When it came time for Warner Bros. to follow up the massive and unexpected success of 1989’s Batman—a film that grossed over $400 million globally on a production cost of under $50 million—the studio knew that it had to go bigger, doubling the budget and having the Caped Crusader face off against two nemeses instead of one. Tim Burton’s Batman Returns (1992) brought back Michael Keaton as the titular vigilante, having him save the streets of Gotham from both The Penguin (Danny DeVito) and Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) at Christmastime. What Warner Bros. didn’t expect was the hotbed of controversy from critics, parents, and even children that hit the intended summer blockbuster.
In a 1992 episode of NBC’s A Closer Look, Faith Daniels interviewed kids who had seen Batman Returns. One of them called it “an attack on children” and another remarked, “I’ve never been scared of a movie like this before.” The popular McDonald’s tie-in campaign was also criticized for luring children to a movie that wasn’t intended for them. The kneejerk response would be to look at this reaction as a precursor to the Satanic Panic that took hold of the ‘90s, with audiences fearing that a latex-clad superhero and fast food mash-up was aimed at indoctrinating kids into developing leather fetishes and terrorizing cities. But what’s most impressive about Burton’s sequel over three decades later is just how potent and pervasive its kinky sexuality and madcap terror truly is.
Burton’s Batman was ultimately a ‘70s vigilante movie updated for the late ‘80s. Prince did the soundtrack, and it was laden with dazzling special effects. It was based on a storied property that had a following with adults and children alike, and could be sold with just a logo. Star power was inconsequential. Although Keaton had teamed up with Burton on Beetlejuice the previous year, he was hardly a marquee name, let alone an action star popular with kids. Yet his everyman quality allowed him to carry on as Bruce Wayne better than his musclebound peers. Batman was everything audiences wanted in the summer of 1989. Even Gene Shalit, everyone’s favorite cranky critic, called it “walloping fun.”
And then, three years later, Burton gave us all Batman Returns, rendering Gotham as a gothic, wintry playground for creepy organ grinders, missile-equipped penguins, and gangs of proto-juggalos that gleefully tear apart the city. It’s a decidedly dark, yet mordantly funny affair. It feels like Burton taking studio money and running with it. The doubled budget is on full display in Bo Welch’s set design and larger, more violent action set-pieces than the ones in its precursor. But what truly sets Batman Returns apart from Batman—and makes its controversy in 1992 feel apt—is just how unapologetically horny it is. Pfeiffer’s Catwoman and DeVito’s Penguin are relentlessly thirsty, flirting with and/or licking everything in sight (even themselves). The histrionic scenery chewing from the two of them, not to mention Christopher Walken’s Max Shreck (I’ll give you two seconds to figure out where that name came from), makes Keaton look dull in comparison. The result is the ideal comic book adaptation. It’s a film that exists out of time and space, plucked from the page of a well worn serial and bearing a winking acknowledgement that it's probably getting something by the censors that’s being ignored for one reason and one reason only: money.
Batman Returns screens tonight, December 23, at IFC Center, and today through December 27 at Low Cinema
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