Something that is really hard to cope with in this day and age of marketplace saturation with comic book movies, is just how cheap and small this film looks. In 1992 they didnt have the technology or the financial backing that we have today (understatement of the year) so were not comparing it to what Marvel and the like produce today as thats just pointless. But in 1992 you could still film in a city. Or make a set look like a city. Or do something anything to make the film look less like it is filmed in a small indoor village. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUFHuYMG-nw Gotham is supposed to be one of the biggest cities in the world, yet there are never more than a handful of people at any one point. Buildings look phony, sets look contrived, and the majority of the film appears to be the filming of a big budget play. In 1992 they couldnt CGI in a crowd of thousands perhaps, but this was still a film with an $80 million dollar budget (which adjusted for inflation is $135 million today). The effects and set construction make you wonder where on earth this money went. Jurassic Park would be released a year later with a budget of only $63 million dollars, and that is a film which people still use as a benchmark for animatronics and practical effects. The only memorable part of Batman Returns effects wise, was the Batmobile, which had been developed for the first film three years prior. Its cringe inducing to see crowds of thirty people, and streets devoid of cars and people at night. The whole thing feels enormously claustrophobic and its hard to lose yourself in the moment when you know youre looking at a very small set, rather than a detailed urban environment.
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Sports obsessed. Movie nerd. Wrestling tragic. Historical junkie.
I have only loved three things my entire life: my family, Batman, and the All Blacks.
