BATMAN FOREVER
A film review by Matthew Turner
Copyright 1995 Matthew Turner
Okay, so what if the newest Batman movie doesn't follow the path/look/spirit of its angsty, semi-nihilistic comic counterpart? I hope no one takes this as shallow as it may seem, but I do not go to movies about superheroes to see regular people. I go to see the superheroes, the supervillains, the larger-than-life conflict, an episode in the never-ending battle between Good and Evil, between Law and Chaos. What if we sacrifice a little character-depth for it all? So what? I didn't go into BATMAN FOREVER on its opening night looking for an angsty, self-indulgent overanalysis of character that would bore Sigmund Freud to tears. I went to see The Batman go up against Two-Face and The Riddler. I was only slightly let down.
It didn't make lots of difference for me that Val Kilmer was playing Batman. He contributed a certain slickness that Michael Keaton lacked, but Keaton was older and seemed a tad more complex of an individual, more of a grown-up. I was happy that Tim Burton *wasn't* directing this installment. I disliked BATMAN RETURNS, and I disliked it a lot. It wasn't just dark. It was pitch. It's probably just me, but that kind of movie I can do without... unless it's just flat-out done better. Joel Schumacher did an excellent job of bringing a comic book feel to the movie. It reminds most people of the ones they read as kids, bright, flashy, quick, slick and filled with some cool one-liners. In the older comics (ones of the late 70s and early 80s) we didn't have these superheroes with tortured souls. It was the BAD GUYS with the tortured souls. That's why they were BAD in the first place!
Jim Carrey pulled off The Riddler like Frank Gorshin with a twist, a meaner twist. (For those who *don't* know, Frank Gorshin was the best Riddler from the original Batman series.) It was a terrific job for Carrey. He was made for it. Enough said. I was disappointed with Two-Face, though. I thought Tommy Lee Jones was fantastic ... when I saw him. In the opening, the surrounding noise was so loud I couldn't understand what he was saying a lot of the time. What I saw of Two-Face I liked, and I kept wishing for more. I was also let waaaaaaaaaay down by the way in which Two-Face was defeated. I don't know what, but I thought it should've been a different end to Two-Face. It seemed like only an afterthought, like they said, "Oops. Gotta kill Two-Face. Oh! I know...."
.... and Robin. Robin. Robin. Robin. I always HATED Robin. In the TV show I always hoped that one of the villains' traps or torture devices or murder machines would've chopped him into a billion billion pieces and hurled them into the Sun. But Chris O'Donnell did pretty good. I actually didn't want him to die. It was cool. As for Nicole Kidman. She was okay. She looked nice in a bedsheet, I suppose. And Michael Gough *rules* as Alfred.
The special effects were niff-neato, though I thought "The Box" should've been either a box or called something else. The City of Gotham (computer-generated), I thought, was really good.
In all, BATMAN FOREVER is better than the comics-junkies might believe. After all, I spend much of my time in movies and less time in comics. I may not be as good a judge of comics as movies, but BATMAN FOREVER *isn't* a comic. It's a movie. Remember that, and you'll probably like it.
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