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Batman Returns turned 30 a few days ago. Any thoughts?
I’m increasingly convinced it’s Burton’s best. So dark but so camp, so grim but so empathetic, so melodramtic but so sincere, so disgusting but so sexy… it’s a million contradictory things at once and there’s nothing else like it.
It obviously goes without saying that Elfman’s score is a masterpiece 😉
It’s indeed one of Burton bests, although I still have a “sweeter” spot for Edward and Ed Wood. What a run these two had in the 90s, it’s crazy. I know people like to diminish Burton’s past work because of his recent one but that is certainly unfair, he directed several masterpieces in a row. Not that many directors achieved in their career what he did back then.
Batman Returns is still the best Batman film for me (not a fan of Nolan’s work) and certainly the kind of superheroes movie you can’t make anymore. Burton went full Burton in a way that Marvel would never agree to.
As you say, it’s a film about a million things and it achieves almost all of them.
And the music is one of Elfman’s best indeed. It’s one of these scores with 0 filler.
Needless to say, I love BATMAN RETURNS as well. I have the alternate poster (the one with the full-body Catwoman and penguin with his umbrella) framed, though it’s not hanging anywhere at the moment. Times have changed!
I can still recall listening to the cassette back then. “The Children’s Hour” opened Side B.
Batman was never the same after RETURNS and I have grown less interested with each version (lots of great music in some of them, however.)
Ohhhh Batman Returns…
Probably one of my favorite movies ever. Made me realize how I loved Christmas, and how I loved dark Christmas movies. And at the time, I only owned two scores : Hook, and Batman Returns. And thought it was normal for a movie to have so many different amazing themes. I don’t think many movies have such a wide variety of beautiful, memorable melodic themes.Yeah, when you’ve been fed 80/90s composers music all your childhood, it’s hard to make the newer generations understand that most of the current scores sound poor in comparison. Hook and Batman Returns are filled with amazing themes and even sometimes with motives that would serve as great themes too.
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