Netflix has every Batman movie from the original Burton franchise up, and I love rewatching them all over again. One of the first Batman anything I ever saw was Batman and Robin, the fourth movie of the franchise that featured Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze.

The movie was terrible, and still is today, but it’s an enjoyable sort of terrible. The Burton Bat films all range from decent, to great, to horrible, to enjoyably horrible. The first Batman with Jack Nicholson as the Joker is good, not my favorite, but good. It’s the first mainstream version of the Joker since the original 60s version with Adam West. Nicholson is good, but Heath Ledger is my favorite live action, and my favorite overall will always be Mark Hamill’s DC Animated Universe version—he was able to toe the line between cartoon insanity and joyfully evil. Nicholsons’ Joker isn’t what I’d call “dark” in the same way Ledger’s is, but that’s okay. Different time periods required different things.

The second Batman movie, Batman Returns, is hands down my favorite of the bunch. Michelle Pfeiffer as Selina Kyle is still my favorite Catwoman to date. I adore Eartha Kitt from the 60s version, and Anne Hathaway did a fantastic job inThe Dark Knight Rises (one of the few aspects of the movie I enjoyed), but for me nothing beats Pfeiffer’s portrayal of the enigmatic Catwoman. It was also my first introduction to Catwoman as a character. Pfeiffer gave such a nuanced performance as the sexy, tragic, and complex Selina Kyle that I fell in love instantly. I cheered at the final shot of the movie where we see her silhouette implying she did survive, but her entire persona is now a mystery hiding in the shadows of Gotham where she wants to be. No other live action adaption has, for me, provided that same feeling. That mystery and intrigue tainted with tragedy and finally personal redemption and catharsis.

Read the rest of my review of the 90s Batman franchise on WWAC!