Batman Returns (1992)

USA, 126 minutes

Director: Tim Burton

Writers: Bob Kane, Daniel Waters, Sam Hamm

Photography: Stefan Czapsky

Music: Danny Elfman

Editors: Bob Badami, Chris Lebenzon

Cast: Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Michael Gough, Michael Murphy, Cristi Conaway, Pat Hingle, Paul Reubens, Andrew Bryniarsky

Director Tim Burton’s sequel to his first Batman movie makes it more obvious how much even that picture was attempting to split the difference between the campy ‘60s TV version and Frank Miller’s ‘80s reimagining of the caped crusader as a grizzled vigilante and sadistic mental case. The production design and some elements of the story lean hard into the latter but then there is Jack Nicholson taking top billing and slobbering all over the set in whooping cocaine-addled fugue states. Soundtrack by Prince. We might have thought the 1989 Batman worked, to the extent it did, because we wanted so badly the kind of Batman movie it took nearly 20 years to get. “We” meaning fans of the Frank Miller version, which I adored in the ‘80s.

Batman Returns is more like return of the camp. Casting Pee Wee Herman in the prologue as the Penguin’s father kind of gives away the game, as do casting Danny DeVito as the Penguin (who prefers to go by his given name, Oswald Cobblepot) and Christopher Walken (wearing a helmet of white hair) as Max Shreck, Gotham City’s power company tycoon implementing a dastardly scheme. Michelle Pfeiffer as Selina Kyle, who becomes the Catwoman, is another case. We’ll get to that. Early in the picture, when she is still a meek stammering secretary to Max, Batman rescues her from an assault. “Wow,” she says. “The Batman. Or is it just Batman?” The very question! So meta! “Batman” is in the tradition of the ‘50s and ‘60s comic book version leading into the TV show, whereas “the Batman” (subtle distinction!) is the original moniker for the creature of the night (including “the Bat-Man”) which Miller was trying to revive.

Batman (1989)

USA / UK, 126 minutes

Director: Tim Burton

Writers: Bob Kane, Sam Hamm, Warren Skaaren

Photography: Roger Pratt

Music: Danny Elfman, Prince

Editor: Ray Lovejoy

Cast: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Pat Hingle, Billy Dee Williams, Michael Gough, Jack Palance, Jerry Hall, Tracey Walter, Lee Wallace, Hugo Blick

Director Tim Burton’s Batman was not the first Batman movie. Two were made in the 1940s and of course we can’t forget the 1966 extravaganza with Adam West, Burt Ward, Lee Meriwether, Cesar Romero, and all the rest. But this Batman was the first after Frank Miller’s graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, which returned Batman to his vaguely sick and dark creature of the night origins, nursing traumas and taking retribution as he could out of the hides of criminals. Miller’s Batman was not vaguely sick. He was explicitly sick. He needed to be put away, old and bitter and beginning to fail physically, committed only to the vigilante ethic. Compare Marvel’s Punisher.

The Miller treatment turned out to be a big hit. When word came that a movie was being made, it was the kind of Batman we were hoping for. But I don’t believe anyone making a Batman movie has yet matched Miller’s vision. What, you want an NC-17 Batman? Full disclosure, yes, but that’s me and even I know how unlikely it is to happen. Burton was a good enough choice, with his own quirky style that often flirts with the dark side (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Corpse Bride, etc.). The problem was that Burton’s instincts tend equally toward the cartoony and the loony (Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Ed Wood, Mars Attacks!, etc.). It’s not grim enough for the Batman a lot of us were looking for.