Batman Forever

Unlike Burton, Schumacher doesn't let his stylistic and thematic fascinations run away with him; he keeps one hand on the wheel at all times. The result isn't as emotionally daring and visually outrageous as Burton at his best, but it's better paced and more consistently entertaining from one sequence to the next.

It's lighter, brighter, funnier, faster-paced, and a whole lot more colorful than before.

With an ace pop mechanic like Joel Schumacher now in charge of our hero's bruised psyche, the patient not only survives but thrives in the garishly garnished but never groaningly gruesome Batman Forever. [16 Jun 1995, Pg.01.D]

Sometimes thrilling, but rarely inspired, it is thoroughly-almost perfectly-adequate.

The movie does have somewhat more lilt and levity, much of it due to Jim Carrey as the Riddler. But there's still plenty of murk, physical and metaphysical, and more psychobabble about Bruce Wayne's obsessions and repressions.

If you can see beyond the eye-scorching neon and don't mind the desecration of a superhero icon, there's a few crumbs of enjoyment to be had.

Schumacher's direction is coarse and slovenly: the picture has the self-conscious jokiness of the "Batman" TV series and the smudged, runny imagery of a cheaply printed comic book.

Holy rusted metal Batman!......Something in me makes me like this movie more and more as I get older, but then I am only almost 18. Being a big fan of Burton's and Nolan's adaptation of Batman this movie directed by Joel Shumacher has a special place in my heart. I love Batman comic-books and this movie brings a comic book into a real life world that has the mixture of both light and dark atmosphere. Now some people will not like, some people very much will like me. The negative of this movie grew only because it was connected Batman & Robin which is unfair because when the movie came out , it may not have got the positive reception like both of the Tim Burton's movies did, but it still did fine and became a box office hit. According to some source the movie has been praised by some critics back in the day, that is until that very interesting follow up up happened with Bat-nipples. This review might not make sense but what I am trying to say is I really enjoy this movie. 5/5.

Good for its time, but not the best batman movie. Its also not the worst either.

I really want to like this movie more but there are just too many glaring flaws. The tone of this movie is really wacky and all over the place and the villains are easily the worst part of the movie. The villains in this movie are Two Face and the Riddler but the problem is is that they both act like the joker. Jim Carrey does not fit the batman universe and if he did he could only do the joker. Tommy Lee Jones also hams up his performance as Two Face doing stupid things that make no sense and killing for the sake of it. Gotham City is also Neon this time around which isn't horrible in itself until you see the thugs walking around wearing glowsticks and stuff making the movie highly unbelievable. So Why is the movie still so highly ranked? Well I think the heroes in this movie + Batman's love interest are well done in this movie. Val Kilmer may not look like batman all the time but I think he was a better choice for the role looks wise than Michael Keaton. He also doesn't make a bad Bruce Wayne either. The robin origin story is pretty interesting here as well and besides some questionable decisions on the batsuit it actually looks good on screen. All and all half of the cast and the setting bog down the other half that is good about the movie. I give this a light recommendation. With a lot of tweaking this could have been something good but instead it's just okay bordering on mediocre.

Batman Forever is an often-off-putting experience—the film is filled with dark ideas that are neither embraced nor escaped, pivoting toward a world awash in garish neon, surreal sets, and a psychological darkness that often feels at odds with its glossy exterior. Batman Forever is a film where the shadows are real. Director Joel Schumacher’s Gotham is a fever **** pulsate with lurid colour, Batmobiles scale vertical walls, and villains prance about in glowing suits. On the surface, it might seem that the film is a lighter, more accessible take on the Batman mythos, especially following the sombre Batman Returns. However, beneath the candy-coloured façade, there lurks a film preoccupied with trauma, duality, and broken psyches. The result is a movie that feels caught between two worlds: it wants to dazzle with spectacle, but its heart is heavy with anxiety and emotional pain. This dissonance can be jarring, making it difficult for viewers to settle into the movie’s rhythm or fully immerse themselves in its story. At the core of Batman Forever are themes of psychological damage and identity crisis. Bruce Wayne, haunted by the loss of his parents, is confronted with the question of why he continues to wear the mask. The introduction of **** Grayson (Chris O’Donnell), whose family is murdered before his eyes, sharpens the narrative focus on vengeance, trauma, and the risks of perpetuating cycles of violence. Rather than offering catharsis or insight, the film often lingers uncomfortably on these wounds, never quite resolving them nor providing space for genuine healing. Meanwhile, the villains—Tommy Lee Jones’ Two-Face and Jim Carrey’s Riddler—are not merely colourful antagonists, but embodiments of fractured minds. Two-Face, with his split persona, is a walking metaphor for the divided self, while the Riddler’s obsession with intelligence, control, and envy reflects a more insidious kind of madness. However, the film’s campy execution of these characters often undercuts the gravity of their struggles, leaving viewers unsure whether to laugh, recoil, or despair. What is most off-putting about Batman Forever is not just its darkness, but the way that darkness is rendered shallow by its surrounding noise. Schumacher’s direction introduces elements of homoeroticism, fetishistic design, and psychological horror, but these are never fully explored or integrated into the narrative. Instead, they flicker at the edges, unsettling the viewer with their unresolved presence. For families expecting a fun superhero adventure, the film’s thematic weight—parental loss, questions of sanity, the lure of revenge—can feel out of place, even disturbing. For older audiences, the lurid style and inconsistent tone undermine any real engagement with the film’s deeper motifs.

Batman Forever represents a major changing of the guard for a once dark, quirky franchise. In the wake of Tim Burton and Michael Keaton's departures, a new actor dons the spandex, two new villains are raided from the pantry, a new blonde bombshell arrives to escalate romantic tensions and a new ally is drafted for combat duty. I don't understand the pressing urge to connect this film with the two preceding efforts, given their striking (and immediate) differences, but evidently some backstage emphasis was drawn, because great pains are taken to remind us that this is indeed the same character who tossed The Joker from a **** and batted eyelashes with Catwoman a few years prior. No matter how little Val Kilmer may resemble Michael Keaton or how few visual consistencies this rendition of Gotham City may share with the one seen in Batman Returns. It's a drastically different beast in a tonal sense, as well; brighter and poppier, with more interest in flashy set pieces and less in creepy, twisted origin stories. Paired with a big-time movie soundtrack (could you imagine U2 crooning over The Penguin's parade of explosive rubber ducks?), the new model does everything in its power to redirect Burton's gothic weirdness back toward the friendlier, wackier day-glow Batman action of old. All this while still vehemently insisting it's a direct successor. Unsurprisingly, the end result is an ugly clash of styles and half-shaped ideas. Nothing has purpose or reason. Reality is casually disregarded in the race to capture the next big idea. Characters thrash about, in colorful wardrobe, with limited personality and subtext. Tommy Lee Jones is the worst offender in this respect, giddily dancing around the frame like a brainless wannabe Joker (two of his nonsensical master plans involve an acid-drenched bank vault, suspended from a helicopter, and a rocket launcher in a baby carriage), but he has no shortage of competition. Jones and his cackling criminal partner, an **** Jim Carrey, push hard to over-act one another in each and every shared scene. No wonder they loathed each other backstage. Kilmer's rendition of Batman / Bruce Wayne, meanwhile, lands somewhere between sterile and confused, while Chris O'Donnell's Robin struggles to justify his own existence and Nicole Kidman's meddling sexpot psychologist waves her tail like an animal in heat. Who was this made for, really? Did they actually enjoy it? And how did it merit a follow-up? Even the Batmobile has lost its coolness factor.