deirdre
Senior Member
i was watching Batman Returns with danny devito as the penguin earlier today. (it was horrible, not a recommended watch!)Whoops, there's synchronicity again. I was just thinking about penguins (seriously) in the moments before I read your post. And no, I don't go around thinking about penguins all the time...
JMartJr
Senior Member.
When I saw it in the theaters on its first run, I thought it was an amazing film. Based on a more recent re-watching, I incline more to your point of view.
deirdre
Senior Member
that's how i remembered it too. i was very very wrong lol.
maybe when people don't understand the concept of memory distorting over the years, we can suggest they rewatch this movie!
JMartJr
Senior Member.
Some of y'all are pretty good at "image stabiization" in various threads here -- but this guy has you beat!
Source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OZzltvah670?feature=share
Source: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OZzltvah670?feature=share
NorCal Dave
Senior Member.
Really? I must admit, I haven't seen it in years, but I always found, at least the first 2, Tim Burton takes enjoyable. Yes, they're a bit goofy, but it's Tim Burton, the guy behind the comical movies PeeWee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice, doing a film(s) about a comic book character.
Micheal Keaton, even though being the titular character, took a back seat to Jack Nicholson in the first and then to Danny Devito, Christopher Walken and Michelle Pfifer in Batman Returns, because Batman is part of the story, not THE story. Remember, that for most of us at the time, Batman was the overly campy Adam West TV series, which often included numerous cameos and guest stars (sorta guest stars at the TV level at least). Burton pays homage to this with an ensemble cast of known stars all tangled together.
Like in Peewee's Big Adventure, Burton walks the line between comical and seriousness. Peewee is a ridiculous man-child, but Rubens always plays him straight. Likewise, in Batman Returns things like penguins with rocket launchers are silly, but it's all played in a serious tone. Just like a comic book. Serious and silly at the same time. And by silly I don't mean the overly meta way modern films, especially comic based ones, engage in, where the characters and we the audience is all in on the joke. We saw the penguins as silly, Batman didn't, because he lives in a comic book world, not ours. As opposed to modern films where we all go to a comic book world where all know it's just a comic book world, including the characters.
The Dark Knight was entertaining but as they more modern film progressed in their evermore dark and nihilistic spiral where the Joker wasn't just the embodiment of all evil, he was nearly unstoppable, I stopped caring. While I grew up a Marvel comics kid, the Burton Batman films made me reconsider. The Nolan films just left me depressed.
Sorry to ramble.
JMartJr
Senior Member.
I was a big fan of early Burton, and watched what I see as his decline into self parody (heterodyning with the similar decline of his frequent star, Johnny "More White Pancake Makeup Dammit!" Depp) with sadness. But when they were good, they were very very good.
I enjoyed and still rewatch the first Burton "Batman" from time to time. It has in my opinion held up very well. The first time I saw the sequel, it seemed to be an interestingly darker and more serious exploration of the autobiographical stuff the permeates Burton films, for better or worse. On reviewing more recently, so much of he dark/violent/gross stuff just felt gratuitous. I think, in retrospect, the attempt to "up the ante" and raise the stakes by having not one but TWO (count 'em, two!) villains was a mistake. There was a potentially decent movie about Batman and Cat Woman, as the character, and a potentially fascinating movie about DeVito's Penguin -- but cramming them both into one film left them both feeling starved of screen time needed to tell their story, and how it impacted Batman.
(That did not seem to me to be the problem with, say, the Riddler/Two Face film with Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones in an epic scenery-chewing contest) since neither character suggested there were depths that required more exploring and character facets that needed more time to examine -- they were just there for goofy, over the top fun, and though the movie does not get a lot of love I think it delivered the "just pull out all the stops" wild over the top fun that they seemed to be going for.)
Obviously Burton's film has not changed over the years, the change is in me. Maybe as an old guy I just don't like the grosser elements of the movie any more, or maybe the many, many, many subsequent "darker = better" superhero movies have made the approach seem trite, boring and irritating. Or maybe my tastes have just gotten better (or at least, different.)
But for whatever reason, it is not a movie I enjoyed on re-watching.
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