Batman: Every Live-Action Gotham City Ranked Worst To Best

7. Batman Forever & Batman & Robin

Batman Forever Gotham City
Warner Bros.

Much like Tim Burton maintained the same vision for Gotham City across Batman and Batman Returns, Joel Schumacher likewise engrained his own preferences into his Gotham in both Batman Forever and Batman & Robin.

Moving away from the darker tone of the two Burton pictures that had predated it, Schumacher's Batman Forever purposely brightened things up. Rather than atmospheric gargoyles up in the darkened Gotham skyline, the Independence Day helmer opted to embrace a neon palette.

Instead of gargoyles, we had ludicrously-sized statues. Instead of rich, deep visuals, we had garish, luminous light shows. Instead of muted character designs for our villains and their goons, we had eccentric, outlandish cornball get-ups to match the tone of this version of Gotham City.

If anything, Schumacher's duo of Batman films owned more to the likes of Akira and the Golden Age of Comics than to the likes of Tim Burton's Batman and Frank Miller's seminal Batman: Year One graphic novel; a graphic novel that Batman Forever was at one point going to be based upon.

Of course, the light 'n' bright nature of Gotham City was only further amped up by the time Schumacher brought Batman & Robin to the silver screen in 1997.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.