My dear penguins, it is time to choose your fighter.
With so many iterations of “Batman” movies over the years, it is only natural to compare and contrast different takes on the stories and characters.
But the rankings may be a little skewed when coming from a former “Batman” star himself.
Danny DeVito played the Penguin in Tim Burton’s 1992 version of the superhero’s story “Batman Returns” and recently gave his opinion on the most recent take on the notorious villain.
Colin Farrell looks unrecognizable as the Penguin in the newly released box-office hit “The Batman,” starring Robert Pattinson and Zoë Kravtiz. Farrell’s performance has received rave reviews, which have been backed up by the Warner Bros. announcement of a Penguin-centered spin-off series coming to HBO Max.
While DeVito approves of his friend’s adaption of the character, he still prefers his own take on the classy but cruel criminal mastermind.
“I thought Colin did a great job,” DeVito told The Wrap. “Certainly a different milieu. I think it was a more edgy, serious, gangster-y Batman. Of course, there’s three Italians who are bad guys in it, the Falcones (laughs).”
“But I feel like, in terms of the performances, I thought Colin – who is a good buddy of mine – I think he did a great job in that. You take your hat off to anybody who sits in the makeup chair that long. I did it with the Penguin and loved it.”
Farrell previously revealed that he spent four hours in the makeup chair every day to transform into the deformed creepy character — but that apparently wasn’t enough to sway DeVito about his “edgy” version.
“My feeling of comparing the two movies, I’m like a Tim Burton fan,” DeVito explained. “I like the whimsical, the operatic, the disaffected Pee-wee Herman throws me off a bridge (laughs). That makes me smile. So it’s a different situation, but I did watch the movie.”
Despite his preference for the gothic fantasy spin in “Batman Returns,” the former Penguin actor enjoyed the more realistic, emo “The Batman.” But DeVito did have one complaint about watching the film — 30 minutes of commercials beforehand.
“I saw it in a movie theater, it was a big screen in California at a place on Sunset Boulevard somewhere. It was a weird thing because I went with my son and it was an 8:30 show. It was a place where you could get a beer, and I got popcorn and he got a beer and we went in, and then we watched a half-hour of commercials,” he recounted.
“So we got there at 8:30 and the movie started, like, a little after 9. So there’s like a bunch of commercials for shoes and products and really craziness, and then there was, like, I don’t know, 15 minutes of trailers. Now it’s like 9 o’clock and I sat through a three-hour movie. I sat there with the trailers and I had to run to the bathroom before I sat through the three-hour movie.”
“I gotta remember next time! It says an 8:30 show, don’t go there until 9 o’clock,” DeVito insisted.
Despite the extremely long run time, “The Batman” swooped into first place at the box office, raking in $128.5 million on its opening weekend — and landing this year’s biggest opening weekend.