemed rushed and thrown in just so we get to the big climax in the end.  Not much care was taken to the screenplay.

The film also lacks humor and any sense of fun and joy.  It has an overabundance of dark moments and seriousness that casts a shadow over the film.  The nightmarish flashbacks of the Penguin being abandoned as a baby and adopted by penguins is actually a well shoot sequence, but it perfectly illustrates the point.  Nothing was done to balance it out.  Humor could’ve been used for the mayoral campaign, Selina’s transformation, or even on Walken’s wig, but it wasn’t.  For an action film to be good, there has to be some fun in the film and this has zero.  There aren’t any good messages or themes either, with all the characters being flawed or scarred without any sense of redemption.

It’s a very disappointing film that wasted a great performance from Pfeiffer and another good score from Danny Elfman.  The creators of this film seemed so hell bent on doing an important film that they forgot they were supposed to do an entertaining film.  Nothing wrong for attempting to make a film that is dark, but it has to include interesting characters,  dilemmas and issues that we can relate to, and most importantly, great action.  This film scores low on all three categories and apparently not many people yearn for this film since it’s barely even on a television.  Maybe Jack Nicholson should’ve been given more credit for the success of the original and he would’ve made the sequel a better film.  Then again based on the absence of fun and humor of Batman Returns, even Nicholson wouldn’t be able to save this film.

Brian Rating 3/10