Bat-ology: A Review of "Batman Forever"

Batman's posing for Vogue, discussing his favorite foods to eat that don't stand his molded rubber bodysuit.
(Tip: Avoid mustard at all costs)

Happy Wednesday, ya bloomin' pinwheels. I'm posting a little earlier this week so that I can enjoy my holiday weekend without fear of forgetting anything. Next post should be coming at you the following Friday. The 10th, I believe. Until then, I hope this little entry of "Bat madness" keeps you entertained. Also, I wouldn't be doing my job as purveyor of facts and opinions on the web-waves if I didn't also tell you to not be an idiot this weekend. Drink responsibly and you just might keep all your fingers to show your coworkers on Monday. Now that I got the PSA aside...

That's a real bat-ass shot. *Dad joke intensifies*

Last time, on Spoiler Alert (Ball Z), I ended the discussion on the death of Tim Burton's would be third entry in his Batman ethos by asking the questions "how did the movie we got instead turn out? Were all these switching ideologies, fear of bad response, weird films with grotesque characters traumatizing children really worth completely and radically changing everything and revamping the character, his story, the appearance of the film and everything just to make more money on the matter?" Well I hope you weren't on the edge of your seat for very long because the answer is "Eh." After the movie was sent back to the drawing board and started over from scratch in early '94, gone was Michael Keaton, relegated to producer only was Tim Burton, and in the director's chair was Joel Schumacher. This is Batman Forever; a movie that teaches us that you just need radical tone, story, character, aesthetics and cinematography shifts to go from making $250 million at the box office to $330 million. Yeah... real worth it. So let's address the molded rubber man-balls in the room and talk through this somewhat loud... flamboyant light show of a Batman movie and figure out how "worth it" it really is.

In Gotham City, the crime fighter Batman (Top Gun's own "Iceman" himself, Val Kilmer) defuses a hostage situation caused by a criminal known as Two-Face (Billy D--, I mean... Tommy Lee Jones),  the alter ego of the former district attorney Harvey Dent, who is disfigured when mobster Sal Maroni threw acid on him during Maroni's conviction which Batman failed to prevent. Oh, and who I guess is white all of a sudden after being black two movies ago. Strike one for continuity. Two-Face escapes and remains at large. Edward Nygma (Jim Carrey), an eccentric researcher at Wayne Enterprises who idolizes Bruce Wayne, has developed a device that can beam television into a person's brain. Strike one for Saturday morning cartoon goofiness. Bruce offers to let Nygma come up with schematics for the device and set up a meeting with his assistant. However, after Nygma demands an answer from him immediately, Bruce rejects the invention, believing it to be too close to mind manipulation. Too close? Try the same damn thing, Bruce. After killing his supervisor and staging it as a suicide, Nygma resigns and obsessively begins sending Bruce riddles, seeking retaliation against him. You know... I once wanted to get retaliation on people a few times, but not by helping them prove that they were good at solving riddles. That was in fact probably the last thing on my mind.

These two look like the diamond is about to tell them
neither of them will win an Oscar.

Bruce, in the meantime, meets Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole "Too Hot To Be in a Batman Movie" Kidman), a psychologist who is obsessed with Batman, and invites her to come with him to a circus event. Only after she tried seducing Batman and groping his Bat-nipples. Oh, yeah... I forgot to mention; for obvious but also selectively unknown reasons... the Batsuit has nipples now. What purpose do they serve? None. Why are they there? Stop pretending, you know. After a performance from the circus performers, The Flying Graysons, Two-Face arrives and threatens to blow up the circus unless Batman comes forward and surrenders his life to him. Seems oddly aggressive, but hey, he's a comic book villain; at least he's asking before blowing up the circus. The Flying Graysons attempt to stop Two-Face, but most of them get killed as a result. Only Dick Grayson (Chris O'Donnell), the youngest member at twenty-five, survives as he climbs to the roof and throws Two-Face's bomb into a river.

PICTURED: Robin, shortly after shooting Two-Face's head
clean off with his Robin-rubber-nipples.

Bruce invites the orphaned young Grayson to stay at Wayne Manor as his ward...which is weird because Dick is twenty-five. He's legally able to rent a car, I think he'd have his life together already. I mean... I'm twenty-seven and I don't, but still. Dick, who is obviously troubled by the murder of his family, intends to kill Two-Face and avenge his family. Later in the movie when he discovers that Bruce is Batman, he demands that Bruce help him find Two-Face so that he can kill him, but Bruce refuses because "revenge won't make the pain go away". Deep stuff, man. Meanwhile, Nygma, inspired and delighted by watching Two-Face's raid at the circus, turns himself into a criminal called the Riddler and forms an alliance with Two-Face. The two steal capital in order to mass-produce Nygma's brainwave device so that Riddler can use it to steal all of Gotham's confidential information, promising Two-Face Batman's secret identity in return. Nygma founds his own company, Nygmatech, but the information overload is gradually damaging Nygma's already precarious mind, resulting in the usual over-the-top hammy acting from Carrey.

"Do you want to fight or do you want to dance and kiss me?"
"This is Batman Forever... who knows?"

At Nygma's business party, Nygma discovers Bruce's alter ego using the brainwave device. Two-Face arrives and crashes the party. He nearly kills Batman once and for all by... burying him in gravel... I don't know, but this whole fight scene is weird. Just before he suffocates, Dick manages to save him. Meanwhile, Chase has fallen in love with Bruce, which surpasses her obsession with Batman. Bruce decides to stop being Batman in order to have a normal life with Chase, and to prevent Dick from murdering Two-Face. Don't know how that'll stop him. Dick doesn't need Bruce to be Batman for him to murder Two-Face, but I guess Bruce's heart is in an okayish place. Dick runs away while Bruce and Chase have dinner together in Wayne Manor, where Bruce reveals his secret identity to her. The Riddler and Two-Face arrive and attack the Manor; in the process, the Riddler blows up the Batcave. The criminals kidnap Chase after Two-Face shoots Bruce, and the Riddler leaves him another riddle.

"Wow! Two-Face is dead! I really am the World's Greatest
Detective!"
"Great, now Detective us the hell out of here!"

Using the riddles, Bruce and his butler, Alfred (Michael Gough, one of two surviving Tim Burton veterans), deduce the Riddler's secret identity while Chase is imprisoned by the Riddler and Two-Face in their "hideout". I put "hideout" in quotes anybody with a brainstem and two eyes can guess that Riddler and Two-Face are hiding in a giant neon-green NygmaTech "TV Box". Trust me... watch the movie, you'll get it. Bruce puts on a new Batman Sonar suit to go fight them and save Chase, and surprisingly enough, Dick returns and becomes Batman's sidekick, Robin. Batman and Robin head to Riddler and Two-Face's lair, Claw Island, where they are separated. Robin encounters Two-Face and nearly kills him, but chooses to spare his life and is captured for it. While I side with Batman on the whole "vengeance is dumb" ploy, killing him would've made your problems go away. Give and take, I guess. Inside the lair, the Riddler reveals Chase and Robin bound and gagged with duct tape in containment tubes and gives Batman a chance to save only one hostage, but Batman destroys the Riddler's brainwave collecting device with a Batarang, causing the Riddler to suffer a mental breakdown. You know, like most celebrities... only instead of shaving his head and doing a shitload of cocaine, Nygma just absorbs a bunch of brainwaves until his head is the size of a watermelon. Batman, meanwhile, is able to somehow rescue both Robin and Chase. Just as the trio celebrate, Two-Face corners them and determines their fate with the flip of a coin, but Batman throws a handful of identical coins in the air ("Bat change" if you will) causing Two-Face to stumble and fall to his death, as Robin watches. That's... a way to kill of a villain, I suppose... a pretty damn silly way.

The Riddler is taken to Arkham Asylum (Ironically the first time we've seen Arkham in three movies) and imprisoned, but he claims he knows who Batman is. Chase is asked to consult on the case, but it is revealed that, due to his traumas, Nygma now lives in a delusion that he himself is Batman. Chase meets Bruce outside and tells him that his secret is safe before parting ways. Bruce resumes his crusade as Batman with Robin as his partner to protect Gotham from crime...

"No, Chase! I thought by 'feel my breasts', you wanted
me to sample some of your tasty fried chicken!"
"No! It means I want you to take me and ravish me!"
"Sorry Chase, but this isn't that kind of movie."

Let me start off by saying that this movie is a mixed bag. Most people hate it almost as much as the next one (OH FEAR NOT, we WILL get to that). Why? Well, the biggest reason is that the Batman franchise up to this point went from dark, brooding tales of gothic anti-heroes crusading in the night against deranged freaks who rise up to terrorize Gotham City to this bright, flashy, popcorn fart adventure movie where anti-heroes dress in anatomical, somewhat suggestive rubber bodysuits to fight flamboyant, goofy nimrods in tights that spew corny lines and die in pathetically hilarious or confusing ways. Don't get me wrong; taking the movie in a "commercial route" wasn't a bad idea if the aim was to simply cash-in and make more money, but this was pushing it. Now, it's not as bad as the next one (DO NOT WORRY, WE WILL GET TO THAT ONE) but even still, going from Batman Returns to Batman Forever doesn't even feel like you're watching movies from the same series. Half the time, I don't even think it takes place in the same universe. You are supposed to remember that this movie technically is a sequel to Batman and Batman Returns, but because Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher are two radically different filmmakers with stylistically yin and yang with one another, you get Batman Forever which is an aesthetically loud movie. Contrary to my gripes, I enjoy Val Kilmer as Batman, although it feels like he tried to mimic Keaton a little too hard and it just resulted in a dry performance. Chris O'Donnell actually feels like the only one who was cast perfectly as Robin. Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey both yuck it up way too hard as the villians (like "OMFG STFU" levels). This movie's so obnoxiously distracting from itself that you forget characters like Alfred and even Commissioner Gordon are there.

"I just turned down sex from the arguably the hottest woman
of the 90s and I'm smiling like a creep because of it.
I sure hope you're picking up my subliminal imagery
and messages here, moviegoers, because your ol' pal Batman
is laying it on pretty thick."

Look, if you take away the over-the-top acting by the super villains, the corny dialogue, the flamboyant scenery, the dramatic acting in the second and third acts that makes the movie feel forced, the neon colors, the freakin' pop music soundtrack, the flashy cinematography and the Bat-nipples, you'd have yourself a halfway decent Batman movie. I'm not saying this is a bad movie movie, though even then it pushes the limits. I actually will pop this one in every now and then purely out of nostalgia, but it's a pretty weird and ill-fitting Batman movie when you watch it back. Also, did I mention how much this movie makes me think of the color green? It is everywhere in this thing. Not to mention, Batman Forever also has a ton of plot holes and camera shots that really make you wonder: Like... why if there's an "Intruder Alert" in the Batcave does the Batcomputer turn on and the Batmobile rise up to make everything easier to steal? Why would the Riddler think no one would find him if he hid in a giant, rotating bright green NygmaTech box? Why does Batman think the Bat-Signal isn't a beeper when it technically is? How come the guards Two-Face uses to teach Riddler how to throw a punch just stand there and let them? Why did Two-Face think giving Batman two minutes to reveal himself at the circus or else he'd level the place with everyone, including himself, inside was a good idea? Why do I have to see Batman's ass and crotch every time he suits up? Where did all the statues of half-naked men holding up buildings come from? Why does Batman smile after getting turned down for sex from Chase Meridian? Let's not forget... that wasn't just any woman, that was Nicole Kidman. In 1995. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?! (Well... we could probably take a guess, honestly).

Alright, to sum up: Batman Forever is "Stupid fun" on its best day and pretty "Meh" on its worst day, and it's all Batman Returns's fault. It's entertaining enough, but it's corny as hell, it's over-marketed, it's too bright and ridiculous to look at, and it's really, really, really flamboyant. Like... really. So much so it's become a symbol of "Gay cinema". My advice? Watch this one on its own. Don't try and follow up Batman and Returns with it; you'll just hate it more than you might already... and again, as bad as this one can feel, the next one will set the bar on what a truly awful movie is. Oh yes... it's time... stay tuned for the next Bat-ology.