So I have a sizeable dvd collection. I'll often go to resale shops, and be like "Oh, a George Carlin DVD? $3? Yes please!" and then not watch it for years.
So I've had Batman, Batman Returns, and Batman Forever in my collection FOREVER. I refuse to buy Batman & Robin on the grounds that it's Batman & Robin.
Well anyways, last night I was bored, and needed to watch something new while I cleaned my room. I decided to watch Batman Forever. I remember loving it as a kid, and HATING Batman & Robin. So I figured "Well, let's see if this holds up to my childhood memories...."
Spoiler alert, they did not....but it wasn't terrible either.
So, this is the first Batman movie without Micheal Keaton, without Tim Burton, and maybe without Danny Elfman? The music certainly didn't feel like Elfman.
So the immediate thing I dislike about this movie is, despite previously appearing in the series as Harvey Dent (previously played by a black actor, and now played by Tommy Lee Jones, which is confusing right from the start), you NEVER see why Harvey Dent went crazy. You see this really bizarre scene of acid being thrown on Harvey Dent, and him "covering up half his face" with a manilla envelope.......but the liquid clearly splashes his whole face.
All of this is shown to the viewer through GNN (a CNN parody where GNN stands for Gothham News Network). The weird thing is, this is happening in a court of law. GNN is just broadcasting Harvey Dent, Attorney at Law doing his job in court. They had NO REASON to know something crazy would happen. And as it happens, Batman is just sitting among the spectators. He's not on trial. He's not beyond the line that only court participants go. He's behind that line, as a spectator. And again, nobody knew crazy things were going to happen to Harvey Dent, the attorney. Batman just came into the courtroom, took a seat, and was watching a random court case play out. WHY???
So Dent gets splashed with the acid, and for some reason blames Batman???
And now he's evil. Nothing to explain why he has any sense of duality. Nothing to explain his coin. Nothing to explain why only half his face was burned. I get that he got burned, but nothing is explained why he's EVIL now. On top of that, he plays the role like a combination of Ceasar Romeros Joker, and Jack Nicholsons Joker........except he's NOT the Joker. He's Harvey Dent/Two Face. He misses the point of the role entirely. The closest he comes is in the early parts of the movie, when he says to a bank security guard "Heads, you live...tails, you die". Flips it, comes up heads. Throws the guard into a vault, to which the guard says "I thought heads means I live?" and Two Face says "Ah, too true. You WILL live....to be bat-bait!"
THAT'S NOT TWO FACE!!! Either way, he expects the guard to die. The whole point of the coin is to ease Harvey Dents empathy, while also satiating Two Face's bloodlust. In this movie, both outcomes leads to bloodlust in some form. There's even a scene later in the film where he keeps flipping the coin until he gets tails. WHATS THE FUCKING POINT THEN??? Joel Shoemacker and Tommy Lee Jones both missed the point entirely of the character. If I were writting this script, I'd have chosen another secondary villain. More on that later.
The Riddler is played by Jim Carry. Now The Riddler is a very unique character which can be played a bunch of ways. You can play him dark, you can play him cartoony, you can play him mysterious, you can play him as an figure you never even see. Jim Carry takes it more in a cartoonish over the top mid-90s Jim Carry style performance. I've heard rumors that originally the role was meant for Robin Williams, and I certainly could see him playing the role almost the exact same way. I even saw a short video on youtube clipped from an interview recorded in the 90s where he talks about how sometimes Hollywood uses you and your talents as bait. At one time Jack Nicholson was supposed to play the Joker in Batman 89, and then backed out. So they said "We'll just give it to Robin Williams if you back out", and suddenly Jack Nicholson was back in. You could really hear the hurt in his voice when he said "Sometimes they use you. They promise you things they never meant to give you, all so someone else can make a little extra on their paycheck. But maybe one day I'll be cast. Maybe as The Riddler."
Jim Carry played the role expertly however. For what this film was trying to be, he played the role exactly how he should. It would be interesting to see how he'd play it AFTER hollywood discovered he can do drama and not just "unsanctioned baffoonary", as Tommy Lee Jones put it.
The citys atmosphere was WAAAAAAY off. The first two films depicted Gotham as being a dark brooding city, where crime and depression loomed in every corner. Batman Forever deals almost exclusively in neon bright colors. At one point an alley became a blacklight rave. It made NO SENSE!!!
What's worse, is they could have played into the colors with the story they have, if they simply depicted the city with the same dark depressing tones, until the city gets ahold of Edward Nigmas brain drain machine. You could see the depressing greys and blacks of the city contrast slowly at first, and then more and more with the bright neon green. As each household plugs in, the city gets a little more neon bright. Signifying the population treating their depression with this new brain drain machine. All the while the viewer knows how it's cheery bright happy visuals represent something far darker. And that brings me back to two-face. Remember when I said he shouldn't even be in this movie? Well, he really didn't have any character development, or plan, or motivation besides "kill batman". So what if we swapped him out for a different villain.
I'm thinking The Riddler works with Mr Freeze. As the city turns more and more green with brain drain machines in every house, it means more and more population is distracted and thus unable to pay attention to the real dangers around them. More and more the Riddlers machine becomes increasingly a metaphore for the distraction that TV had become by the 90s. Taken to the extreme, the city becomes a society of couch bound zombies, leaving the streets abandoned. I'm thinking Robin Williams could have played Mr Freeze. A character only interested in saving his wife, and when Batman destroys the only method to allow her to be healed, he instead diverts his attention to working with The Riddler. The Riddler clears the streets of opposition, and in return he gains mental information of the citizens watching. And Mr Freeze gets to set the abandoned city into a sub zero wasteland to allow his wife to comfortably walk the streets. His freezing could have turned the city neon blue. So the skies are neon green, the streets are neon blue, and Batman has to save the city. I think that works better on every level.
Batman is played by Val Kilmer. He plays an alright Batman, but a great Bruce Wayne. Certainly a downgrade from previous films, but not the worst (for that, see George Clooney. The smug asshole).
Nichole Kidman is here in a truely forgetable role. She's just another chick that wants to fuck Batman. They play her character as obsessed with duality, but she has no real interest in Bruce Wayne. Only Batman......and god damn does she throw herself at him. Truely awful writing. Her performance is fine for what they wanted her to do. It's just what they wanted her to do serves no purpose, and again misses the point of the role they've laid out for her.
Chris something plays Robin. Which ultimately is weird for two reasons. First, he's way too old to be Robin. Robin is supposed to be like 14. Here he's like 23. Why is he getting forced to live with Bruce if he's an adult? At this point in the 90s, I'd have cast Joseph Gordon Levit. Oddly enough he'd be cast as "Robin" in the nolan films.......again, when he was far too old. Although I do like that they stayed true to the comics visual style of Robin in the circus portion of the film, and stayed true to the source material for his backstory. I kinda wish that was just his outfit in the movie, instead of that metalic look.
BAT NIPPLES!!! BAT NIPPLES!!!
Alfred crushed it as always.
I forgot all about sugar and spice. I was like "sugar looks firmiliar. I wonder if she's done anything else.......holy shit that's drew barrymore. What the fuck is she doing playing such a bit part???" I bet you she just loved Batman, and wanted anything to do with this film, and the directors were like "Yeah, all we got is this bit part, but it's way below your talents, and..." "I'LL TAKE IT!!!" I bet that's how that went.
The batmobile just offends me. The previous one was just perfect. Just don't change anything......oh, I see, it needed neon colors too. Probably so you could sell new toys. Which is another thing this movie suffers from. Everything is blatently made just for the sake of merchandising it. Batman 89 was a merchandise juggernaut, and all you needed was a black shirt, and a yellow bat symbol on the chest. Sold like a billion of those!
Did we even see commishioner gordon?
Maybe it's more of a modern film style, but I feel like these films were only thought of one at a time, rather than connecting 4 films as one continuous story. I feel like Joker should have made a small cameo at the end of this movie, to set up for his big return in the 4th movie. Replace Nichole Kidman's character in this movie with Dr Herleen Quinzel. Returning Jack Nicholson as the Joker. And the two of them would be the main villains of the 5th movie "Revenge on Batman"
God damnit hollywood! Get your shit together!!!
They're going to become a pizza topping???