Two Batmen, two vengeful women, one outright masterpiece.
Every week from now untilThe Batmanhits theaters, we’re watching Batman’s theatrical films in chronological order.
This week: Tim Burton’s 1992 sequel, and anAnimatedshowcase.
Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Keaton in ‘Batman Returns’.Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock
Last week:Joker’s avant-garde new aesthetic.
See you next Waynesday, when the nipples arrive.
The unwanted child floats through a sewer to find new life among, like, penguins.
Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer) in ‘Batman Returns,’ Andrea Beaumont (Dana Delany) in ‘Batman: Mask of the Phantasm’.Warner Bros.(2)
“I mean, killing sleeping children?”
asks one of his minions.
“Isn’t that a little… “NO,” the bird man says, “IT’S A LOT!!!!”
‘Batman: Mask of the Phantasm’.Everett Collection
He’s a rich orphan because mommy and daddy didn’t want him.
But every fairy tale was fractured before Disney invented happy endings.
Nobody walks away happy inBatman Returns.
And there’s never been a better one, yet.
Consider the two big scenes with Selina Kyle (Michelle Pfeiffer) alone in her apartment.
Yet before she goes feline, her genial self-loathing would fit in any thirtysomething dramcom.
Her best pal is a stray cat known for exotic “sexual escapades.”
Some rando boyfriend breaks up with her via answering machine.
The metro’s loud outside her window.
Dry cleaning hangs off doorknobs.
She calls herself a “working girl,” and I guess you could critiqueReturnsfor ambient spinster imagery.
I don’t think Selina is lonely because she needs a man, though.
She’s lonely because the city is cruel.
(Think Audrey Hepburn but Fritz Lang.)
This was the last time production designer Bo Welch worked withTim Burton, afterBeetlejuiceandEdward Scissorhands.
When she breaks everything in her place, it’s a redemptive act of violence.
She seems to be fighting back.
Some days, you just gotta stick your dolls down the garbage disposal.
There’s more going on in those sequences than in whole multiverses of superhero saga.
And what a swirling plot!
He’s a predatory monster boss even before he pushes Selina out a window.
Shreck partners with the Penguin because he needs a new Mayor.
That’s right: Batman, the lucky goon, is in this movie!
That means two narrative equals are clashing when Batman meets Catwoman.
He barely knows what to make of her vampy femme fatale act.
She massages his body armor.
A smile crosses his face.
Waters also wroteHeathers, and he allegedly gaveDemolition Manits demented satire.
The director was at his best here, confidently composing his singular vision.
Penguin and Catwoman scarcely resemble their source material.
Shreck’s an explicitNosferatuhomage.
There’s an election subplot that no longer seems unlikely.
(There are, I admit, too many press conferences.)
The snappy dialogue zings, and can cut to the bone.
But it’s human nature to fear the unusual.
But I forgive them.
DeVito is on another level.
He’s giving us Shakespeare and Maury Povich.
“They freaked”: I have to pause every time from laughing.
DeVito and Pfeiffer are both zipped and stitched and glued.
He’s the obvious creature, yet Pfeiffer’s equally unhinged.
I mean, not complete amnesia.
He’s dead now.
Couldn’t you just die?
Pfeiffer is playing five levels I can count.
Somehow this fascinates Bruce, the one person in the room with no idea what is going on.
That confusion is crucial.
Do you know how many times Catwoman getsshotbybullets?
Did I mention all the kidkilling chat?
How grind-y can Batman and Catwoman get?
Don’t children deserve to get their minds blown?
And aren’t young people better prepared to question authority?
The guy with Christ coding is a phony hero the dumb public loves.
The real protagonists are lonely weirdoes whose mutual emotional damage does not miraculously heal each other.
It’s notable, I think, that Batman’s biggest moment in the action-packed climax is non-violent revelation.
He removes his mask to show Selina his truth and then gets knocked unconscious for the grand finale.
it’s possible for you to’t depend on any of these guys.
Catwoman has to set the night on fire.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasmarrived one year later.
They knew precisely what retro-future landscape they wanted to patrol.
This Gotham has casino parking on top of a skyscraper.
These gangsters sound pre-Godfather.
Joker (Mark Hamill) wields proprietary missile technology.
The most contemporary thing aboutPhantasmis Phantasm, though nobody ever calls her that.
The masked mobster-killer has a hockey-looking facemask: very genre-trendy, think Jason Voorhees or Casey Jones.
Her cape is ripped like Cobain’s jeans.
That’s right, “her.
“Phantasm’s biggest spoiler is, frustratingly, the coolest thing by a mile.
Flashbacks reveal a secret Chapter 0.7 in Batman’s origin story.
Andrea was the great love who nearly derailed his lifetime of crimefighting.
He gave her an engagement ring; she ran off to Europe.
The identity of Phantasm should be a big mystery, with lots of likely suspects.
But there are like four characters.
Too bad.Phantasmexudes a calm no other Batman movie even attempts.
There is time for Andrea to fend off advances from corrupt councilman Reeves (Hart Bochner).
Alfred (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) has some quiet chats with Master Bruce.
Joker doesn’t even appear until the halfway point.
It’s an impressive act of stylistic fence-sitting.
I prefer brazen commitment, I guess.
Give me the mind-controlled missile penguins, unfiltered!
That little-bit-of-everything problem definesPhantasm’s first two acts.
Pause to imagine Selina Kyle hearing that line on her answering machine.
The last 15 minutes are killer, though, once all the secrets are out.
“Look what they did to us!”
Andrea screams at Bruce in the final setpiece.
“What we could have had!”
Conroy makes his Bruce sound desperate, even pitiful.
He’s still got that old moral timidity.
He doesn’t want Andrea to kill; he doesn’t want Joker to die!
Whereas Andrea barely seems to care about her own life anymore.
Something special was in the Gotham air in the early ’90s.
Righteously mad women kept committing murder-suicide rituals to slay the monsters who made them monsters.
Their Batmen could not help them.
Their Batmen just watched.
