DC and Warners therefore made the fateful decision to try and make the third film in the franchise, 1995's "Batman Forever", a more family-friendly effort with Tim Burton being restricted to the role of producer much to his chagrin and Joel Schumacher replacing him as director. Michael Keaton, who'd played Batman in the first two films, had also left with Val Kilmer replacing him in the title role and Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey being drafted in as villains Two-Face and the Riddler. Unlike Burton, who brought his own trademark gothic style to the first two films, Schumacher was more of a fan of the Adam West '60s style series and "Batman Forever" had a much lighter (some would say more cartoony) feel than the first two Batman films. While it still performed respectably at the box office, reviews were much more mixed than first time around. Your correspondent, however, recalls seeing it at the pictures as a 16-year-old and thinking it wasn't all that bad so this should be an interesting one to revisit all these years later...
The film starts with Two-Face's goons robbing a bank and Batman turning up to stop them. There to greet him are Commissioner Gordon and police psychologist Chase Meridian (a pre-botox overload Nicole Kidman) who starts chatting up Batman pretty much immediately - cue some cringeworthily clunky dialogue. Incidentally, if this seems like a bit of a sudden start to the film, it's apparently because there was a whole section at the original start of the film which was dedicated to Two-Face breaking out of Arkham Asylum which was cut from the movie because Warners were worried that it was too dark and might mean that they wouldn't get their precious PG rating for the film. I mean hey, sod common sense when there's money to be made, right?...
The opening bit of this film really isn't very good - Two-Face imprisons Batman in a mobile bank vault then takes off with it attached to his helicopter (!?) while simultaneously filling the vault with battery acid. Batman manages to escape and launches the vault back into the building using his Batrope before climbing up the chain on to the helicopter. However, after a scuffle, Two-Face bails leaving the 'copter to crash into the Statue of Liberty (hold on, Gotham has a Statue of Liberty now?) and taking half of its face off. A nice visual but ultimately this isn't a very promising start to the film.
Back in his day job, Bruce Wayne is doing a tour of his science labs when he's introduced to a young electrics trainee called Edward Nygma who's been developing a device allowing him to beam TV signals into peoples' brains. Bruce expresses some interest but when Nygma demands an answer on the spot, he's turned down as Wayne is worried that the whole project veers way too close to mind control. Incensed, Nygma vows revenge.
Chase, meanwhile, continues to liaise with both Bruce and Batman and these scenes really are just unbearably awkward. I don't blame Val Kilmer or Nicole Kidman for this as they're both decent enough actors but the script they've been given to work with here is just unbelievably bad and makes these scenes drag and drag.
Nygma, meanwhile, has gone rogue, attacking his bully of a supervisor and demonstrating his brainwave device on him, explaining that as well as beaming TV signals into the human brain, it also allows Nygma to absorb a bit of the user's IQ. When the supervisor threatens to have him sacked, Nygma pushes his office chair out of a window and tampers with the CCTV camera to make it look like a suicide. I know that Jim Carrey is very much a Marmite style actor with a lot of people but at least his manic energy here makes a nice change of pace from the snorefest that is Bruce and Chase. He also begins sending riddles through to Bruce concerning his identity.
Bruce invites Chase to the local circus featuring a performance by the acrobat troupe the Flying Graysons. However, it's rudely interrupted by Two Face who sends his masked goons in to plant a bomb in the circus and blow everyone up. The Graysons attempt to defuse the bomb with Dick, the youngest, grabbing it and throwing it into the river next to the circus field, but the rest of his family are gunned down by an angry Two-Face.
In the aftermath, Bruce Wayne offers Grayson the chance to stay at Wayne Manor. Initially he only does so to get the counsellors at Gotham Social Services off his back so he can go and wreak his revenge on Two Face but when Bruce, realising that his new charge is a bit of a petrolhead, offers him a job maintaining the classic cars and bikes in his garage, he quickly comes round to agreeing.
Nygma, meanwhile, has tracked Two Face down to his lair where he's being attended to by his two valets, the white-clad Sugar (Drew Barrymore looking absolutely smoking hot here it has to be said) and the rubber-clad Spice (Goodfellas' Debbie Mazar). Now going by the alter ego of the Riddler, he offers Two-Face a deal where they'll collaborate to rob banks and jewellry stores to gain enough capital to mass-market Nygma's device, use it to hack the minds of Gotham's citizens and become rich beyond their wildest dreams.
I have to give props here - the chemistry here between Jones and Carrey who make for a great '60s Batman style OTT (but not too much so) crazed villain pairing is actually really good and pretty much turns what had looked like a pretty hopeless film so far around with the two playing off each other brilliantly. It's especially surprising given that firstly Jones has pretty much based almost his whole career on playing deadpan grumpy old men and secondly that the pair apparently couldn't get on at all on set.
While Dick is exploring Wayne Manor, he inadvertently discovers the Batcave and decides to take the Batmobile out for a spin, rescuing a girl who's been kidnapped by a bunch of Two-Face's goons and using some nifty moves to take them out. However, the arrival of reinforcements prompts Batman (interrupting his date with Chase) to intervene and save him. I have to be honest, Chris O'Donnell, who plays Robin, is actually much better in this film than I remember him being, doing the whole cocky-but-inexperienced kid routine similar to Chris Evans in the Fantastic Four or Ryan Reynolds in Blade Trinity (both of whom were pretty much the best thing about those films respectively).
The next night, Bruce and Dick are invited to the official launch of Nygma's new TV brainbox with Bruce trying the technology out after Nygma dares him to. However, the party is "crashed" by Two-Face in a set-up to steal the rich visitors' jewellry which causes Bruce to turn into Batman to drive them off. However, Two-Face lures him into an underground chamber and shoots the ceiling causing Batman to be buried in a cave-in with Grayson eventually coming to his rescue. However, Riddler has kept Bruce's brainwaves on record and he and Two-Face realise that Batman and Wayne are one and the same person.
Back at the Batcave, Grayson and Bruce discuss their future - Dick wants to become Batman's crimefighting partner but Bruce is worried about his vengeful streak, especially where Two-Face is concerned. Bruce has also found out that, contrary to what he first though, Chase fancies him rather than Batman and has decided to give the superhero lifestyle up to settle down into a normal relationship with her. Frustrated, Dick jumps on his dirt bike and runs away from Wayne Manor.
Bruce invites Chase over on Halloween with the aim of telling her everything about his secret identity but they're interrupted by Riddler and Two-Face arriving at the door disguised as trick-or-treaters. While Two-Face and his goons fight Bruce and Chase with the former being shot in the head and the latter being kidnapped, Riddler heads down to the Batcave and blows the whole thing up leaving Wayne fresh out of weapons and suits and destroying the Batmobile. This is actually a pretty cool sequence as it really does give the impression of Batman being down to his last hand of cards so to speak.
Dick, now using the pseudonym Robin (as a tribute to his late brother who used the alias when he was a stunt biker), returns to the Batcave and Bruce finally agrees to let him partner him on the mission to rescue Chase with Robin taking the Batboat and Batman the Batwing. However, both are blown out of the sky/water just a short way from the Riddler's island hideout.
The pair split up on reaching the shore with Robin fighting Two-Face on the clifftop and Batman heading in to confront Riddler. Robin knocks Two-Face over the cliff but, mindful of not letting his need for vengeance consume him, pulls him back up only to realise it was a stupid move as Two-Face pulls a gun on him and captures him.
After evading a series of traps, Batman reaches the Riddler's lair where he has Robin and Chase both captive in cages above a trapdoor with a hundred foot drop beneath it and asks Batman to choose which of them he wants to save. However, Batman manages to distract him long enough to throw his Batarang straight into the Mindframe's central computer causing the information channels to reverse and Riddler's brain to be fried. He presses the button to drop Chase and Robin to their deaths but through some nifty use of the Batrope, Batman manages to save both of them only for Two-Face to appear above them. However, Batman reminds him to toss his trademark coin to decide if they should live or die before throwing a pouch full of coins up into the air confusing Two-Face and causing him to lose his balance and plummet to his death.
Back in Arkham Asylum, Chase is sent to interview the now-incarcerated Edward Nygma who claims to know Batman's secret identity. However, it turns out that his brain is now so frazzled that he believes himself to be Batman. She and Bruce share a kiss outside the asylum gates before he heads off for his next Bat-mission. And thus the film ends.
I think the main problem with Batman Forever, similar to Superman 3 a decade earlier, is that it had to follow two very strong films and the change of direction to a more PG-friendly style was never going to suit everybody. Certainly, compared to the understated Tim Burton films, the neon overload here is not easy on the eyes and doesn't help. The other main problem is that this film just doesn't quite seem sure what it wants to be - a continuation of Tim Burton's gothic style Batman or a throwback to the more cartoony '60s Adam West version. It's perhaps telling that it's at its strongest when it goes for the latter approach - if anything, the three guys who carry this film are Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey who make for an awesome villain pairing as Two-Face and Riddler and Chris O'Donnell who's actually much better than I remember him being as Robin, capturing that mix of youthful inexperience and cockiness very well. The trouble is that Val Kilmer and Nicole Kidman are like a charisma black hole at the centre of the story (not for want of trying, if anything it's the script's fault rather than theirs) and it all ends up being a frustratingly inconsistent mish-mash of a film.
The Batman series under Joel Schumacher would limp on for another film but this would be Val Kilmer's one and only appearance in the Batsuit. I'll save the majority of the angst for next week but let's just say that, again similar to the Superman series a decade earlier, the fourth Batman film is where things really went south. And while this film just to say has enough excitement to earn it a very narrow pass, the warning signs for what was to come were very much there...
FINAL RATING: 🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇 (6/10)
CURRENT DC FILM TABLE
1. Batman Returns (1992) (9/10)
2. Batman (1989) (8/10)
3. Superman (1978) (8/10)
4. Superman 2 (1980) (8/10)
5. Batman (1966) (8/10)
6. Batman Forever (1995) (6/10)
7. Superman 3 (1983) (5/10)
8. Swamp Thing (1982) (5/10)
9. The New Wonder Woman (1975) (5/10)
10. Superman and the Mole Men (1951) (5/10)
11. The Flash 2 - Revenge Of The Trickster (1991) (4/10)
12. The Flash 3 - Deadly Nightshade (1991) (4/10)
13. Wonder Woman Returns (1977) (4/10)
14. The Flash (1990) (4/10)
15. Wonder Woman (1974) (3/10)
16. The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) (2/10)
17. Superman 4 - The Quest For Peace (1987) (2/10)
18. Supergirl (1984) (2/10)
NEXT WEEK: "Let's kick Ice!" And ironically, the Batman series crashes and burns...
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