How is Batman Returns considered a darker movie than this one?

I've never understood it either. BR is more tragic, but I've always gotten a darker tone and vibe from Batman '89.

Originality needs a reboot.

I saw both movies when I was a little kid and Returns felt way more weird and gross. Yes, B89 is a dark movie, but that's just part of its charm. It's still a cool movie with lots of great action, fun characters and cool gadgets to offset the blackness.

Returns on the other hand didn't have a lot of fun characters since Batman is not seen enough, the penguin was grotesque to look at and generally unwatchable & Max Shreck just looks like someone who wondered in from some weird horror film - not fun at all. Catwoman/Kyle was also way more weirder than she needed to be. Crucially, there's not much action in BR at all to counteract all the weirdness.

Batman Returns had stuff about freaks living in sewers and chewing people's noses off etc - it was always darker and less enjoyable than this movie imo.

Motown, get your Detroit jukebox jheri curl ass in this chicken sh!t chop-chop, ASAFP!

I agree the original is dark, but find the sequel darker in tone and, generally speaking, morbid.

Returns opens with two parents sending their deformed baby downriver into the sewer in the dead of winter...so there's THAT 

The Joker is disfigured by chemicals, which is disturbing, but his clownish appearance is not hideous to behold. The Penguin, on the other hand, is grotesque and surrounded by scary, sewer-dwelling circus freaks.

The look of BR is also quite a bit more bleak and goth influenced, with a lot of black and white contrast and stark low-light shots, whereas the original actually has a lot of color.

Then there's the undeniably more downbeat and melodramatic ending. The Penguin's bile-spewing corpse getting dragged into the water by sad penguins and Selina's semi-suicide culminate in what is presumably Bruce's most depressing Christmas ever.

In addition, it has a fair share of sexuality and pu$$y jokes. Max Shreck promises the Penguin "Unlimited poontang!"(!) A lot of parents didn't care for that stuff("Mommy, what does 'Unlimited poontang' mean?"), so that's another reason it was labeled not-child-friendly.

BR was more tragic, melodramatic, depressing, otherworldly than the first film.

People accused BR of the storyline not being developed or meaningful and straying away from the source material.

Tim Burton would be in agreement with you.

Personally i thought Returns was far more grotesque and twisted, so i always considered it much darker.. but it's also far more playful as well.


Penguin biting someone's nose off for example, the many homages to old horror movies.

I think BR is indeed darker for a few reasons. The main difference is the villains; the Joker, although clearly evil and cruel, was played by Nicholson in a mugging, playful, meant to entertain way while the Penguin was really repulsive and, though she is also played somewhat playfully and trying to entertain, Catwoman was relatively more challenging and creepy.
Also while Batman is messed up in both he seems to be getting better B89 and not in BR and though Gotham looks like a bad place in both the sequel really makes its citizens look stupid and its institutions incompetent.

Are you kidding? The cat scene in BR used to scare the *beep* out of me as a kid. As well as schreks death scene. Most of penguins scenes as well. BR is soooooo much darker than this one!

Saw them both in the cinema when they first came out. I've always found Batman Returns to have a darker feel and a more sombre tone. I've always preferred Batman Returns too.





All for a box of chocolates...