Batman Forever (1995)
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Batman Forever Movie Review
Batman Forever is a 1995 superhero film directed by Joel Schumacher and starring Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey. It’s a very campy movie.
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“Riddle me this,
riddle me that,
who’s afraid of the big, black bat?“
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First and foremost, both ‘Batman’ and especially ‘Batman Returns’ were quite campy and silly at times, but this sequel is so much campier to the point of it becoming ludicrous and way too silly to be taken even remotely seriously. Tim Burton and Michael Keaton are both gone and here we get Joel Schumacher who’s always been a terrible director and here all of his atrociousness is at full display as he’s the one most responsible for this mess.
His direction is horrible and the campiness that he brings to the table is simply too much and there are many scenes here where the two villains just goof around and that’s it. There is a lot of positive praise directed toward Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones. The former actor I have honestly never liked, but he does fit the role of The Riddler and is thus quite memorable in it. Jones as Two-Face is also quite good and their scenes, though overly abundant, can be amusing.
But Nicole Kidman plays such a regular love interest who’s bland and dull, Chris O’Donnell’s Robin is as silly and as stupid as you’d expect and the worst offence is Val Kilmer who was just a terrible choice to play Batman as he’s so uncharismatic, so boring and ultimately the character himself was a non-entity here.
The action in Batman Forever is not only very weak, but also rather sparse for a superhero flick as, again, the movie relied too much on comedy and goofiness and everything else came as an afterthought. But it’s not really funny, but rather more amusing than anything else. Some of its campiness worked, but most of it was horrible.
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I also found its technical aspects much weaker this time around. The score’s okay, but everything else, especially the costumes, are simply not good. Again, the director ruined what could have been a fun genre flick and once Burton left, everything suffered as a result.
Batman Forever can be amusing in the scenes with The Riddler and Two-Face who are memorably played by Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones, but the others are mediocre with Val Kilmer giving us a particularly bland Batman. Joel Schumacher is the one most responsible for this mess by making such a ridiculously campy movie.
