Batman returns with the biggest ever weekend gross in the US while having to confront a very successful predecessor. With Tim Burton at the helm, the Dark Knight never looked this good

Behind all the hype that surrounds this movie, the details, the budget, the stars and the whips, hides a simple truth that's not clear unless you watch the film for yourselves. If the original film was 70% Warner and 30% Tim Burton, in this second instalment the analogy is reversed. Batman Returns is much closer to the vision that Tim Burton has about cinema. The first sequence, that of the Penguin's birth, makes things clear. The uncanny fantasy world of the first film is enriched with elements from Edward Scissorhands. The sets became darker, gothic, almost oppressive and Danny Elfman's music brings Burton's previous films to mind.

Gotham City is imposing and colourless, covered in snow and its central plaza brings Fritz Langs's Metropolis to mind. German Expressionism? Yes, and we don't stop here. Danny De Vito's Penguin is nothing more than a monster like Nosferatu, an evil scientist a-la Caligari and a murderer of children a-la M. However, above all, he is nothing more than just another wounded human being, a ''different'' person that is labelled as a ''monster'' by society and that his own parents abandoned with no remorse. His psychological traumas are as deep as Batman/ Wayne's. The lack of parents plays a significant part in their disturbed psyche. The Penguin however, unlike Wayne, is an outcast, doomed to live hidden from the people. He doesn't have the physical appearance required to be accepted in the human pack. And when something like that happens, he is nothing more than a ''freak show'', a weird spectacle. The Penguin's villainy originates from this rejection, and that makes his character tragic. While Joker was nothing more than a prankster with a couple of clever quotes up his sleeve, the Penguin carries a hell inside of him.

As for the central hero, it's weird, but in the very essence he's just a supporting character. He's certainly darker reflecting the overall tone of the film (he kills some thugs and pushes Catwoman to one of her deaths), but certainly his presence is not dominant. Burton chooses to focus not on the action scenes featuring Batman, but on the depression and the uncanny nature of the characters. The ''Uncanny'' that was always a part of his work, only this time unlike Batman 1989 he had the final word on everything and he changed the script at his will. The story seems at times incoherent and full of holes, and it's perhaps Burton's fault since he was the one that insisted on constant changes. Some plot elements lead to nowhere, but all can be forgiven easily next to the visual magnificence of the film and they are just a small price paid for Burton's much more intriguing take on the Batman myth. Well, he replaced the comical Joker with the scary and tragic Penguin, the cardboard Vicky Vale with the flesh'n blood Catwoman and he turned the biggest blockbuster of the year into a festivity of cynicism and pessimism (the good guys win, but a price has to be paid), we can easily forgive some mistakes.

George Krassakopoulos, Cinema Magazine Greece, Issue 27, November 1992