Batman Forever Review

Batman Forever is the first film in the Schumacher film series.

Story: Batman Forever deals with many things: Dick's family dying, Bruce having nightmares about his parents' death, Two-Face teaming up with The Riddler, and more. It would have made a wonderful addition to the Batman film-family, but the mediocre acting, horrendous characterization, and cheesy one-lines make this one of the worst in the Batman film series.

The movie starts out with Two-Face robbing a bank. Batman meets up with Dr. Chase Meridian (a psychiatrist with a thing for Bats). After some small talk, The Dark Knight makes his way to the action. He takes out a group of machine-gun wielding thugs as he rescues a guard. To his surprise, he fell into a trap! Acid fills up the vault he and the guard are inside of it... what will Batman do? Well, he not only gets out, he smoothly slides the vault back into place.

We are later introduced to Edward Nygma (a researcher at Wayne Enterprises with a thing for Bruce Wayne). Edward tells Bruce about his new invention. A machine that manipulates brain activity, thus making images on screen look 3D. Bruce turns Edward down, and so begins The Riddler. After going through a list of possible villain names, he chooses the one that best fits his persona.

The whole film is about Two-Face and Riddler trying to figure out what Batman's true identity is, and causing him pain by killing his loved ones?

Cast: Val Kilmer isn't a bad Batman/Bruce Wayne, he's just not the best. Kilmer at least made an effort to change his voice between characters, unlike George Clooney. Chris O'Donnell takes on the role of the Boy Wonder, Robin. Personally, I thought he looked WAY too old, and acted WAY too bratty.

The Riddler is played by funny-man Jim Carrey. He does a good job with the role for the most part, but he's a bit too excited at times. Two-Face is completely wrong, Tommy Lee Jones is a talented actor, but he played Two-Face all wrong in this film. The supporting cast was decent, with Pat Hingle reprising his role as Jim Gordon, and Nicole Kidman as Dr. Chase Meridian.

Style: Much like Batman & Robin, there are a lot of comical elements to Batman Forever's style... and a lot of unnecessary ones, too. For example, why do the guns have neon circles around them? Why are there multi-coloured spot-lights all around Gotham? And why don't bad guys wear shirts?

Much of that could have been avoided, but again, it isn't entirely Joel's fault. Warner didn't want this film to be as dark as Tim Burton's Batman ('89) or Batman Returns.

Gadgets: There were the usual Batarangs and grapnel hooks, but nothing radically new. Bruce test drove a sonar-enhanced suit during the end of the film. But what was the point of it? All he used it for was to throw a Batarang...

Overall: Batman Forever isn't terrible, but it's not great either. It's decent. I recommend this film if you're a big Batfan, otherwise, stay away.

Batman Forever's metric score is a 7/10.

-EliteF50