Though there are references to the previous two films (and Michael Gough and Pat Hingle return as Alfred and Commissioner Gordon, respectively), the films are mostly a complete departure from Burton’s movies. Kilmer is a pretty good actor, and had recently done very good work in Tombstone (1993) and True Romance (1993) and was also about to star in Heat (1995) he’s no slouch, but his acting here leaves a lot to be desired. Kilmer is ridiculously stone-faced throughout the film, and appears to simply be here for the large paycheck. She can’t decide if she has the hots for Batman or Bruce Wayne despite Wayne repeatedly implying that he is Batman. Nicole Kidman portrays Chase Meridian (a name that seems like it belongs to a bank that pesters you with credit card offers rather than to Batman’s love interest), an apparently brilliant psychologist who seems to do nothing but sigh and try to seduce Batman with some kind of voodoo doll. Though the Riddler and Two-Face are historically rich characters (both of them made their comic book debuts in the 1940s), in Batman Forever they simply represent chaotic evil for its own sake. The performance by Jones is unfortunate because he was really putting in some solid work around this time, in films like Oliver Stone’s JFK, Heaven & Earth, and Natural Born Killers, and Andrew Davis’s The Fugitive (for which he won an Academy Award). He cackles and speaks in catch phrases, really hamming up the split personality angle (he has two girlfriends, one for each side of his personality his rooms are painted and decorated differently on each side, etc.). Jones seems to have absorbed Jack Nicholson’s performance as the Joker and plays Two-Face as a knock-off. When Carrey asked him why, Jones said, “I cannot sanction your buffoonery,” which is probably a more considered line than any of those written into the script or ad-libbed by Carrey. Tommy Lee Jones was also not a fan, telling Carrey that he hated him to his face. His stupid one-liners (“Joy-gasm!”, “Caffeine’ll KILL YA!”) chafe after the first few and aren’t really that funny (and besides humor, I don’t see any other purpose they could have served) and the whole schtick wears thin well before the film ends. Even before he puts on his goofy green costume Carrey is unhinged, barely even acting. That specific mode works for me in limited doses (it works perfectly in Dumb & Dumber) but becomes tiresome very quickly in Batman Forever. Carrey, who had blown up the year prior by starring in three successful films- Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb & Dumber-portrays Edward Nymga/The Riddler with the same over-the-top shenanigans as those films. Tommy Lee Jones is Two-Face and Jim Carrey is the Riddler, and the two barely even take turns trying to overact each other. Like Burton’s two films, Forever is less about Batman than the outrageous villains. Schumacher had originally been interested in adapting Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, an origin story, but was forced to make a sequel to Batman Returns (he was able to include some scenes of Bruce Wayne’s childhood, drawing on Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns instead). As is evidenced by the films that gross the most money each year, audiences are primarily drawn to spectacle-all other cinematic elements are secondary-and that is exactly, and unfortunately exclusively, what Batman Forever delivers. He seemed like a good fit, capable of making a visually striking Batman film for the masses. Enter Schumacher, who had made plenty of stylish if somewhat incoherent films in his career, such as The Lost Boys and Flatliners. And the tone and content of Batman Returns were steeped in Burton’s macabre sensibilities, departing from the nice balance between camp and edginess of the first film (it feels wrong to use the word “original” there). Tim Burton’s Batman Returns had been a decent hit in 1992, but it was not quite the phenomenon that Batman had been a few years prior.
knew what they were doing when they hired Joel Schumacher to direct Batman Forever. “Riddle me this, riddle me that, who’s afraid of the big, black bat?”
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