Jim Hegarty (Talljim)

Batman Returns (1992)

Second on my list of Batman movies to blog (or live blog in a way) is 1992’s Batman Returns. The movie stars Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny Devito and Christopher Walken. 

My initial thoughts: This always struck me as a Tim Burton movie that Batman happened to be a character in. I like it more than I did other Batman movies, but it was cause those were terrible. Let’s get to it.

• Paul ‘Pee Wee Herman’ Reubens is the first face we see as the father of a hideous baby not worth keeping. Great start to a movie, this could actually be used as the opening scene for the movie The Goonies, and have the baby found by the Fratellis instead of a bunch of penguins.
• Sure, have a drink, then toss your kid into the river, it’s not like you didn’t just give birth. It’s already eating cats, that baby is the devil for sure.
• This is a lot of floating by a wicker baby carriage.

• Shh there is a tree lighting. 
• Hi Alfred, it is good that you are skeptical of such tabloid trash, but there is a flipper man below you and a meglo-maniacal business man high above you. 
• Max Shrek is looking to build a ridiculous ‘power plant’ and politics is his game.
• Michelle Pfeiffer is good at bumbling and awkward, but the glasses and hair pulled back aren’t hiding anything. 
• Tim Burton movies are never sure what time period their characters are supposed to dress in. 

• Bet those presents that Max just threw are empty boxes. 
• Oh no, Max forgot his speech. Time to see if those improv classes were worth all that money. 
• What is going on with that giant present? What’s inside? Mayhem? Yes. 

• Turn on the Bat signal of course. 
• Bruce Wayne is of course sitting alone in his study waiting for the signal, as any good crime fighter would do. At least a half hour outside the city.

• Chip Shreck is honorable, but an idiot.
• Setting a teddy bear on fire, good call random henchman.
• Batman won’t shoot anyone, but he will set them on fire with the jet engine in his car?

• ‘You missed’. That was in one of the commercials I believe. Took the fun out of that scene. 
• Now Selina Kyle is left to deal with an unconscious hoodlum. So she tasers him of course.
• Why is Batman just walking through the street talking with the Mayor and Commissioner Gordon?
• Good thing Max Shrek stood right on that specific spot to catch his breath or The Penguin would never have gotten him into the sewers.

• Cut to : THE ZOO. This I am bored with in movies, where the hideout has to be an overblown setting that is somehow connected to the villian’s theme. 
• Oh, Danny Devito looks awful. 
• Some people look at hipsters just like Max is currently looking at all of The Penguin’s gang. 
• God this scene is long, it is trying to cover so much ground. Give us the Penguin’s backstory or Max Shrek’s, but not both. 
• Do they have a deal? Of course, otherwise it would be a very short movie.

• An all pink apartment, they are trying really hard to make me not want to have sex with Michelle Pfeiffer yet, not hard enough though. Still super hot. 
• Lowly assistant. 
• Who is that guy who turns her down? You are an idiot sir.
• What the hell does Gotham Lady perfume have to do with anything?
• P.S. Selina, you forgot the Bruce Wayne file at work.

• Shrek kills Kyle, I now hate him. Oh wait she is weird and sexy now? All is forgiven.
• ‘It’s not like you can just kill me’. Now you put the idea in his head. 
• This is a pretty lame origin. Cats lick her while she is unconscious? Bet they hid a lot of fish on Ms. Pfeiffer to get them to hang around.
• I am ready for hot Selina. But first a seizure.

• You look a mess. Definitely a concussion. Minimum.
• You’re spilling milk everywhere. Your mom sounds overbearing. 
• Here comes a stuffed animal massacre. 
• Good thing she just happened to have black spray paint.
• Note to anyone who pushes someone out the window: They don’t usually get sexier. They end up with headaches and vision problems.

• Here comes a criminal to steal the mayor’s baby. Good thing ‘The hideous Penguin man’ was there to stop the guy who clearly looks to be in cahoots with him.
• Batman once again sitting around his house, not fighting crime. Be a little proactive Bruce. 
• He is suspect of The Penguin, nay Oswald Cobblepot. Understandable, the guy is a first class weirdo. That speech by Max Shreck about ignoring the Constitution and the right to find your parents annoys me. 
• Shiny flipper talk. Must everything be shot on a set in this movie. I haven’t seen anything that is outside since I sat down to watch this movie.

• Catwoman stops a rape, then backflips away.  Top that.
• Max Shreck and Bruce Wayne meet, clearly Wayne is suspect of Shreck. May I just call him Donald Trump for the rest of this blog? Please, I keep wanting to.
• Selina’s back and she is sassier than before. Wayne wants to stick it to her. 
• Let some cats lick you and rich billionaires will want to have sex with. That is the moral of this movie. 
• So Cobblepot’s gang just sits in the corner while he works? I want that gig. I doubt there are benefits, but I don’t want to have to apply myself.

• Oswald is reacting to that fish like Bruce Wayne was just reacting to Selina Kyle.
• Cobblepot is the Newt Gingrich of Gotham politics.
• Hey look, it’s Jan Hooks. Things are looking up for this mov- Oh damn, he just bit that guys nose.
• Batman is street fighting messed up circus performers. 
• That bat-a-rang was up by everyone’s face, how did that dog jump up and get it. Calling bullshit.
• ‘I don’t know whether to open fire, or fall in love’. Mistake. Bye bye rent-a-cops, you were present.
• Once again, Batman won’t use guns. But he will strap a bomb on a guy and toss him down a sewer hole.
• Enter Catwoman. MEOW! KABOOM!
• It’s ok to punch a woman Batman. Learn that quick.
• Check with your city, see how often trucks full of kitty litter drive open topped through your town and see how much that scene was BS.
• Catwoman shows up and wants to destroy the Batman. How does The Penguin has blueprints for the Batmobile? Explain it or I’m checking out. 
• Don’t eat his bird, he won’t kill your cat. Deal?
• She actually gives herself a bath, that part just weirds me out. She isn’t actually a cat, she probably has a brain injury.

• Bruce and Selina just want to fuck each other, but they are both too messed up to make a good couple. 
• Bruce just invited her his house to watch TV. This Batman watches too much TV.
• That is the dumbest woman in the world that thought that Bat-A-Rang was a camera. She probably would have went willingly. You don’t need to throw it at her.

• That was the laziest explanation of why Vicki Vale isn’t around for the sequel. She didn’t understand that he was Batman. She got sick of you being a weirdo Bruce. 
• And now they are making out. That was pretty quick. 
• They have to hide their injuries from each other. 
• Alfred comes to the rescue and they are off to dress up like crazy people. 

• Batman is in Gotham doing what, I am not sure. But they do get that chance to rewire his car. 
• Gotta go, girl talk. This script is heavy on bad dialogue. That is what all the Batman movies have in spades, terrible dialogue.
• I am going to greatly skip over commenting on this section. The beauty queen falls to her death which switches on the lights. Nuf said.
• Batman’s ride is all jacked up now. It is being controlled by The Penguin in a children’s ride that would sit outside of a supermarket. His ultimate goal with this is to potentially run over pedestrian, specifically an old woman. Criminal mastermind. 
• To escape, the Batmobile must jettison most of itself and turn into a bobsled. It angers me that someone paid these people to write horrible action and plot. 

• Didn’t even lose bladder control? I am sure Batman has pissed himself in that suit once or twice.
• Thanks for pointing out who’s the villain of the movie Alfred. You are an indispensable resource. You want to take the Iron Maiden to the Batcave, or the stairs like always? Stairs it is.
• Time to mess with some audio. Good thing they have a Bat CD player.
• He just scratched a CD like it was a record player. Losing faith humanity.
• Who brought rotten fruit? Oh good, he thought the same thing. 
• Pissed off the mob, time to jump into the river. 
• I like to refer to this as ‘Penguin gets back to his roots’.
• Hey fat clown, bet you’re thinking twice about asking if ‘killing sleeping children’ was a bad idea. Fat clown was sent to a watery grave.

• The only two people at this ball not wearing masks usually wear masks. Clever twist I guess.
• Batman and Catwoman are dancing around the issue, while dancing. Get it. 
• Yikes, a gun. Things just got a lot more serious. Two seconds ago they were going to fuck each other over in bedding.
• Mistletoe line. Oh no, now they have to start fighting. But first, let’s have the floor explode.
• Here comes the Penguin, kind of being a dick about things. 
• Why is he telling all these people his plans? He needs to shut up. 
• The mayor is dressed up like a guy stabbed in the back. I like that little touch.
• Get in the duck Max. While no one does anything to help you. Kind of makes you realize that you are not liked, you are just rich.

• Batman has to put all of those children back. That will probably take him a while. Time for Penguin to make a speech to a bunch of Penguins, animals that don’t know what the hell he is saying. Once again, terrible writing.
• FYI Batman has armored penguin tracking technology.
• That woman making the announcements sounds like a drab bitch. 
• Almost time to jam frequency. Hold. Hold. Hold. There we go. Frequency Jammed.
• Back to the zoo.

• The timing of that collision is what I find a bit iffy. Chopped it’s head clean off. Reminds me of when the batwing crashed in the last movie. 
• Penguins fire at The Penguin. How poetic.
• If I wanted to see miniatures explode I would get firecrackers and set them off in my sister’s doll house. This just looks fake. 
• Max Shrek tricked that monkey. I bet he is pretty proud of himself. 
• Oh, no header into the gross water. Look, it’s fat clown from before. 
• Selina looks like a mess. Not her brightest moment. Bruce still wants to be with her. It’s cause they haven’t fucked yet. It’s all speculative right now. 
• She’s fired? Then you shoot her. 
• You are telling me she actually has 9 lives? Nope, not buying it. 
• Now she is gone and she left behind the charred skeleton from the first Batman movie with a Max Shrek wig on it. 

• Pretty sure The Penguin just said ‘Shit. I picked the cute one.’
• Penguin procession about to happen. Sad, if he wasn’t a complete douche bag. And those clearly weren’t children in those suits.
• Alfred is there to console Bruce. Sorry pal, women be crazy. 
• ‘Catwoman ruined my life and all I got was this stupid cat’. 
• So no other cars drive around Gotham at night, just Alfred Pennyworth at the wheel?

Still just how I remember it. Not terrible, but definitely embedded in Tim Burton’s world and the early 90’s. Dialogue was especially irritating. The Batcave was better, though shoot at least a frame or two outside during the day for pete’s sake.