Alright! Today I'm reviewing the 1995 sequel to Batman Returns, which, at the time, was thought to have made a mockery of the PG-13 rating with disturbing violence and sexual undertones. This led to the franchise being handed over to Joel Schumacher, who made a decidedly lighter, flashier, and kid-appropriate movie.
First and foremost, the area this really suffers from when compared to the Burton films is the villains. Jack Nicholson's Joker, Danny DeVito's Penguin, and Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman were all iconic and redefined their character. Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face and Jim Carrey as Riddler? Less so. Much less so. To the point where they barely resemble the characters they're supposed to be and Batman: The Animated Series did it much, much better.
Starting off with Two-Face, here his manic energy comes off as a knock-off Joker or a feeble attempt to one-up Jim Carrey's zaniness. Tommy Lee Jones isn't great in the role, he's comedically pushed to the edge and can't handle it. Billy Dee Williams would have done much better, albeit with a more serious character.
Also lacking with Two-Face was that we never saw his origin. For the most part, he doesn't affect the story at all and amounts to a thug with a ton of pink makeup. He's unneeded for the movie. Even worse is that we never see his origin, so his attachment to Bruce Wayne and any emotional connection to the character is completely lost.
The other main villain of the movie, the Riddler, is more or less Jim Carrey in a green onesie shouting nonsense about the plot. The plot is nonsensical, by the way. Something about stealing the IQ of Gotham for... reasons? To do... things? The manic energy this guy has is astounding and for the most part misplaced.
While the sad "obsessed with until rejected by" trope rarely works well, it at least works better here than it did in The Amazing Spider-Man 2. This isn't saying much given how stupidly charismatic Jim Carrey is and how charming he can be, but even here his charm eludes him. The finale where he resembles Gozer offset the appeal greatly. Jim Carrey could have been a great Riddler, truly. But the fact that he was allowed to go full-on Carrey ruins any impact he has.
Riddler and Two-Face are grossly mischaracterized here. Riddler barely tells any riddles or has any cunning plans while Two-Face is nothing but a regular goon who's important because the plot deemed him so. Not seeing his origin greatly hampers the character and the movie.
But nothing is so absolutely, woefully, and terribly miscast as Dick Grayson is. Chris O'Donnell was 25 when this movie came out and the character is 17. He looks and behaves nothing like the beloved character. He needed the long hair - Batman: The Animated Series proved a mulleted Nightwing could work, they lacked the ambition to do it here.
Instead, we have the 90s equivalent of Mutt Williams. The leather jacket, diamond earrings, motorcycles, and heavy guitar riffs every now and then all scream "Producers trying to figure out what's hip with the youth." I'm honestly glad this guy got run over by a train in Fried Green Tomatoes. He's insufferable here. I wouldn't be surprised his awfulness here is the reason we haven't gotten any live-action costumed Robins since, which is a shame considering how important Nightwing, Jason Todd's death, and Tim Drake are to the Batman mythos.
Batman Forever is also aggressively kid-friendly. While the plot isn’t afraid to venture into darker places, the reactions the actor gives make the entire thing look and feel like a cartoon. It’s sometimes funny but the exaggerated expressions are often just weird. Like, you know how Jim Carrey gives live-action Looney Tunes vibes? That’s basically every character in this movie.
An extremely minor nitpick, but there’s a scene here where different costumes are tried out via computer program on Michelangelo’s David, but here’s the kicker: they censored his genitalia. Why did they pick such a famously nude statue and then choose to censor it? Why not just have a regular model? It took me out of the movie for a hot second.
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| This is many things, but Gotham City is not one of them. |
Aesthetically, this movie is nowhere near the level of gothic gloom that the two previous Burton films were. That’s to be expected. However, there were some extremely misguided choices in terms of Gotham, namely the CGI that was used to generate it. The poor CGI didn’t feel like Gotham City. A few street-level scenes had the feel, but the sweeping shots felt like a video game cutscene.
That Batsuit looked good. The famed Bat-Nipples aren’t really a factor in Batman Forever, one can hardly notice they’re there in most of the lighting. I really liked this Batsuit in general. It had more movement and looked sleeker than the Burton one. However, the Batmobile looked much, much worse. The center fin added to the back looked absolutely terrible.
Most Batman movies have excellent, sweeping operatic soundtracks that coat every scene like a symphony of vengeance. Batman Forever does not have that. The music is far less inspiring than its predecessors or successors.
Batman Forever is also filled to the brim with tropes. How many times will the “I’m Batman until a pretty girl comes my way” story play out? Between Rachel Dawes and Vicki Vale and the one from Haunted Knight, Chase Meridian doesn’t exactly bring anything new to the table other than being played by Nicole Kidman.
It also has the good old fashioned “My boss cut my funding, time to put on a costume and commit crimes.” Now personally, I love a motivation like that. The Green Goblin in Spider-Man did it excellently, balancing the rights amount of camp and menace. If they do it unapologetically, that storyline totally works. Unfortunately, it just adds to how campy the rest of the movie is in this scenario.
Now, while I’ve been fairly negative, there were a few things I really did like about the movie. First and foremost is the title character. Val Kilmer is amazing as Bruce Wayne and looks great in the Batsuit (Those Bat-Lips are perfection). His Batman voice even reminded me of Kevin Conroy, so that was appreciated. If the movie focused more on him and less on the villains, he really could have gone down better than he did. Plus Val Kilmer is always a win.
I also really liked Nicole Kidman as Chase Meridian. She was a boring character, but Nicole Kidman looked beautiful, so it balances out. Jim Carrey also looks great occasionally, although the long hair/short-cropped red hair does not work.
But the saving grace of the movie, the thing that actually gave me confidence that there’s a good movie in here (Albeit buried in over-the-top zaniness and a lackluster finale), was that there was actually some really good insight into Batman’s psyche.
While several Batman movies struggle to find his motivation (To avenge his parents, save Gotham, or because he can’t not be Batman), Batman Forever knows what its angle is at. Bruce is frequently haunted by memories of his parent's death, it really knocks him out of it for a while. I appreciated the firm grip the movie had on that.
There’s also a very nice scene where Bruce accidentally says he’s responsible for the death of Dick Grayson’s parents. It doesn’t take me or a psychologist to point out that that refers to how Bruce feels responsible for the death of his own parents and that drives him to be Batman. It was a really good scene, the best in the movie. It was stuff like that and the bat from The Dark Knight Returns that gave me hope that someone here knew what they were doing.
I’d say Batman Forever was like a cartoon, but that almost feels disingenuous to actual cartoons. Batman: The Animated Series was much darker and thematically relevant while still maintaining kid-friendly escapism. Batman Forever just occupies a weird corner where an obsession with being child-friendly led to over-the-top performances and plot.
Overall I give Batman Forever a 5/10. "Although it's hidden underneath layers of brazen flashiness and kid-friendly razzle-dazzle, Batman Forever has hints of a potentially great Batman movie."
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