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This Film On

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• Rotten Tomatoes

Batman Forever

(1995)

122 min. Warner Brothers. Director: Joel Schumacher. Cast: Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Nicole Kidman, Chris O'Donnell, Michael Gough.

With The Lost Boys to his credit—and coming off of two solid Hollywood thrillers, The Client and Falling Down—newly adopted director Joel Schumacher gave reason to hope that a Burton-less Batman could still hold interest. But Batman fans smelled a rat as soon as they heard the title of the second Batman sequel: Batman Forever. The fatuousness of that title sums up Schumacher's approach. The director allows his few scrupulous choices to be overwhelmed by garish vaudeville.

Schumacher consciously aligns himself with the camp of William Dozier's 1960's Batman TV series. That show wittily played it straight to generate adult humor while exciting kids' imaginations. Burton's films likewise kept a stiff lower lip, rarely lacking for humor, but honest to a prevailing tonal darkness. Co-producer Tim Burton is present for Batman Forever in name only, as Schumacher overworks dutch and wide angles, and adds nonsensical and tasteless style flourishes like a stupid-looking Batmobile refit.

Michael Keaton jumped ship with Burton, so Val Kilmer took over the role of Batman. Kilmer never seems at ease in the role, and turns in an impassive, colorless performance completely at odds with Schumacher's vision. Schumacher famously told Premiere magazine, "Val did me two great favors. When I wanted him to be Batman, he said yes. Then he created a situation which allowed me not to have him play Batman again. They were both happy, happy instances, for which I will always be grateful." It's tempting to view the film's dreamy highlights—stylish origin flashbacks tormenting Batman's alter ego Bruce Wayne—as a concession to Kilmer, who, like many actors, actually wanted to act.

Batman Forever also introduces Robin (Chris O'Donnell), Batman's sometime sidekick. Since his first comic-book appearance in 1940, Robin has mostly been depicted as "the Boy Wonder," but O'Donnell's college-age Dick Grayson retains an authentic origin: orphaned when circus performers "the Flying Graysons," disrupted by criminals, plummet to their deaths. O'Donnell's too old to play this petulant Robin (one line joshingly alludes to Robin's adult persona, Nightwing), but he's only one example of Schumacher's thorough miscasting.

Burton's strength has never been plot, but Schumacher's here comes off as piecemeal and nonsensical, riddled (so to speak) with plot holes. Jim Carrey plays Edward Nygma (a.k.a. The Riddler). As "reimagined" by screenwriters Lee Batchler & Janet Scott Batchler and Akiva Goldsman, Nygma's a Waynetech employee disappointed by millionaire Wayne. High on the power of his rejected "brain-drain" technology, Nygma decides to use it for evil as obsessive puzzler The Riddler.

Carrey beat out long-rumored candidates Robin Williams and James Woods to reclaim the role made famous by Frank Gorshin ("Riddle me this, Batman!") on the '60s series. Though the character calls for a certain amount of shticky humor (the script's riddles are winningly nifty), a pink-coiffed Carrey is nearly as hyperactive as his Ace Ventura character. Shockingly, Ed Begley, Jr., playing Nygma's boss, outdoes Carrey in their unofficial overacting contest.

The Riddler joins forces with Two-Face, the demented split persona of Gotham City's former district attorney Harvey Dent. Schumacher replaced Billy Dee Williams (Harvey Dent in Batman) with Tommy Lee Jones, who continued to ride the wave of his 1994 Oscar win for The Fugitive. Jones's mama didn't raise no fool, so he dials up his performance to Carrey's energy level; since the character's subtleties are applied with a jackhammer, Jones has little to do but mug crazily and fawn over his henchwomen, Sugar (Drew Barrymore) and Spice (Debi Mazar).

Inexplicably called "Harvey Two-Face" throughout the film (the comics never referred to him this way), the character's Bat-foil duality is expressed in a freakish half-and-half appearance marked by purple-scarred left profile (courtesy of Rick Baker) and tiger-striped, leopard-spotted, two-toned suit. He obsessively tests each criminal impulse with the flip of a coin that's likewise scarred on one side, but unlike his comic counterpart, he blithely goes against a coin flip in one key moment. Oddly, late in the picture, Two-Face tells Batman, who he knows to be Wayne, "You've always been a good friend," though that true-to-the-comics relationship doesn't register when Two-Face first discovers Batman's identity. Schumacher's disinterest in the source material and lack of restraint fumble two great Batman villains.

Though it's by far the least of the film's problems, genre fans will never—and I mean never—let Schumacher live down putting nipples on the Batsuits. After a cheesy title sequence in which the stars' names zoom at the screen, Schumacher announces his Batman with an iconic Batcave suiting-up sequence, deflated by a groaner punchline (the same one showcased in fast-food tie-in ads). Included in the montage are close-up shots of the Bat-crotch and the Bat-butt, true embarrassments repeated thrice more in sequel Batman & Robin. Ironically, Kilmer's suit is the best-looking of the series to date, and allows the most fluid action for Kilmer and the stunt performers.

Though Schumacher admirably resists being "labeled" as gay, his Batman films carry an unmistakable queer subtext (as such, they paved the way for the more serious-minded X-Men films' gay metaphors and implications). In line with gay camp, Schumacher bathes the entire film in gaudy neon hues and encourages outsized performances: Carrey quips, "Was that over the top? I can never tell." Yes, Jim, it was. Gaydar may also go off when pierced, leather-jacketed Grayson snaps at Wayne, "Hang out at a lot of biker bars, Bruce?" Shortly thereafter, Grayson agrees to live with Wayne and his devoted old manservant Alfred (Michael Gough, who—like Pat "Commissioner Gordon" Hingle—reprises his role from the Burton films). (Within a year, Robert Smeigel and J.J. Sedelmaier debuted The Ambiguously Gay Duo, a winking superhero spoof that led a long life on Saturday Night Live.)

Schumacher overcompensates by making Batman's heterosexual love interest—there's no other word for it—slutty. Nicole Kidman plays respected psychoanalyst Dr. Chase Meridian the only way the script allows, as a sex-starved vamp eager to loosen Batman's utility belt. "It's the car, right?" asks Batman. "Chicks love the car." Meridian does help to "cure" Batman with psychosexual healing, to allow Schumacher's reborn franchise to pursue a lighter direction. Meridian falls roughly between Kidman's young starlet roles and her more prestigious parts in the last decade. With more screen time, Kidman could have made Meridian's attraction more organic; as it is, the actress allows herself to be degraded by the Hollywood machine.

At times, Schumacher flirts with seriousness, but only proves the film's schizoid clash of styles. Schumacher attempts dramatic heft with Batman's repressed memory (isn't the point that he can't forget his trauma?) and Robin's thirst for vengeance. "We're the same," Batman tells his compatriot, warning him of revenge's obsessive stranglehold. Schumacher succeeds in overseeing some good stunt work: fight scenes and appearances of the Batwing, Batboat, and Batsub. He also poses Batman in a few pretty action tableaux, like the comic-book-geek-out final shot of Batman and Robin running toward camera, backlit by the Bat signal.

More characteristic, however, are the film's questionable humor and soft readiness for commercial exploitation (U2's single "Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me" seems like a James Bond leftover, and what can Seal's "Kiss From a Rose" mean?). Some of Carrey's tossed-off one-liners are funny ("Someone tell the fat lady she's on in five"), but the onslaught grows tiresome—long before he yelps "Joygasm!"—and opposes any sense of genuine character. Worse, Schumacher's not above punctuating Carrey's antics with cartoon sound effects. Robin's TV-nodding line "Holy rusted metal, Batman!" stings like a slap in the face, but perhaps the biggest belly laugh is Batman creator Bob Kane's purported role as "Project Consultant."