(Originally posted December 11th, 2017)
You guys already know that Batman Returns is my favourite movie of the month so far. That's why, when I saw Batman Forever (1995) today, you can imagine I was severely disappointed. This is just not a good movie, though I can't exactly say it's a bad one either. Starring Val Kilmer as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Tommy Lee Jones as Harvey Dent/Two-Face, Jim Carrey as Edward Nygma/The Riddler, Nicole Kidman as Dr. Chase Meridian and Chris O'Donnell as Dick Grayson/Robin.
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| Batman Forever (1995) |
Right from the first two lines, this movie felt off. It was clear this was targeted more at kids, and the tone is nowhere near as dark as Batman Returns. Despite this, the movie tries to continue the story of Bruce attempting to remember about his parents' death, and there a lot of great atmospheric scenes that really don't fit the overall tone of the movie. It's almost like the first draft was a darker movie like the previous, but then through either the studio's intervention or just lazy rewrites, we got the lighter tone. It's a messy movie in that sense, and I couldn't really take it seriously. Even the sets look ridiculous. I have no idea when Gotham decided to build statues taller than the buildings themselves, but they should stop that.
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| Why does this exist? This shouldn't exist. |
Val Kilmer replaces Michael Keaton from the previous movies and he does his best. It doesn't really help that Bruce Wayne and Batman are barely given anything to do, and Kilmer definitely isn't as good in the role as Keaton was. Chris O'Donnell debuts as Dick Grayson, and I like aspects of his performance. When his characters not make stupid-ass decisions like taking the Batmobile out for a spin, I really liked his character. They did a great job of establishing his origins, and he has a very believable struggle with Bruce throughout the film.
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| Val Kilmer as Batman |
Nicole Kidman has been the least impressive of the love interests. She tries her best in her performance, but the character is beyond boring. We're introduced to her as being in love with Batman just because she is, and then once she finally gets Batman, she turns him down for Bruce just because she does. There's no clear motivations for why she does the things she does, and we don't even get the benefit of any Pfeiffer-esque freakouts to entertain us in the meantime. You can tell she's bored in this movie, and it's such a waste of Nicole Kidman.
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| Nicole Kidman as Chase Meridian |
The only really fun and entertaining things about this movie are its villains. Don't get me wrong, they don't come close to Nicholson, Walken, Pfeiffer or Devito, but you can tell these two are really having fun here, and they lavish in every second of screen-time they get. Tommy Lee Jones plays Two-Face, which is a weird cast change after getting Billy Dee Williams for the first movie. His performance is fine, but we really would have benefited from seeing who Harvey Dent was before the accident that made him insane. Something as simple as that would have really gone a long way here. Also, his makeup is very noticeable, and it doesn't really look like acid burns at all. Just another thing that took me out of the experience.
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| Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face |
But the gold medal here goes to Jim Carrey as the Riddler. True, he's really just playing Jim Carrey in this movie, but it's so very entertaining. Every time he's on screen, he steals the show, and you can tell he's really enjoying himself in this film. Yes, his motivations are extremely flimsy, and his turn to villain was one of the most sudden and forced things I've ever seen in a comic-book movie, and as far as evil schemes go, this is tame in comparison to the villains of the previous films, but I'm sorry, Carrey is just so fun to watch. It's like he knew how much of a joke the character was, so he made his whole performance into the joke, and it just works. If Jim Carrey was going to play any comic-book character, I'm glad it was the Riddler.
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| Jim Carrey as the Riddler |
Overall, Batman Forever (1995), was a boring movie that was thankfully redeemed somewhat by Jim Carrey. Such a drop in quality from the previous film, and I already know what a joke the next Batman film is, so I'm certainly not looking forward to watching that one in 6 days. 4.5/10.
Tomorrow: it's Green Lantern.
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