Batman Forever
This movie always has been one of the odd ducks of the Batman movies for me. On one hand, it has some great dark sequences and serious character moments, but on the other, it's loud, campy, and over the top. So, it's definitely a unique film to look at.
The film is about Batman, played now by Val Kilmer, and his battles to stop Two-Face, played by Tommy Lee Jones, and the Riddler, played by Jim Carrey, while also finding a new partner in Robin, played by Chris O'Donnell. There is definitely a lot going on here, but a lot of it is about the origins of the Riddler and his evil plans.
As far as characters go, they were definitely a mixed bag. Val Kilmer gave a really good performance as a Bruce Wayne who is still trying to reconcile the murder of his parents, and his Batman is always played seriously, even in this bizarre world with zany villains. His backstory scenes were excellent and definitely the highlight of the movie for me. I also liked a lot of Jim Carrey's Riddler performance, finding him quite funny at times, and also putting in a dark performance or two at the same time. My big issue with him is he goes between being more of a sociopathic lunatic and a cackling prankster, so it was kind of hard to get a handle on his personality. Tommy Lee Jones did absolutely terrible as Two-Face, in which he keeps trying to he crazier than Jim Carrey due to some hostility on the set between them. Long story short, him being crazy is not his forte and I felt he should have played Two-Face as a more serious character.
Overall, I'd say this movie reminds me a lot of the Adam West version, where it's silly and weird, but this one had a darker edge to it, and so it feels a slight bit more totally balanced. While it's definitely childish in some scenes, I still had a lot of fun with the silliness of the movie as well as the serious scenes. I'd say it's definitely worth checking out.
Next time, since the silly and campy direction worked so well for this film, they decided to do the only logical thing with its sequel: Make it even more silly and campy to the point of parody. How will this fare for the reputation of Batman? Find out next time when I review Batman and Robin.
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