Thirty years ago, audiences came out in droves to see an over-the-top political satire about the mayoral campaign of a disgusting sewer mutant – a movie that also doubled as an oddball romantic comedy about two weirdos with mask fetishes, trading blows and spit in a snowglobe metropolis. Hindsight has a way of turning every box-office sensation into a curious time capsule, letting us gawk at the strange attractions that used to put butts in seats. But through the lens of the modern blockbuster machine, and the reigning superhero-industrial complex that powers it, Batman Returns looks like a true anomaly, as weird and horny and maybe personal as mega-budget Hollywood spectacles get.
It’s certainly a more idiosyncratic movie than its predecessor, Tim Burton’s record-breaking popcorn sensation Batman, released to teeming, cheering crowds in the summer of 1989. To lure Burton back to the world of the caped crusader, Warner Bros had to offer him greater creative control over the sequel. The director exercised it from top to bottom. In place of the original’s art deco noir aesthetic, Batman Returns goes full baroque fairytale. When the camera swoops like a creature of the night through the twisted architecture of the Gotham Zoo, it’s clear we’re fully in Burtonville, previous home to wisecracking prankster apparitions and lonely hairdressing androids.
