Batman Forever: Is it mostly good or mostly bad?
TMC
Out of the first four Batman movies, there's a general consensus on
the quality of the other three movies. The '89 Batman is widely hailed
as classic, Batman Returns is mostly considered also good (although
there's debate as to whether it's better than the first movie or not),
and Batman & Robin is almost universally crapped on as one of the
worst movies, period, ever made. But between them, there's a strange
little movie called "Batman Forever," and it seems like a lot of
people haven't completely decided which side of the "good movie/bad
movie" spectrum it's on. Which side do you Crappers think it falls on?
I think one of the reasons for this is that this movie has a lot of
stuff that's very good going for it, and a lot of things that are
really bad going for it, and these two extremes pull it in different
directions. These are just my opinions, but here's what I think are
mostly the good and bad:
Good
-Val Kilmer as Batman. He's no Michael Keaton, but I thought he pulled
off both Bruce Wayne and Batman quite well. Not the most spectacular
playing of the part, but for the most part, I thought he was solid.
-Nicole Kidman as Chase Meridian. I think she did a good job of
continuing the trend of Bruce Wayne's love interests being strong,
compelling characters as set by Vicki Vale and Selina Kyle in the
first two movies. I think she also brought a unique twist to that
dichotomy with her being a psychiatrist, and bringing an overtly
psychological bend to Batman; a subplot like that could've worked just
as well had Tim Burton directed it.
Meh
-Chris O'Donnell. Wasn't terrible, but wasn't exactly a magnetic
character either, and got annoying quite a few times. Don't feel
strongly one way or the other about Robin in this film.
Bad
-The villains *puts on flame shield*. Seriously, I know some people
love them, but I hated Two-Face and The Riddler in this movie. And
it's certainly not because I don't like Tommy Lee Jones or Jim Carrey,
because I do think they're great actors. But their characters just
seemed totally out of place in this film. They turned Two-Face into a
laughing, annoying Joker clone that did no justice to the tragic,
psychologically-compelling character that Two-Face can be (see Aaron
Eckhart in "The Dark Knight" to see Two-Face done right in a movie).
And Jim Carrey as The Riddler...GOOD GOD. I just couldn't take him
seriously, seeing as how even when he was in a scene where he was
supposed to be diabolical and villainous, he was still acting like he
was in the lame comic book edition of "Dumb & Dumber." Acting like he
was in a goofy, Ace Ventura-like comedy movie was just out of place in
a Batman movie; and no, I don't think him being crazy-funny succeeded
in making him seem like a truly psychotic villain, it just came off as
stupid to me. And seeing as how Jim Carrey is (as we'd later see in
The Truman Show or Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind) fully
capable of playing great serious roles, it made his over-the-top
silliness even more unnecessary.
Together, they were neither funny, nor were they scary and crazy; they
were just plain annoying. With the goofy, over-the-top, pseudo-comedic
antics and characterization, it felt less like the classic villains
Two-Face and The Riddler, and more like if they had shot a Batman
movie where the villains were Shawn Michaels and Triple H from their
1997 DX days, and they spent the whole movie giving cops wedgies,
making crotch chops, telling Gotham City to "Suck It!" and performing
skits where they beat up a midget Batman, all the while still trying
to come across as diabolical and threatening supervillains who deserve
to be taken seriously. Just didn't work.
-The sets. Gotham City just looked jumbled and ugly (and not like in
the '89 Batman, where whatever ugliness there was in the setting was
intentional). The Gotham City in Batman and Batman Returns? Beautiful
and gothic. Batman Forever? Ew.
On the plus side of everything, though, thanks to this movie, we did
get this awesome song, with this awesome music video: