BATMAN RETURNS
I think Batman Returns is an entertaining movie. As weird as it may seem, it and Batman 89 are some of the movies of my childhood. But I think it's missing elements and potential ideas that could tie the franchise together and further build on character dynamics and story elements that I think have already been set up, to me, in the movie in some ways. Here are the ideas God blessed me with for that:
The motive is more tied to Harvey Dent thinking the police need more financial backing, but the mayor is content to let Batman do all the work for the police, who Dent thinks they've become too reliant on.
This adds another element that fills out the idea of mistrust against Batman that the movie later touches on when he's framed by Penguin. And adds a more thorough thematic element that, while I think may be in the movie already, I think is mainly left in the Selina and Bruce last scenes they have together, where I think it comes off like Bruce has learned some form of lesson, in seeing Selina's viscous dark attitude and how it relates to him and now thinking that they're not above the law.
The stress of the job has begun to get to Dent and he's been blacking out and losing time, and seeing a therapist to deal with his problems and talk about his childhood abuse at the hands of his dad, him killing his dad in defense of his mom as he used his coin flipping to force young Harvey to decide what would happen.
Harvey has begun trying to use flipping the coin to make choices for himself as a way to relieve his stress.
Penguin approaches Harvey as a way to help him get his foothold, Harvey being the trusted figure that he is. Harvey thinks he may be able to use the situation to get Penguin in run for mayor and get the funding for the police department and less dependent on Batman.
Selina being his assistant, who accidentally stumbles across the file and information on his mental state and when Dent catches her, her trying to suggest that he step down (Harvey being unwilling to for his fear of leaving Gotham to be consumed by its insanity, him pressuring himself that he has to protect it), the stress of this causing him to snap and transition into his darker personality that takes over in his blackouts. This dark version pushing Selina out the window, in a perception of the ends of justify the means.
Naturally the change equals a change in how Bruce and Harvey interact, as opposed to how Bruce and Shreck interact. Now the dynamic is more one of opposing perspectives that Bruce begins to see Harvey's side of in the situation about Batman and how Batman may be responsible for the current insanity of their situation. We can maybe even parallel the idea of Bruce's obsession to save Gotham being connected to his parents death and Harvey's obsession to do so and how he pressures himself to is connected to him feeling powerless as a child to protect his mom and how he killed his dad to do so.
His mental breaking begins to become harsher, after finding out that he's made a deal with a criminal in Oswald, the stress beginning to consume him.
At the end, the stress finally causes a complete break when he's taken by Penguin (for Harvey turning on him after realizing what he is), and is nearly killed by Selina, him trying to kill her in his darker persona, and then her electrocuting him, burning half his face.
Amongst the ending parts of the movie, Bruce visits Harvey in the hospital, apologizing for failing him and the city, later showing Harvey no longer in his bed, and ending on an uncertain note for Bruce about himself and how he relates to the city.
Please review and tell me what you think!
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