I am such a huge fan of this film and its predecessor that I hope you don't mind if I jump on your bandwagon and offer my 'counter-review' to your own excellent commentary on the film.
As someone who was simultaneously introduced to the world of Batman and Tim Burton via the latter's 1989 movie, I've always inextricably linked the two, so whilst I now appreciate Burton's first Batman film as the more faithful adaptation of the comic-books, I retain immense affection for
Batman Returns for being the purest distillation of Burton's unique vision with the DC hero. Moreover, whilst the first film possesses a stronger, more streamlined screenplay akin to something that might have emerged from Hollywood's 1930/40s 'Golden Era',
Batman Returns, for all its narrative shortcomings is arguably the richer, deeper
story, occasionally unearthing genuine profundity in its seemingly lurid and fantastical story primarily through its distinct visuals, which as many posters have already pointed out, owes much to 1920/30s era German Expressionism.
1. The Cobblepot Child
(Running time: 0:00:00 0:02:20)
The film establishes its expressionist credentials from the off with a practically silent opening in which visual details, particularly Bo Welch's lavish and deliberately artificial seeming production design, and Bob Ringwood and Mary E. Vogt's extravagant yet elegant costumes, reveal as much about a given character as any line of dialogue might. It's also automatically clear that this is a practically fairytale vision of Gotham with closer parallels to the satirical, intentionally absurd world of Edward Scissorhands, than the more prosaic hyper-realism of Gotham circa 1989.
The decision to focus the film's prologue on The Penguin's birth clues the audience into where Burton's dramatic interest (and even sympathies) lie. Whilst it may be making too fine a point to suggest that The Penguin is as much the film's protagonist as Bruce Wayne/Batman, the film makes no apologies for concerning itself with Batman, 'the outcast', and consequently, the various traits he shares with his fellow outsiders, The Penguin and Catwoman, as opposed to Batman, 'the hero'.
Tucker and Esther Cobblepot are ostensibly part of Gotham's blue-blood elite and, for all their eccentricities, mainstream society, whilst their physically deformed new-born represents the 'outcast' who has apparently disturbed (and must therefore, be ejected from) their perfectly ordered, image-orientated lives. It's interesting to note that this origin story, bears as much as a passing resemblance to another of Batman's foes, 'Black Mask', whose aristocratic parents sought at various (albeit much less extreme) costs to 'keep up appearances' with respect to their own child's traumatic birth. It is even later suggested that like Black Mask's alter-ego, Roman Sinois, Oswald Cobblepot may have been a contemporary, and even prep school-mate of Bruce Wayne, "if his parents hadn't eighty-sixed him".
It's also interesting to ponder Daniel Waters original draft for Batman Returns, in which the deliverer of that line, Max Shreck was initially conceived as The Penguin's elder brother (a far cry from the street-smart self-made man he eventually appeared to be). This may have been one coincidence too far, (contrived back-history associations between lead characters being a particular bug-bear amongst comic-book movie audiences); however, it would have further emphasised the parallels and differences between the film's central male villains, Max Shreck, the socially 'respected monster', and The Penguin, the ostracised 'bird-man' of the sewers.
This of course also raises the issue of what might have happened to Oswald had he not been so cruelly discarded and permanently denied access to the Cobblepot's world of privilege. One of the signs of an important piece of art is how it divides its audience as to the various questions it raises, and few come bigger than the whole 'nature/nurture' argument. Some of the film's fans are unabashed in their sympathy for The Penguin, even going as far as to defend the misunderstood mutant after he has sought to kill almost half of Gotham's child population, as the fated product of a wretched childhood. In the film's 'making-of' book, Danny DeVito even suggested that his character may have grown-up to become 'another Einstein', had his parents displayed even an inkling of parental affection or responsibility. Other fans have recognised the ambiguity of the moment in which a barely toddler Oswald viciously reaches beyond his cage to grab and apparently throttle the family cat (a witty piece of foreshadowing for a certain avian/feline relationship later in the film), suggesting that Oswald may have been inherently evil, and that his parents' drastic actions, although entirely barbaric, were nevertheless, a response to their only child's inhuman behaviour, and not his bizarre physiognomy alone.
Additional Comments:
- So that's what Pee-Wee and Simone's kids would have looked like had they hooked up. Maybe it was for the best she got together with the French guy...
- I always like to speculate how and why Oswald Cobblepot became so deformed. Sure, there's a possibility of in-breeding bearing in mind how bizarre his parents looked, but I always like to think (and I know it's a stretch) that Oswald's deformities might have been linked to the toxic waste Max Shreck had been releasing into Gotham's environment. Shreck seems to be a good couple of decades older than either Bruce or Oswald (who are both implied to be about 33 years of age during the main chunk of the story), so it's feasible that Shreck may already have been involved in some form of highly polluting business venture prior to Oswalds birth...at least that's what I like to think.
2. Credits
(Running time: 0:02:21 0:05:28)
There's not much more I can add to Homer's comments, but like him I particularly look forward to the patented Burton/Elfman-scored pre-credit sequence, and as with Sweeney Todd, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Mars Attacks!, this sequence involves a literal journey, in this case through Gotham's seemingly cavernous sewage system.
Although an extension of his exemplary work on the first film, Elfman's soundtrack is arguably even more superlative this time round. There is a particularly fraught and almost overbearingly tense quality to the initial score which reaches its crescendo as the 'Batman Returns' title unfurls itself across the screen, and several hundred bats flock out towards the audience (perhaps the infant trauma of their high-pitched squeaking contributed to the adult Oswald's later antagonism towards Batman). Taking the first film's 'Descent into Mystery' music cue as his template, Elfman imbues it with an even more lyrical, haunting choral quality that is appropriately chilling for the strange, otherworldly creature contained within the bizarre cot we follow throughout this sequence.
Additional Comments:
- How good would those animated bats look flocking towards the screen if they were filmed in today's current vogue for 3D?
- I realise that this is not the type of film to take too literally, but if anyone has any suggestions as to how baby Oswald was released from his cot, I'm all ears. However, I assume the penguins didn't suddenly adopt the manual dexterity required to release him.
-might have been there all along. His relationship w/ Commish Gordon seems more fluid, as the scene where he talks to Batman after the Red Triangle gang's first attack. Nobody seems surprised that Batman is there. 
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