Blasting out of its brand new batcave, with its new hero, new sidekick and madly capering new villains, “Batman Forever,” the third mega-budget movie devoted to Bob Kane’s legendary comic book crimefighter, arrives with lots of fresh tricks but thecle same old strategy. Flash and dazzle, colorful heroes and bad guys, gothic sets and rock ‘n’ roll, sparkling spectacle and comic strip carnage.
The movie is pulverizing entertainment. Slick, loud and lavish, it catches you in its claws in the first few scenes and keeps ripping away. And while most fans should enjoy the ride, casual audiences may be knocked breathless by the numbing pace and decibel level.
New supervillains Tommy Lee Jones as Harvey “Two Face” Dent and Jim Carrey as The Riddler both give such wildly unbraked, blastoff performances that they ignite every scene they’re in. Carrey and Jones, who trade quips and murders like the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis of mayhem and massacre, are the best reasons to see this movie.
“Batman Forever” is a big-studio product without alibis. It is full of the spectacular design and pyrotechnic effects that big-studio movies usually deploy to cover up embarrassingly derivative scripts and thin characters. And this film’s characters and story are derivative, too–but cleverly.
The director, Joel Schumacher, an ex-designer whose emptiest movies (“Flatliners” and “The Lost Boys”) at least looked good, shows that he can play around snazzily with the audience’s foreknowledge of all the conventions, forms and limitations–both of movie sequels and comic books.
Unlike the original “Batman” director Tim Burton (who co-produced this movie), Schumacher pursues the classic big-sequel strategy. Burton, a stronger and more eccentric filmmaker, was clearly trying to push the series into more offbeat paths. He risked alienating part of the huge crowds he drew to 1989’s “Batman” with a lot of his darker humor in “Batman Returns.” By contrast, Schumacher tries to give us pretty much the “Batman” the audience expects. Only more so.
The sets are lush, Gothic-looking, twisted. The camera angles are even more tilted than Burton’s. The editing often has a jagged rhythm that suggests comic panels crashing against each other. The movie’s Gotham City towers skyward, once again, like New York City turned German Expressionist nightmare.
The movie revives the standard format of a brooding bat-hero battling crazed and colorful heavies. And it also brings back series regulars Michael Gough as Alfred the butler and Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon. New bat-wrinkles? There’s the series debut of the comic book Batman’s longtime sidekick, Robin (played by Chris O’Donnell). And a first appearance by Nicole Kidman as criminal psychiatrist Chase Meridian–a new love interest who shows more signs of permanence than Kim Basinger’s Vicki Vale in 1989’s “Batman” or Michelle Pfeiffer’s feline nemesis Catwoman in 1992’s “Batman Returns.”
Even Schumacher’s new leading man, Val Kilmer, who’s replaced Michael Keaton as Gotham’s night-crawling caped crimebuster, ends up closer to our initial conception of both Batman and his handsome socialite alter-ego, Bruce Wayne.
Playing Batman in a stiff suit that looked like black rubber armor, Keaton had a shaggier, plainer-faced look. But his volatile movie persona suggested something fiery under that stoic surface. (Since Keaton made the part his own, we may forget what a controversial choice he first was.) Kilmer, by contrast, has the chiseled Calvin Klein-ad handsomeness of the comic book character–and even of Adam West, the TV Batman. Since Kilmer is deft at both comedy and drama, he also can give us those hints of torment Keaton put into his Batman.
One reason Keaton may have left the series was the realization that, come hell or high budgets, the villains always steal the Batman movies, just as they always stole the TV show. Batman, like Superman (in his perfect movie portrayal by Christopher Reeve), keeps his emotions tightly controlled. And, for a let-it-all-hang-out actor like Keaton, that can’t have been easy. (Even Kilmer looks strained at times.) Working against the red-hot combo of Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey, two actors who always seem on hyper-drive, even the movie’s gaudy “Brazil” style sets are sometimes at a disadvantage.
Carrey’s character, Edward Nygma (or E. Nygma), seems to be the evil cousin of Stanley Ipkiss, his likable bad-luck nerd turned raucous superhero in “The Mask.” In “Batman Forever,” he’s an obnoxious nerd who becomes an even more obnoxious supervillain: a paranoid inventor obsessed with Bruce Wayne (“My idol!”) who goes crazy when Wayne rejects his invention. It’s a new brain-invading TV system that turns audiences into zombies. And Carrey’s Riddler, public celebrity and secret crime czar, represents the media and science run wild.
Jones’ Two Face, by contrast, is a crescendo of pure malice. He’s playing another old Bob Kane character: Harvey Dent, the district attorney who turned villain when half his face was monstrously disfigured with acid. And, like Carrey, Jones seems to be trying to top Jack Nicholson’s richly demented star turn as the Joker in the first “Batman.” They almost do. One major flaw of the movie, in fact, may be that it doesn’t let Jones and Carrey work off each other enough. They’re simply villains who pair up–when they might have been more interesting as envious antagonists, battling each other as well as Batman.
As for O’Donnell’s Dick Grayson/Robin, he’s an older, tougher character than his comic book counterpart. Is that because Schumacher and his writers are aware of decades of bawdy academic speculation about the sexual subtext of the Bruce Wayne-Dick Grayson relationship? All the psychosexual theorizing that began with Dr. Frederick Wertham–author of “Seduction of the Innocent,” which “proved” that horror and action comics caused juvenile delinquency? If they are, they may have overcompensated. Here, Carrey’s Riddler has this movie’s franchise on campiness, while Robin the ex-Boy Wonder becomes a motorcycle rebel with attitude.
“Batman” began as the hero of 10- to 12-year-old boys across the country. That was my age when I started gobbling up the “Batman,” “Detective” and “World’s Finest” comic books. But the movie, like the recent Batman “Dark Knight” stories by Frank Miller or the previous two Batman features, is less for children than somewhat more jaded or knowing teenagers and adults.
Is it a little too tongue-in-cheek? Too blanchingly violent? The jokes too bloody?
“Batman Forever” is obviously a big-audience movie. And that means it plays by different rules. Most series fans should enjoy this ride. And perhaps seeing it with a big audience may correct the movie’s biggest flaw for skeptics: its unremittingly slambang pace and tone. Maybe seeing it with lots of people will give “Batman Forever” a sense of humanity, a modulation between its amusing but violent extremes. Like many new movies, this one needs rest spots.
”BATMAN FOREVER”
(star) (star) (star)
Directed by Joel Schumacher; written by Lee Batchler, Janet Scott Batchler, Akiva Goldsman; photographed by Stephen Goldblatt; edited by Dennis Virkler; production designed by Barbara Ling; music by Elliot Goldenthal; produced by Tim Burton, Peter MacGregor-Scott. A Warner Brothers release; opens Friday at Burnham Plaza, McClurg Court, Lincoln Village, Webster Place and outlying theaters. Running time: 2:01. MPAA rating: PG-13.
THE CAST
Batman/Bruce Wayne……………………………Val Kilmer
Harvey “Two Face” Dent………………….Tommy Lee Jones
The Riddler/Edward Nygma………………………Jim Carrey
Dr. Chase Meridian…………………………Nicole Kidman
Robin/Dick Grayson……………………….Chris O’Donnell
Alfred the Butler………………………….Michael Gough
