BATMAN FOREVER
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1995 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: Biff! Pow! Style delivers the
inevitable knockout punch to substance in the
"Batman" series. Joel Schumacher takes over the
directing reins and gives us the poorest film yet
in the series. Poorly-constructed scenes total to
a story of two thinly-motivated villains warring on
a badly-paired new Batman and Robin. Bat guano!
Rating: -1 (-4 to +4)
You can tell that a series is transforming to a product when the original creative people start having less and less to do with the new chapters. You get substitute directors and maybe there are substitute actors trying to look like the originals. For BATMAN FOREVER Tim Burton still produces but Joel Schumacher (FLATLINERS) directs and Michael Keaton is replaced by Val Kilmer in the title role. Now don't get me wrong. I am not going to hold up the previous "Batman" films as being anything admirable. The second film did achieve a Fellini-esque bizarreness at times, but neither is really good cinema in any sense. BATMAN FOREVER has a new director and a new star and a new, even thinner feel. The new MTV-generation priorities say that the image on the screen is everything. Intelligence behind that image is as useless as the new rubber nipples on the Batman suit.
As long as something looks good on the screen it doesn't matter any more how much sense it makes or in this case doesn't make. We have two totally nonsensical villains. The slightly better-motivated villain is The Riddler (played by Jim Carrey). His grudge against Bruce Wayne/Batman seems to be that Wayne Industries was not sufficiently interested in his new broadcast entertainment system. I suppose he doesn't like the idea of getting rich all by himself. Harvey Dent (played by Tommy Lee Jones) turned into the villain Two- Face because a baddie threw acid in his face. Batman tried to save him but his bat-reflexes were just instants too slow to protect Dent. The grudge against Batman makes absolutely no sense in either case, but the writers are apparently afraid that better motivation would slow the action. Another new character is Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman), supposedly a respected psychologist. Do real psychologists actually call people "wacko?" Do they really psychoanalyze people on the basis of two or three sentences? I doubt it, somehow. As if these three people aren't enough to complicate Batman's life, Bruce Wayne also gets a ward, Dick Grayson (Chris O'Donnell) soon to be Robin, he whom he comics call the "boy wonder." Now Robin may be a wonder of sorts, but he is a bit beyond the "boy" stage. He rides a motorcycle and occasionally needs a shave. Just why someone his age needs a court- appointed guardian is not clear, particularly because the guardian looks to be only about five years his senior. Robin, as comic readers expect, becomes Batman's partner, hiding his identity by choosing a costume that is almost exactly like the one that thousands of people saw him wear as Dick Grayson, circus acrobat. However Robin seems a perfect match in some ways and instantly knows how to operate all the Bat-gear.
The problem with the script is that there is so much that happens with little explanation. This is a film that seems to have been shot from the first draft of a script. Meridian makes a date with Batman, then has second thoughts about dating him and on the date tells him that she is does not want to date him. The message would have been less confusing if she had not waited for Batman in bed and had not met Batman wearing only a sheet. Meeting a man dressed in only a sheet sends signals that are likely to be misinterpreted. While the police and Batman are combing the city for Harvey Dent, the Riddler decides to team up with him and instantly finds him. How? Don't ask questions like "how." One plot situation after another happens with no logic. Even the old 1940s Batman serials had more thought about the logic of their scenes.
Val Kilmer as Bruce Wayne and the Batman seems younger than Michael Keaton. He seems too young for the role, in fact. And he is not the most effective actor one could wish in the role. Admitted neither was Keaton and Kilmer at least has a prominent jawline. Jim Carrey is his usual weird self which makes him much more convincing once he dons the Riddler suit than he was as a mere mortal. His Riddler is a reasonable facsimile of the comic book villain, but his E. Nygma is a bit too much of a Jim Carrey comedy act. Tommy Lee Jones does adequately by Two-Face, but never manages to bring the additional flamboyance to his role that would be needed to stand out from all the noise and the weirdness that is going on.
Visually the style has taken over the film. There just isn't enough cathedral here for all the gargoyles. The skyline of Gotham City, which had an interesting baroque look in BATMAN now has just too many statues and building decorations to be credible--art nouveau ad nauseum. But the worst mistake is to have too many spectacular but incoherent action scenes. Burton's fight scenes have been accused of being unexciting, but at least the viewer knows what Burton is trying to say. Too often you are seeing big objects crashing into other huge thingamabobs and falling into big holes without enough of an idea of why or what is supposed to be happening. Think about it too long and you miss the next big crash. Scenes are choreographed for things to work out too perfectly too much of the time. Objects swing from cables that are just exactly the right length for something else to happen. Even an incredible story needs credible underpinnings and there are just not enough. The real super-villain is The Director who breaks more laws of physics than The Riddler can break laws of Gotham. Visually the effects are generally more believable than the action, though there are some exceptions. The new Batplane looks like a toy, but overall the effects are quite good.
There are certainly times during the endless sequences of senseless action that the film does achieve the feel of the title. Or maybe it is more like BATMAN INTERMINABLE. But I think for me that a better title would be BATMAN NEVER AGAIN. This film gets a -1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
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