Batman Forever: God, I hope not.

"Well, fuck."
James barker, 2010


Whoah, this post is late by a month. A whole MONTH. I guess work finally overtook me.

Anyway, when Warner Bros. suspected that people were unnerved by Tim Burton's dark, surprisingly adult take on Batman, the replaced him with a more acceptable director for their next two Batman films. That director was Joel Schumacher, and he is the reason fanboys of the dark knight like myself cry ourselves to sleep at night.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think the actors themselves in this film are very good (with the possible exception of Chris O'Donnell, who was merely passable)and the performance of Batman by Val Kilmer is very enjoyable to watch, when he's not trying to use the costume to get off with Nicole Kidman. However, the writers responsible for the script of this film have taken these actors, especially Tommy Lee Jones, far and away one of my favourite actors in the business, and made them repeat dialogue too stupid to be corny. I mean, they basically attempted a sort of dignity geonocide on these poor guys. Believe me, when your script asks for Jones to dance around like an utter clown in one of the most retarded Two-Face costumes ever, you know you're on to a stinker. Many fans have since criticised the film for portraying Harvey Dent as being too much like Jack Nicholson's Joker, and having re-watched the damn thing, I have to agree. Two-Face barely uses the damn coin he is supposed to rely on in the movie, and even when he does, he does things like: "oh, no, it came up good side, better flip again" which completely defeats the point of the character. Seriously, he's supposed to rely on the damn coin so why does he pay no attention to what it tells him?

Now for the Riddler. Between these two, Batman Forever has managed to destroy the dignity of two of my favourite villains. Played properly, the Riddler could have been very cool; a narcissistic genius who is compelled to leave riddles, which presents a genuinely challenging battle for the Batman. Instead, we got what we always get when Jim Carrey walks onto the screen, pure slapstick. Now, don't get me wrong, it's kinda funny when Carrey does this. After all, he basically did it all the way through Bruce Almighty and that film was very funny. The difference here is that I ended up feeling like I wasn't so much witnessing the Riddler as watching Jim Carrey cosplaying as him for laughs. Not a good feeling to have, especially when you suspect, nay, know that Tim Burton would have found a way to make these two a memorable pair, and still kept true to their individual "personalities" as Batman characters.

Ah well, regrets are a waste of good drinking time, so I'll leave in the comfortable knowledge that the Batman films are back under control, and are darker than ever. After all, darkness is what makes Batman so utterly cool, a lesson that Joel Schumacher clearly never learnt.

Commissar, AWAY!