Batman Forever

Two nights after the misery that was Batman Returns, I’m heading right back in with Batman Forever. Even though I remember this movie as being worse than the previous two Batman films, I still got a little bit excited at the opening credits. Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, and Nicole Kidman in their prime! Val Kilmer, two years after playing Doc Holliday in Tombstone – one of the best characters in film history! Chris O’Donnell – well, he’s not great, but how could a movie with this cast be bad? I’m not the only one who remembers this film as being bad – Although both of the first two Batman films were super disappointing, the IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes scores for both are quite high. Batman Returns somehow has an IMDB score of 7.1, while this film is all the way down at 5.4.

It turns out, with the context of seeing the previous two films just before Batman Forever, it is much better than I remember. Through just one scene with Kilmer and Kidman, it is clear they are a better leading duo than Keaton and either Basinger or Pfeiffer. The production value is also much better than the first two films. In Batman, the Batmobile shoots out a grappling hook to pull off the incredible feat of turning left at a slightly high rate of speed. In this film, he’s driving up walls.

The story is not fantastic, but the last two movies taught me that a ridiculous story is kind of the point. I never read DC comics as a kid, but stupid capers by criminals seem to be the entire premise of this franchise. The introduction to Robin, and his relationship to Bruce Wayne, Batman and Alfred all work pretty well.

Finally, the villains here are a huge improvement to the last film. Although Tommy Lee Jones’ portrayal of Two Face is not near Nicholson’s Joker in Batman, he does a fine job of being an annoyingly campy supervillain. Jim Carrey was perfect for his role as the Riddler, and turns the entire film into more of a Jim Carrey movie than a superhero film.

After watching all three of these movies within a week, it is hard for me to guess why my recollection and the entire internet seem to strongly prefer the first and second films. I think it must be timing – Batman came out in 1990, and I was only eight at the time. So, for anyone in my generation, Batman might have seemed less ridiculous because we were just younger. Given how many other people share a similar perspective, it can’t just be age that is a factor. Maybe movies as a whole were moving away from the ridiculousness of the eighties, and Batman Forever didn’t keep up with the times? Regardless, I was incredibly surprised by the fact that I liked this movie more than the original, and way more than Batman Returns. It’s still not a great film, but I’ll go ahead and give it a 6.