Marg: Batman Forever (of all things!)

I have such a lady-boner for The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers that I wanted you to know with confidence that I am not a tramp for just any ol' superhero movie suddenly. In earlier reviews, I touched on the fact that I had seen very few comic book films before - but I had seen Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns. I had not seen Batman Forever... that is until last night.

I like Robin in this.

For some, this film is nostalgic, but it was brand new for me. And more ridiculous than I ever suspected. I am not entirely sure what anyone was thinking in 1995 when the Batman franchise was spiced up with a new director, new lead actor, and an even firmer commitment to wackiness - apparently it had something to do with Burton's Batmans not being family orientated enough. Regardless, what occurred was something super campy - seemingly to the screaming delight of everyone involved.

Joel Schumacher took over the franchise with some wild changes to the gothy aesthetic of previous two films - it would be like if Adam Shankman took over from Christopher Nolan, now. That isn't to say that 1989 and 1992 editions weren't campy... after all, they included a human penguin and this version of the Joker:

Why so ser... oh wait.

But compared to Schumacher's version of the Gotham universe, Burton's is down right gritty. Collectively it was as if everyone on the set simply forgot the definition of subtlety, from the writers to the actors to the costume designer. It is so baffling as to be entertaining, for the most part. Not good, mind, but entertaining.

Val Kilmer took over from Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Keaton was an interesting choice in the first place, because he is Mr. Mom.

"Jack's going to have to start from the bottom up"

 But I guess Kilmer seemed like a nice choice in 1995. I mean, he was in Willow, after all. And had a sweet moustache in Tombstone. If the ability to grow facial hair and saving babies with a dwarf doesn't qualify you to play the Dark Knight of Gotham, than what will?

In this, Batman looks like an angry girl.

Even in the mid-nineties, though not as shockingly bloated as he is today, good ol' Val was in the early stages of Fat Head syndrome, and his marshmallow-soft face was, while just sweet in a turtleneck, decidedly un-Batman-like.

Clenching your jaw doesn't make it more manly, Turtles.

The usually reserved Tommy Lee Jones did his best Jack Nicholson as the Joker impression while playing one of the main villains of Batman Forever, Harvey Two-Face Dent... or rather, Harvey Two-Face as they kept calling him in the movie, as if Two-Face were his surname. It cannot be denied that Jones obviously had an absolute ball while not giving one solitary fuck about the quality of film he was participating in. No, not one fuck! And he's gleeful about it.

Acid dyed my hair pink!

Jim Carrey was at the height of his wacky-comedies career, and brings everything you'd expect to the table. I remember when I was a kid, my mother saying that she couldn't stand Carrey's Fire Marshall Bill character... this might have been why we never watched Batman Forever... he uses the same inflections repeatedly. But to be fair, his Riddler character is just a mash up of all his other characters, different scene by scene.

Nicole Kidman plays Dr. Dogname Meridian, an extremely horny criminal psychologist who wants to bone Batman... so... bad. It is a wonderfully wooden performance by Kidman, who tries to just breath all of her lines, and who is clearly having trouble feigning attraction for Val Kilmer - their lack of chemistry is the cherry on top of some awkward scenes where Bruce Wayne decides it must be love. 

We're very uncomfortable.

Someone not having any sort of difficulty with their Batman related chemistry is Chris O'Donnell's Robin aka Dick Grayson because the world is cruel. Oh they are so into each other it is the best! Twenty-five year old O'Donnell assumes the role originally created for a minor, but instead of trying to explain that away, Batman Forever just convolutes the whole situation. He's constantly referred to as "young" with no specific age given, he's told that he should go to college, but for some reason after his family dies he is brought by Commissioner Gordon (who in this film only has two jobs - delivering orphans and manning the bat signal insufficiently) to be taken care of by Bruce Wayne, "once social services is done with him". Very little of that matters, I suppose. All you really need to know is that Dick is cool (he wears an earring), and wild (he rides a motorcycle), and he and Bruce Wayne become very committed to each other.

Even before I saw the film, I remember that just historically, the costumes in the Schumacher Batmans were supposed to be quite kinky. I wasn't disappointed:

Mercy!

 I decided that while I could go into the plot line of Batman Forever, literally everything that happens in the movie can be found in its theatrical trailer:

And no, not jut the best parts... everything! 

Actually, the best parts of my Batman Forever watching experience were found on the DVD extras. Two things spring to mind, specifically the scene starting at around 2:55, after Bruce Wayne discovers in a cave that he need not blame himself for the death of his parents:

What the... they paid money for that thing!

And of course the next best thing on the DVD extras is this:

Word on the street is that Batman and Robin was somehow an even worse movie than Batman Forever. Suddenly, I can't even wait. 

-Marg

@acuteinsomnia