Hey everyone! Happy Friday! How's everyone doing today? I'm pretty good. Though Disney+ continues to find ways to surprise me. Back in the early to mid 90s any time I had access to Family Channel (the Canadian equivalent of the Disney Channel) I would watch a children's show called Adventures in Wonderland. Mostly it was at the hospital that I would watch it, but sometimes I'd watch it at my grandparents's place. It's never had a DVD release, only three VHS releases, and went off the air in 1995 never to return in reruns. Because of this it's been at least 26 years since I last saw it, maybe even longer. Now, in 2021 though I can watch it whenever I want because all 100 episodes are on Disney+. That's such an obscure 90s children's show, yet it's on Disney+. Simply incredible. With that out of the way, let's talk about Batman Forever, because that's what I'm here to review today!
Batman Forever is my favourite movie in the Batman Motion Picture Anthology (the Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher films). It's the one I grew up watching the most, it's how I think of Batman in live action movies, and it's really entertaining. People give it alot of hate though. Particularly comic book fans as they preferred the darker, more creepy tone, of Batman Returns. However, to me it feels much more like a live action version of Batman: The Animated Series that ran on Fox Kids from 1992 until 1995, three months after this movie came out. I hadn't actually given it much thought before, because it's only in the last few years that I've become better acquainted with BTAS, and I only rarely got to watch the show when I was watching this movie.
Both Bruce Wayne and Batman's relationships with the police are similar to how they are in the animated series, both Bruce's parents murder, and Dick's parents murder are kept, though Dick's is slightly different in the movie than it is in the show, the Bruce Wayne "persona" is also similar in that he's much more out in the community in this movie than he was in either Batman or Batman Returns, and Batman's penchant for working alone/not wanting a partner is also present in how he handles Dick once Dick discovers that Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same person.
Of course much of this is taken from the comics of the 70s, 80s, and early 90s as well but I'm seeing more parallels to the animated series, simply because the cars people are driving in Gotham City are more stylized on 50s and 60s vehicles, a throwback to how BTAS had cars that were more 30s and 40s inspired, and the building design of Gotham City is more throwback as well.
The story itself could've been better, but Schumacher and the film's writers, Lee and Janet Scott Batchler, and Akiva Goldsman (you'll be hearing me complain about him alot once season 1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds starts) only did what they were allowed to do. Joel wanted to do a compelling psychological piece that really delved into the minds of Batman, Two-Face, and the Riddler. But after the Batman Returns fiasco, WB was very nervous of another heavy Batman movie, and ordered Schumacher to make a more family friendly film. The skeleton of the movie that Schumacher wanted to make is still present in the final version of the film, but much of it, particularly the stuff concerning Two-Face and the Riddler, was pulled back.
One of the things that I like about this movie over Batman and Batman Returns is that Batman Forever is actually about Batman! I know, that's a strange concept to some of you, especially those of you who think the villains are more interesting, but if a movie has a character's name as part of the title, then it should be about that character, not his or her enemies. And I think this movie does an extremely good job of accomplishing that given the circumstances.
Honestly, when I was a kid I thought that Nygma's brain draining device is what turned him evil. But it's not. He was evil before that, it's just he didn't let out his inner Jim Carrey until after that...hold on...what? He let out his inner Jim Carrey, because he IS just playing Jim Carrey? That explains so much...sorry about that. I was just informed that Jim Carrey was just playing himself in the movie and called himself the Riddler, because that would be a more familiar name to people watching a Batman movie. Okay then. Lol.
I joke, but Jim Carrey really is just playing himself, the way he did with Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb & Dumber the year before in 1994. And that is totally fine because aside from Frank Gorshin and John Astin's portrayal of the Riddler in the 1966 TV series, I've never found the Riddler to be an entertaining character. He was always one of Batman's more intellectual enemies, but he wasn't pompous and rich like the Penguin was, and so I never found him to be as interesting in the comics as I found the Penguin to be. The Riddler also didn't have the depth and complexity that I felt Catwoman had. Which is why I think many people hated the reveal about the Riddler at the end of Batman: Hush, but I'll talk about that more when I review that book.
The one thing I didn't like about this movie, and I'm sure many people agree with me on this, is Two-Face. Don't get me wrong, Tommy Lee Jones did a wonderful job of playing the character, but there isn't really a character here. Both the comic book version of the character and the animated series version are both very complex characters, dating back to the character's debut in 1942 in Detective Comics #66. None of that is here though and I think that comes down to WB's damage control efforts from the release of Batman Returns three years earlier more than the Batchlers and Goldsman's abilities to write complex characters.
I'm also not sure how I feel about Val Kilmer as Batman/Bruce Wayne. Don't get me wrong, I love Kilmer as an actor, with Madmartigan being one of my favourite characters in Willow, but his Batman is more reserved than Keaton's Batman was in Batman and Batman Returns and doesn't show his emotions as easily as Keaton did. And I know that isn't him as an actor, because Madmartigan was very emotive. I think that more has to do with how Batman was portrayed in the comics at the time rather than a creative choice made by Schumacher, Kilmer and the writers. Which is fine, it's just a bit jarring going from the almost manic expressions that Keaton made, especially when he smiled in Batman Returns, to the more stoic portrayal that Kilmer has in this movie.
Batman Forever came out on VHS on October 31st, 1995 and I think I got it for my birthday from my godfather (my dad's best friend) for my birthday just a little over a month later. As I've said before while my parents owned both Batman and Batman Returns on VHS when I was a kid, this movie was mine and I watched it all the time. This was my Batman the way Keaton and Conroy were Batman for other kids my age who did watch the Tim Burton Batman movies and Batman: The Animated Series more often than I did. I also eventually upgraded to the DVD and now I have it on Blu-ray, though I would still love to get my hands on the VHS again in the near future.
There was also a comic book adaptation as well as two novel adaptations as well. I never had the novelizations but I did have the comic book. I've reviewed it on the blog back in February, so if you want my thoughts on the comic, go check it out.
Overall Batman Forever is still a good movie. It's not the greatest Batman movie of all time, that honour goes to The Dark Knight, but it's still my second favourite after Batman: The Movie from 1966. If you haven't seen it in a while, I would definitely recommend giving it a watch.
Alright my friends that is going to be it for me for this week. I'll be back next week where I'll be reviewing the first volume of Codename: Sailor V, the prequel manga to Sailor Moon, and then I'll be talking about the pre-1984 Disney Home Video releases and Super Mario Bros. 3, and I'll be reviewing Disney's 1971 film, Bedknobs and Broomsticks which will kick off a series of obscure Disney movies from the 70s and 80s that are cult classics. I'll also have another post up at some point to ask a question of all of you readers concerning how I'm going to review Sailor Moon, both the manga and the anime. So until then have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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