Batman Forever: I Love This Movie

[Timothy Hunter]

Why can't more movies be like Batman Forever? Why can more movies, period, be like Batman Forever? Tommy Lee Jones gives the performance of his life playing Two Face. His scars look like face paint from a children's birthday party. Still better than that Two Face with the CGI eye in Dark Knight. I am honestly shocked that Jim Carey wasn't nominated for an Oscar for his performance as the Riddler. He gives it his all. Much better than Heath Ledger as the Joker. Batman adopts a kid as old as he is! Val Kilmer is the perfect Batman. With his Barbie face no one in their right mind would expect this Bruce Wayne to be Batman, but when Kilmer puts on the cowl I was sold.

You might think I'm trolling, but I'm not, words cannot express how much fun Batman Forever. From the movies I've seen (The Lost Boys, 8MM, and this), Joel Schumacher appears to be a pretty damn good director.

[batnbreakfast]

I'm waiting for you to arrive at Batman Begins

[choptop]

It's actually not a bad move for what it is it's fun and entering and camp I don't have many problems with it.

[Midvillian1322]

Don't agree with some of that. But I did love this film as a kid. Kilmer was my favorite batman. Might still be but it's hard to judge since movie qualities vary so widely between actors.

[babyblob]

I did and still do enjoy this movie. And Batman and Robin. In my mind they are like a modern version of Adam west batman. Over the top villains and goofy plots. I loved it.

The only thing I did not like about batman Forever is when Riddler and Two Face are in Wayne Manor and Two Face is deciding if he should Kill Bruce Wayne. he keeps flipping the coin until he gets the result he wants. That is not how Two Face would have handled it. he would have flipped the coin once and left it to chance. And in the comics if something prevents him from doing what the coin decided he has a mini flip out. Yet the Riddler stops him from shooting Bruce and Two Face just takes it with a smile and shrug.

That is the only thing in the movie that bugged me.

[sunofdarkchild]

I think the movie is underrated and gets unfairly lumped in with Batman and Robin when it's far better than that movie and in some ways it's better than the 2 Burton movies.

It's the first Batman movie to actually do something with Batman, and I liked Kilmer. He also sounds the most like Kevin Conroy of any of the live action Batmans. The action is much better than the Burton films. Even though the suit was still a nightmare to move in, he still moves much faster and more fluidly in combat than in the previous movies.

The new music isn't as good as the Danny Elfman themes, but it's still very good. The visuals are also a step down. Burton is a horrible storyteller, but he's a master when it comes to putting pretty things on the screen,

The plot is goofy and over-the-top, but the fact that there is a plot is already a big improvement over the previous movies which had no plot to speak of. Riddler planning to make himself smarter by siphoning off people's brains is delightfully comicbooky.

But the movie still has many problems. Tommy Lee Jones is wasted as Two Face. His opening monologue is great, but after that he becomes just another cooky over the top villain, often making dumb noises in place of having any dialogue and then being relegated to Riddler's sidekick. Jim Carrey does better as Riddler, but he's just Carrey being Carrey. The biggest problem is that the most important scene in the movie was cut, the scene that tied everything together, explained the importance of the red book, and completed Bruce's arc and the psychological study of his character the movie had been building to. For the life of me I can't fathom how that decision was made. 'Hey, we've got this scene that is the climax of the main character's arc we've been building to the whole movie where he has a major epiphany that changes his entire attitude and pushes him forward, but let's cut that so all the subtle aspects of the story amount to nothing.'

[Timothy Hunter]

I'm waiting for you to arrive at Batman Begins

I adore Dark Knight Rises and the Dark Knight, but I actually think that Batman Begins is the worst Batman film if you don't count Batman V Superman. It takes itself way too seriously for a film that has just as many goofy moments as any MCU movie.

[Jim Kelly]

I never felt that way about BATMAN BEGINS. Of the three Nolan movies, it's the one that's more fun and fantasy driven. Instead of setting Gotham in a realistic world, it's set in a kind of steam-punk city--something like Lang's METROPOLIS. Bruce goes out into the great big world and has adventures in pulp novel type settings (a lot like the Shadow's origin story) and this is filmed against spectacular vistas. There's so much of the boys' adventure stories in that movie. And when he gets back to Gotham, it's like something out of Doc Savage, the way he invents stuff and has his operatives to assist him. Aside from the muddy fight scenes at night, there's a lot to love in that movie.

[Mistah K88]

I can't hate this movie. I don't know if it's because I was a child when it came out or because it was just fun. I will say that it is the only Batman movie where I could take Bruce seriously as a CEO as a company. With all of the rather public incidents of Bruce being an idiot in other movies, it gets hard to believe that the company hasn't lost a lot of support. (Bad publicity isn't as good as people tend to think).

I think the movie is underrated and gets unfairly lumped in with Batman and Robin when it's far better than that movie and in some ways it's better than the 2 Burton movies.

It's the first Batman movie to actually do something with Batman, and I liked Kilmer. He also sounds the most like Kevin Conroy of any of the live action Batmans. The action is much better than the Burton films. Even though the suit was still a nightmare to move in, he still moves much faster and more fluidly in combat than in the previous movies.

The new music isn't as good as the Danny Elfman themes, but it's still very good. The visuals are also a step down. Burton is a horrible storyteller, but he's a master when it comes to putting pretty things on the screen,

The plot is goofy and over-the-top, but the fact that there is a plot is already a big improvement over the previous movies which had no plot to speak of. Riddler planning to make himself smarter by siphoning off people's brains is delightfully comicbooky.

But the movie still has many problems. Tommy Lee Jones is wasted as Two Face. His opening monologue is great, but after that he becomes just another cooky over the top villain, often making dumb noises in place of having any dialogue and then being relegated to Riddler's sidekick. Jim Carrey does better as Riddler, but he's just Carrey being Carrey. The biggest problem is that the most important scene in the movie was cut, the scene that tied everything together, explained the importance of the red book, and completed Bruce's arc and the psychological study of his character the movie had been building to. For the life of me I can't fathom how that decision was made. 'Hey, we've got this scene that is the climax of the main character's arc we've been building to the whole movie where he has a major epiphany that changes his entire attitude and pushes him forward, but let's cut that so all the subtle aspects of the story amount to nothing.'

I've heard rumors that Tommy Lee Jones acted goofy as Two Face as he was annoyed with Jim Carrey's Riddler... If this is the case he definitely missed the mark as he should have put THAT into his acting and remained the "straight man" to the manic Riddler. I remember Two Face's final speech before falling to his death giving off the vibe that he HATED working with Nygma but lost the coin toss "no more curtains number 1 and 2, just plain curtains!"

[Scott Taylor]

Batman 1989 and the Nolan trilogy is waaaaaay better but I like Forever more than Returns and (lol) Batman and Robin, which ... wow, bleh. Forever is very watchable and entertaining. Not great, mind you. Jim Carrey is the biggest problem with the movie for me, he just was a bit too much. Plus I hate, hate, hate the so-called action scenes, but they are fun to laugh at. Funny you mention Lost Boys - the action sucked in that movie, too, but its still a great film due to the characters.

Meanwhile Seal did a really great job on the main song of the movie:

[Comic-Reader Lad]

If viewed as big budget versions of the Adam West TV series, both Batman Forever and Batman & Robin are worthwhile movies.

Schumacher created two really visually interesting movies -- nuance and subtlety be damned. These movies are colorful and astonishing to look at. There are several images from each movie that I can recall to this day.

Clooney was dull and uninteresting as Batman, but O'Donnell was a good Robin. I wouldn't have minded a solo Nightwing spinoff film from him at the time.

I did and still do prefer Batman Forever to Batman Returns, which I found dull except for the Catwoman parts. I think I even prefer Batman & Robin, as dumb as it is, to Batman Returns. I was never bored with B&R.

[Somecrazyaussie]

I'm waiting for you to arrive at Batman Begins

Begins is still the best live action Batman film in my mind. It has one foot planted in the real world, but still feels like a comic world brought to life. TDK is a great crime drama, but it flips the convention of Begins by being a a real world movie with minimal comic influence.

As for Forever? I enjoyed it as a kid and still do now. Actually, if they had gone with how the script was, it still would have been considerably dark. But Tommy Lee didn't give the performance of a lifetime. He hammed it up to epic levels and had the hide to call Carrey out by telling him "I don't like you. I don't support your buffoonery" yet he did the exact same thing. There was no subtle nuance to Two-face at all. He just pranced around and acted like a Joker-lite. He really should have been the straight man to Carrey.

Other than that, and a few minor gripes, I can still return to this movie. It just sucks we never got the true "vision" of what it could have been.

[Nate Grey]

If viewed as big budget versions of the Adam West TV series, both Batman Forever and Batman & Robin are worthwhile movies.

Agreed, though IMO Batman Forever is the "bridge" or merging of Burton and BBVotAWTS, with B&R the full fledged, complete version of that.

Schumacher created two really visually interesting movies -- nuance and subtlety be damned. These movies are colorful and astonishing to look at. There are several images from each movie that I can recall to this day.

Likewise, plus the music. I felt Batman Returns dropped the ball in that department but BF and B&R picked it back up. Score-wise, they were all pretty consistent, though Batman Returns seems to have a few cues or leitmotifs lifted directly from Edward Scissorhands (I mean, same composer and same director and it was just two years prior, guess it makes sense).

Clooney was dull and uninteresting as Batman, but O'Donnell was a good Robin. I wouldn't have minded a solo Nightwing spinoff film from him at the time.

Yes! In fact in B&R he was basically wearing his Nightwing outfit, just with blue swapped out with crimson.

I did and still do prefer Batman Forever to Batman Returns, which I found dull except for the Catwoman parts. I think I even prefer Batman & Robin, as dumb as it is, to Batman Returns. I was never bored with B&R.

I feel the same way. Batman Returns, I like bits and pieces of it. As a whole it doesn't make a lot of sense. While Max Shreck feels like a stand in for Harvey Dent (I'm not sure what happened there or why Billie Dee Williams didn't return), I don't know if he was swapped back in but everything else stayed the same (minus Chip Shreck obviously) if it would have helped. BF and B&R, as bad as they are, I can enjoy them from beginning to end, not in bits in pieces like BR. *shrugs*

[BeastieRunner]

The projector caught fire when I went to this movie when it came out.

I took that as a sign.

[Frobisher]

I thought this was meant to be a parody of a Snyder cultist, but now I’m not so sure.