Batman Returns

Consider the rumors confirmed — "Batman Returns" is darker, more brooding and weirder than the first "Batman." It's also funnier and layered with more texture.

Of course, you shouldn't go in expecting a deep character study. But it's surprising how much is actually going on here, and on how many levels.

Oh, there are still the expected "toys," the batmobile, a batboat, all kinds of lethal weapons tossed to and fro, and the screen is filled with action from beginning to end, along with amazing sets, costumes and special effects. Yet, in many ways, this sequel is that rare film that surpasses its predecessor.

Of course, in other ways, it falls prey to its own excesses. The violence is quite gruesome in places and there are far too many vulgar, sex-related gags for a movie aimed primarily at young people.

As you might guess from this introduction, I'm as mixed in my feelings about "Batman Returns" as Bruce Wayne is about his own sense of identity. But maybe that's the way director Tim Burton wants us to feel.

It's apparent that with "Batman Returns," Burton felt freer to explore things his way more than he did with the first "Batman." That he didn't feel confined by a work that already had a following, an audience with certain expectations. At the same time, "Batman Returns" somehow seems more faithful to the comic books, filled with a confident sense of irony and humor.

There are both stunning effects and cheap thrills, as well as a real sense of the film's $50 million budget on the screen and an occasional intimacy that lets us into the main characters' thoughts. And, as you might imagine, every bat, cat and penguin pun imaginable.

The film opens around Christmastime in a snow-covered Gotham City with a prologue about the birth and destiny of Oswald Cobblepot, who will eventually become the Penguin (Danny DeVito). Then we leap forward 33 years, where it is again the Christmas season, and find that the deformed child has been raised by penguins in Gotham's sewer (a bizarre take on Romulus and Remus, who were raised by wolves in Roman mythology, or perhaps Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book"). He also leads a band of carnival rejects who do his dirty work for him and has a bevy of lethal umbrellas.

There really isn't a strong storyline here, but what plot there is centers around the Penguin teaming up with an industrial czar named Max Shreck (Christopher Walken), who has a sinister plan involving Gotham's electrical power. The Penguin, however, is interested in more personal vendettas. There is a campaign to elect the Penguin as mayor, but when that is foiled he goes back underground and formulates a plan for his revenge.