Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageBatman Returns (1992)
Director: Tim Burton
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Bigger, louder, more relentlessly action-packed than its predecessor, Batman Returns batters its audience into submission. The main problems are both the lack of story and the wealth of superfluous detail in the dialogue that is sometimes barely intelligible. Precisely what the villains - Catwoman (Pfeiffer), the Penguin (DeVito) and property developer Max Shreck (Walken) - are up to, and why, is often unclear, save that they are all on some sort of power trip. Catwoman's schizophrenia, never properly explored, seems a scriptwriter's cop-out; the Penguin is merely vengeful for being consigned to the sewers at birth; and Shreck is simply a corrupt, murderous tycoon posing as Gotham's leading philanthropist. Even the epically conceived and impressively executed set pieces become wearisome after a while. If you're satisfied with stars in funny costumes playing shallow characters involved in an obscure battle to the death, fine; but if huge sets, special effects and a blaring score are not enough, it's a long haul.Author: GA
User reviews of this film
-
- Matthew Field said...
- Posted on Aug 29 2008 08:20 Dark and Macabre, This is Tim Burtons definitive vision of the Dark Knight. A little shallow still on Batman's character side, but otherwise brilliant.
- Report as inappropriate
Cast & crew
Director: Tim Burton
Producer: Denise DiNovi, Tim Burton
Cast: Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Christopher Walken, Michael Gough, Michael Murphy, Cristi Conaway, Andrew Bryniarski, Pat Hingle, Vincent Schiavelli full cast
Genre(s): Fantasy
Duration: 127 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Review: Penélope Cruz more raunchy than ever in 'Nine'
Dave Calhoun reports on Rob Marshall's Oscar-touted musical with Daniel Day-Lewis playing a troubled director
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Jim Jarmusch on 'The Limits of Control'
Jim Jarmusch has followed ‘Broken Flowers’ with an esoteric crime mystery. Dave Calhoun speaks to him from his New York office
Richard Linklater on 'Me and Orson Welles'
Dave Calhoun meets the 49-year-old, Houston-born filmmaker Richard Linklater to discuss his new comedy
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now