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List Price: $26.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 37340
Released: February 10, 2009 |
| Our Price: $12.43 |
| Used Price: $5.24 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Gotham City faces two monstrous criminal menaces: the bizarre, sinister Penguin (Danny DeVito) and the slinky, mysterious Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer). Can Batman (Michael Keaton) battle two formidable foes at once? Especially when one wants to be mayor and the other is romantically attracted to Bruce Wayne! Like the groundbreaking 1989 original, Batman Returns is directed by the wizardly Tim Burton. And like the first blockbuster, it's a dazzling adventure that leaves you breathless.
DVD Features:
Documentaries:The Cinematic Saga of Batman, Shadows of the Bat Pt. 4 Beyond Batman Documentary Gallery
Featurette:The Heroes and Villains Profile Galleries
Interviews:The Bat, The Cat, and the Penguin
Music Video:Face to Face by Souixsie and the Bashees
Description of Batman Returns (Two-Disc Special Edition):
The first Batman sequel takes a wicked turn with the villainous exploits of the freakish and mean-spirited Penguin (Danny DeVito), whose criminal collaboration with evil tycoon Max Shreck (Christopher Walken) threatens to drain Gotham City of its energy supply. As if that weren't enough, Batman (Michael Keaton) has his hands full with the vengeful Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), who turns out to be a lot more dangerous than a kitten with a whip. As with the first Batman feature, director Tim Burton brings his distinct visual style to the frantic action, but this time there's a darker malevolence lurking beneath all that extraordinary production design. --Jeff Shannon
Batman Returns (Two-Disc Special Edition) Reviews:
A DARK TRIUMPH, BUT A TRIUMPH NEVERTHELESS 
2009-12-23 - Few things are as difficult in movie Show-biz, as launching a film that demands a sequel, and then producing a sequel feature that is as good or even better than the original, and here, with BATMAN RETURNS, Director Tim Burton pulls it off spectacularly.
Here, in this review I'm recommending the two-disc Special Edition, though I have the show on a DVD tape, only because this movie is one of the very best examples of the comic book hero genre there is, and has never been surpassed. Whatever form you find it in, treasure and enjoy it.
Beginning at the bottom in a list of superlatives, with overall design and set, viewers will find that this is the best expression of that historical Deco or Moderne style prevalent in the late '30s, when the Batman figure debuted. The buildings express the Neo-Nazi worker hero iconography of Rockefeller Center, as you see it even today in architectural sculpture over the doors and in the open spaces -- as well as in the famous lobby ceiling murals. Its a take-off from the Worlds Fair of '33 and the murals and illustrations of Jon Vassos. And Burton's design team nails it, for though it is in color, it feels nightmare black and white, which is the way people dreampt, back then. The vehicles of the heroes, The Batmobile as well as Penguin's Killer Rubber Ducky are like the toys of the period. The period costumes of all the characters are excellent and hotter, even, than those from older movies and strips.
CHRISTOPHER WALKEN: He plays not the principal villain, but an unsavory one, with a brilliant sociopathic timing that cannot be adequately described. In fact, if one were to review all the many villains large and small that Walken has created on screen, one would have to say these freaks and misfits are his professional specialties, and maybe you'd think creating them is easy to do. Not so. Myself, I remember the first time I saw Walken play, in a revival of Tennessee Williams' SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH in New York City, at the Harkness. He played Chance Wayne against Irene Worth's Ariadne del Lago, and the effect was absolutely unconventional and sensational! Originally, the play opened with Paul Newman as the hustler-gigolo, playing against Geraldine Paige as the faded movie queen in the Mississippi Riviera hotel. Young and hugely talented as she was, Paige played it like her version of Gloria Swanson or Pola Negri, with exagerated make-up. Newman played it in white silk pyjamas, unbutoned and flashing that famous washboard belly. It was fabulous! Women went nuts! It was priceless and worth far more than your seat cost. But the flaw in the production was that anybody taking one look at Newman would realize there was no reason on god's green earth why he shouldn't be a movie star, and the play depended on his beig a failed wannabe. But in the revival, Worth played the Princess like an American actress (which she was, though expatriate) with English upper-crust manners over the soul of a gutter opportunist. Perfect! Walken played Chance Wayne like a young Elvis with a greasy pompadour and a Tupelo Mississippi accent, complete with uncouth, redneck mannerisms. It was a triumph of the actor's art. Here, the role is nothing like that, but Walken brings the same unique intelligence and sensitivity to this role, and if you watch his performance whenever hes's on screen, you'll see how extremely good he is at what he does. Always fresh.
MICHAEL KEATON: He is phenomenal, not because he's super-handsome, or has a magnificent body or an arielist's agility, but because he has enough of what's required for the role -- that is, a manly persona -- and one thing extra: generosity and poise. Bruce Wane's ambivalence, sexual frustration and guilt he can and does play, but what's so good about it is that he allows his role to be the fulcrum or balance of the show, allowing his co-stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Danny DeVito to function to their advantage. Secure in his character, he never upstages them. That that's the perfect expression of Bruce's persona: He is a violent nocturnalist, but always a gentleman.
MICHELLE PFEIFFER: This is one of the most beautiful women ever to appear on the screen, and she can and does out-act just about everybody in the Biz, and has for years. Here, her take on Catwoman is so rich, so rare and unusual, she puts all preceding sisters to shame, from Lee Meriwether to Eartha Kitt, to Julie Newmar; not only for sexual desirability and believability, but for pure psychotic nymphomania. And, she does it with a look that's perfect for the period, with a head topped by a cluster of blonde curls, and wearing a slinky black dress. Madonna used it in Dick Tracy. Dietrich used it in Pittsburg. But, on top of all that, it is her transformation from frowsy, cringing secretarial doormat to snarling pyromaniac in stiched black vinyl that takes the cake. It is a performance searing in its twisted, pathetic truth.
DANNY De VITO: This is an actor who's been around the block for a long time. He's given many performances on film, and most of them have been good to exceptional, but he's never had the opportunity to reach for the brass ring of screen monsterdom, and here, in BATMAN RETURNS, Tim Burton gives him the opportunity. And, I must warn you, whether or not you have seen De Vito play it, with PENGUIN or Oswald Cobblepot, Danny De Vito achieves a quality of work equal to that of Conrad Veidt, Charles Laughton or even Lon Cheney, Sr. The peaks and valleys of his frenzies, his manias and perverse lusts, his outbreaks of mindless violent malice, are a sight to behold, simultaneously hilarious and hideous; both pathetic and loathsome. You might think, 'overacting,' but no; its pure Method. Watching BATMAN RETURNS yet again I believe that Burton created this film for De Vito. As good as the other actors in the cast are, and they are excellent, it is impossible to imagine any actor playing this role even remotely as well as De Vito does. It makes you think, if the man could sing, what a RIGOLETTO he would be!
And that brings us down to what there is about the BATMAN opera that makes them unique. More than anything else, this is a set of ensemble pieces like a Hell's Kitchen series of American comedia del'Arte morality plays. The vitality of the show derives from the rigid confines of its convention. Sure, ambitious directors, often foreigners, attempt to pull and stretch the animated figures, to stuff them with fadistic pseudo-psychological theories of their own, but they don't work. The BATMAN shows sprang into life as action fantasies for American pre-teen boys during the years of the Second World War and are thrilling not because they are psychologically plausible -- they're not -- but because they transcend reality the way the marionettes of Palermo do when they re-enact the adventures of Frankish knights struggling against the Saracens before the walls of Jerusalem.
At any rate, take my advice and give yourself the opportunity to watch the great Danny De Vito play. He is as fascinating as Milton's Satan.
More of a Tim Burton movie 8/10 part 2 on Batman Returns Blu Ray IMPORT 
2009-12-07 - Batman Returns is more of a Tim Burton movie than a Batman movie it is a good sequel you still had Micheal Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman Pat Hingle stuck around to play Gordon again Micheal Gough reprised his role as Alfred you had really good villains Danny DeVito as the Penguin Michelle Pfifer as Catwoman/Selina Kyle & Christopher Walken as Max Shreck. Ok we start off with Penguin who is thrown into a river when he was a baby he arises 33 years later & has plans to use Max Shreck for his agenda Shreck has his own plans for a power plant Shreck is captured & Penguin & Shreck begin to work together Shreck's is to get Gotham's unpopular Mayor recalled so Penguin under his real name Oswald Cobblepot to run for Mayor so Shreck can control the city. Penguin tells everybody that he is trying to find who his parents were & his birthname Bruce Wayne sees more to it while investigating the Red Triangle circus & missing & killed children. Selina Kyle is killed by Max Shreck when he finds her going through his files.
The Bat, The Cat and The Penguin
2009-09-30 - Burton's sequel is as good as the first but darker. Amazing how people complain that this film was too dark (so dark that due to protest from parents, McDonald's pulled out of a Happy Meal promotion for it). But nowadays, we commend the very dark aspects of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Both of which don't even have a sense of humor about them while this does, though dark. Returns is not a movie that I would let the kids watch (if I had any, but I'd let them watch it over any piece of garbage that Disney puts out or these very low-class comedies), as this, the first film and the two newer ones show that Batman isn't a film meant for the whole family like the Marvel films (except Punisher) or the Superman films. There were complaints of Batman killing people (the Strongman imparticular) but if people knew the history of the character, they'd know that Batman killed quite a lot back in the day. But enough of that rant. Keaton is again excellent as Batman and also gets a little more screen time as Bruce. Danny DeVito, to me, seemed an odd choice for the Penguin but for this interpretation, it fits him. I actually like his version and I don't think its a disturbing portrayal. People cry out for a serious interpretation of these characters over the campy 60s series and when they get a serious one, they complain because its too dark. Just a thought though; are the people of the city so stupid as to elect someone without any real political background to become mayor or does present day life really imitate art? Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman, though not my favorite, suits the mood of the film. She's out for revenge against the man who "killed" her and Batman but she feels attracted to him. The end scene between Catwoman and Batman is one of my favorites as she declines Bruce's offer, knowing her life is too screwed up to continue their relationship. And Christopher Walken again plays a good villain. He manipulates Penguin and (unknowingly) Catwoman for his own evil ends. My one complaint is that him getting the Penguin to run for mayor seems to be something that a DA, like Harvey Dent, would do instead of a business tycoon. In fact Dent was featured in many early drafts of the script and at the end would probably have become Two-Face, along with Shreck being the Penguin's older brother in earlier drafts. And Burton was attached to a Catwoman spin-off and Pfeiffer was supposed to return but after many years, the connection to this movie was lost and we got the horrible film with the equably horrible Halle Berry. Action wise it is one par with the first film. Danny Elfman returns with another solid score, making it quirky (for Penguin) and mysteriously sexy (for Catwoman). Unfortunately, due to the mixed reviews of this film and not doing as well as the first, Warners decided to not have Burton direct (resulting in the loss of Keaton) and go in a lighter direction (people can't make up their mind about how they want Batman portrayed; the tortured loner that the fans want or the family-friendly toy marketable blockbuster the studio wants).
Not the best Batman movie 
2009-08-21 - This was not the best Batman movie. The beginning was awesome. While I was watching the beginning, I thought that this was going to be an awesome movie. I was wrong. The ending made no sense. Batman ripped off his mask and exposed his true identity to Max Shrek. He intended to take Shrek to the cops and if he had, Shrek would've exposed his secret identity. If Batman had taken off his mask in front of only catwoman that wouldn't have been bad because she already knew who he was.
Batman would never take off his mask and expose himself and especially not to a criminal. This was ridiculous. As I was coming home after buying this movie, I had a feeling that Batman would lose his mask in it. But I had no idea that they'd be dumb enough to make him rip it off himself.
My best friend wanted to watch this movie very badly so I started showing it to him. Ten minutes later he told me to shut it off. This movie was very popular but I know of at least two people who were not crazy about it.
Where is batman 
2009-07-31 - I never saw this movie when it came out. I just saw it last week. The special affects were good. They made Gotham look like New York in the 1940's. The acting was superb and the music gives the perfect move. Danny Devito is totally disgusting as the penguin.He is really ghoulish looking & bites a guy in the nose and blood gushes out.I love his little duck car he drives all around in and the circus minions he has doing his dirty work.
Michelle P. plays catwoman like I pictured her:dangerous,sexy,mysterious,a little testy when people push her over the edge, but sweet only when she wants to be.
Christopher Walken was weirder than usual and made me laugh.
Why didn't I give this a higher rating you ask? Michael Keaton, was a great Batman and he is barely in this movie. Why is this ? All the screen to goes to everyone else.Its like they forgot him to give a major part in the film and made him into a cardboard cutout. The plot is lumpy and overun with too many characters,no of who we know that well. Also if you have kids under 8 ,they probably shouldn't see this movie. Unless of course,you want them spending the night in bed with you.
That being said it isn't horrible,just not fabulous like 1988 BATMAN.(Batman and Robin was truly horrible)
