"Both the score and film were monumental critical and popular flops."

Beg your pardon?! For starters, "Batman returns" costed about $70 to make – and grossed $265 worldwide. That's a almost 1-to-4 ratio; as a producer I'd take that anytime. And critically? Well, rottentomatos.com gives it a freshness qoutient of 79 percent out of 24 reviews; again 1 to 4.

Granted, its famed predecessor "Batman" made $400 out of $40 production costs – but it gets only 76 percent from the critics. The sequel "Batman Forever" (grossing $184) gets 53 percent, and the abominable "Batman and Robin" gets a pitiful 11 percent.

As of the "Batman Returns" score the reviewer must be fantasizing as well. Danny Elfman delivered the saddest themes ever to be asociated with popular action hero figures. There never has been a movie, before and after, capturing the broken nature of these characters as Elfman and Burton did with this movie. I shudder when comparing this to the noisy "Batman" effort, chumming up to the MTV and Prince crowds.

"Returns" was a rare opportunity when the producers forget to get their nasty fingerprints on a supposed blockbuster, and the audience actually got to see a work of art – and liked it.