David Ansen

"....But another not-entirely-human figure stands in Batman's way--Michelle Pfeiffer's sinuously sexy Catwoman....

"....There are enough car crashes, shoot-outs and explosions to keep the kids happy, but what really seems to inspire Burton, even more than DeVito's flamboyant villainy and a huge supporting cast of real and artificial penguins, is the slinkily ambiguous Catwoman, Batman's foe, flame and alter ego.

"Burton's theme in "Batman Returns" is the masks people wear to hide their divided hearts.... Burton's given this borderline schizoid [Batman] an equally unsettled love interest: Catwoman also has a double life. Formerly Max Shreck's gawky, lonely secretary, Selina Kyle... [she] emerges from near death as the whip-cracking, man-hating avenger Catwoman. Waters's script never makes the rules of Selina's back-and-forth switches into Catwoman clear [wasn't it a one-way switch into Catwoman?], but what twisted, dirty fun Pfeiffer has with this role!... Burton invests his troubling love story with a surprising emotional punch. They're doomed lovers for the age of alienation, turned on by each other's kinkiness...."

David Ansen, Newsweek, June 22, 1992