Batman Forever

Bruce Wayne and his young ward Dick Grayson tackle crime as Batman and Robin. When villains Two-Face and the Riddler team up to take over Gotham City by beating Batman, the dynamic duo find themselves in a battle for the city.

This third of the series rings the alarm bells early when the credits tell us that Burton is out and thoughtless crowd pleaser Schumacher is in! If that's not bad enough Keaton is replaced by Val Kilmer. The story to this makes the first two films look like Shakespeare. Here the script is pointless and any character development is thrown out the window. The story is little more than an excuse for two things, 1 - big action scenes and 2 - big hammy performances from whoever is playing the villains this time. As such it doesn't do anything new. The main loss is the loss of darkness - Schumacher maximises the audience by making it kiddie friendly and losing any edge the original had.

The action scenes are all OTT and mere spectacle, but they lack tension and excitement and it's really hard to care. Outside of the spectacle we are left with the performances. Carrey is good if you like his brand of mugging, but he does get tiresome in his cartoon character role. Jones is wasted as Two-Face and is forced to sit in the shadow of Carrey's ham. Kilmer is a non-entity, Batman comes second to the villains and the attempts to give him a character are ham-fisted and clumsy. Kidman is a stupid love interest and there is no chemistry between her and Kilmer. O'Donnell is OK but did we need a Robin?

Overall this is a step away from the comic book and a leap towards the camp 1960's Batman. Schumacher takes what should be a dark, almost disturbing story of a man who is not too far removed from the super-villains he must catch and turns it into a childish ill-formed Happy Meal. Terrible.

Some people talk about "the stick of straw that broke the camel's back", meaning when something reached the tipping point. So when did the Batman franchise go bad? Well, "Batman Forever" was getting silly, but it still had Jim Carrey to steal the show as The Riddler ("Batman and Robin" had about as many good qualities as a barrel of toxic waste). Personally, I don't know why they had to have Batman (Val Kilmer) going through therapy; remove that and he still would have been a cool superhero with neat gadgets. Tommy Lee Jones wasn't bad as Two-Face. Nicole Kidman and Chris O'Donnell, as Dr. Chase Meridian and Robin, respectively, didn't really add anything.

Overall, the point is that when Joel Schumacher took over directing, the franchise went downhill. Part of the problem was that while Tim Burton created an eerie Gotham City that looked like New York in the 1940s, Joel Schumacher created a Gotham City that looked like it was trying too hard to be "Blade Runner".

So, the franchise starting getting stale with this one, but Jim Carrey kept the movie from being unwatchable. As Edward Nygma, one of Bruce Wayne's employees, he had some great lines. In the movie, Nygma proposes a device that rests atop TV sets and reads peoples' minds, but Wayne rejects it, considering it too dangerous. Thus, Nygma becomes The Riddler, and he's the best character in the movie.

Batman Forever may be the most unfairly criticzed super-hero film ever made. It's sandwiched between the fandom of the Burton and Nolan films while simultaneously blamed for leading to Batman and Robin. If you compare it to the darker and more gothic Burton films and are disappointed Keaton isn't still playing Batman, of course you're not gonna enjoy it. If you compare it to the more serious neo-realism of the Nolan films, again you're not gonna enjoy it. What is it you ask? Batman Forever essentially plays out like a live action cartoon and it does this very well. If you watch it through that lens instead of judging it for what it's not you'll find that Batman Forever actually has superior continuity and pacing than any other Batman film except maybe the 1966 version. This is coming from someone who's favorite film is Batman 1989 and a big Tim Burton fan. It honestly baffles me to hear people rave about how great Batman Returns is and then go on to bash Batman Forever. While Returns has a ton going for it, it really suffers from the same core problem as Batman and Robin; the director getting too cute with creative control. All Joel Schumacher did was set out to make a fun super-hero film with something for everyone to enjoy and I honestly think he succeeded with Forever. With Batman and Robin he went too flamboyant just like Burton went too zany and weird with Returns. The first time around both directors got it right testing the waters with their own respective styles. Everything in the film is very cartoonish and if you appreciate it from that perspective it's really quite masterful in a lot of subtle and not so subtle ways. Although Batman The Animated Series was largely influenced by the Burton movies Forever really seems like it's bringing that onto the big screen with real actors and real sets which is quite a feat. Schumacher just added more color and neon which honestly is a welcome change from the stark art deco gothic flavor present in Returns. Nothing wrong with that flavor in Returns, it's just that Burton went all in and we didn't necessarily need more of the same. Batman Returns actually has considerably different art direction from Batman 1989 yet you rarely hear fans complain about that difference or even acknowledge it.

Nicole Kidman is perfectly cast as Chase Meridian and I like Chris O'Donnell as Robin even though he was probably a tad old. Everyone criticizes Val Kilmer for being too bland compared to Keaton but honestly the latter wouldn't have worked at all in the film the way it was done. Since Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey are both such strong personalities a more stoic Kilmer contrasts that well. Batman Forever really is Jim Carrey's vehicle though. You watch Batman Forever for Jim Carrey the same way you watch Batman 1989 for Jack Nicholson.

I must admit that I was biased before I'd even seen this movie back in 1995. I was biased because I just didn't expect it to be any good due to the absence of Michael Keaton.

When I did watch it I thought it was okay. Val Kilmer did his best as Bruce Wayne although he just looked a bit too young to play a millionaire playboy-but he did do a good job.

Finally we saw the debut of Robin. I thought Robin's costume was cool-it was updated for the 1990's.

Once again the villains stole the show. Jim Carrey (a truly funny man) made a great Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones made a superb Two Face.

Nicole Kidman made a great love interest for Batman but I would have liked to see more interaction between them in the film.

Whilst I think the first two Batman films were the best, I have no problem in recommending this film to any Batman fan.

I loved the first two Batman movies, and honestly would have loved to see Burton go on to direct more entries in the series, but Joel Shumacher's Batman Forever is not at all an unwelcome change. I think some people recollect this film and automatically associate it with Shumacher's awful second Batman attempt, Batman & Robin. That is the bad movie. This is not. People also seem to forget how big of a hit it was. Artistically, there were things it got wrong and didn't do as well as the others, but there were things it did so much better, too. For one thing, this is the only 'Batman' with a decent soundtrack to its name (including 2 great songs by U2 and Seal).

In some ways you can look at this as a transition from the dark, tortured Batman to a Batman who has finally conquered his personal demons and gone on to be happier in being a man who fights crime in the night dressed up in rubber. For this one it was good, 'cause that's essentially how it ends, but the result of this led to the campy and just plain boring 4th episode.

But I really was surprised at how psychological of a movie Batman Forever is. I'm not saying it's particularly deep, but when you look at Edward Nygma's obsession with Bruce Wayne (stalking him, to imitating him right down to the mole), Harvey Dent's schizophrenia as Two-Face, and the fact that both Bruce Wayne AND Batman end up romancing the same psychologist is all enormously amusing. The romance isn't to be taken that lightly, though. I thought out of all 5 films Chase Meridian was Bruce's best girlfriend. The whole Vicky Vale relationship was pretty stale if you cut out all of the conflict with the Joker, and obviously Selina Kyle didn't work out so well for Bruce. Having this woman who could understand the mind of the tortured Bruce Wayne was a great idea, and I don't need to tell you that the gorgeous and talented Nicole Kidman pulled it off well.

Something I liked (and would have liked to have seen more of) was the competitive relationship between Bruce Wayne and Edward Nygma. They're enemies as Batman and The Riddler but also as regular people in everyday life. Take that scene at the Nygmatec Ball when Edward gloats about how well off he is, but Bruce is totally unflinching. Jim Carrey does a great job with a character that is so obsessed with this person; who idolizes him but hates him at the same time and is generally evil, but still can make us fall on the floor laughing.

This is a rousing and dynamic picture. It's basically the lighter side of being Batman. It was exciting with some great action sequences: I loved the end where both Robin and Chase are dropped and he saves them both. That piece of Elliot Goldenthal music when Batman finally grasps Robin's arm is excellent.

I liked Burton's 2 films and obviously Batman Begins better than Forever, but when you're in the right mood for it, it really is a fantastic movie that, if nothing else, thoroughly entertains.

My rating: 7/10