Batman Forever (1995) Review

Batman is tested to limit against former district attorney Harvey Dent now Two-Face and employee Edward Nygma who becomes The Riddler. Dick Grayson is introduced . . .

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Sometimes I feel my childhood memories and probably watching this film as an eight/nine-year old to influence my judgement when I watch it now. Batman Forever throws in quite a lot of new characters and I think that is one of the reasons (maybe even many reasons) why it does not really work out in the best way.

They try to add in too many characters who need a back story and that takes up a lot of time, I guess then leading it to not really be massively about Batman. We already know Bruce Wayne by this point, the gadgets and suits are getting more advanced.

Who to start with? Well we have Harvey Dent who after an attack became Two-Face and wants nothing more than to make Gotham pay for what happened to him. He eventually teams up with Riddler who is rather crazy and had an idea to use brain waves to influence people. Something that as Edward Nygma he approached Bruce Wayne who rejected the idea.

That is just the bad guys, Dick Grayson a young circus acrobat is left alone when his family are killed by Two-Face. He actually blames Batman for this as he did not reveal himself to Two-Face the night they died. He ends up staying with Bruce Wayne and Alfred takes a shine to Robin! The last addition is Dr. Chase Meridian a psychologist who in all honesty doesn’t really offer very much to the film. I feel as though you could take that character out and it wouldn’t really have any influence on the film. It feels as though they realised they had no female character and just had to add one in, just my personal opinion of course.

Val Kilmer steps into Michael Keaton’s shoes to take on Batman/Bruce Wayne and he is well, ok. I wouldn’t say he’s horrifically bad or anything like that, but doesn’t really live up to the style Keaton put in place. He is given a very impressive bat suit and batmobile though. I actually think Tommy Lee Jones is hilarious as Two-Face, channelling a similar comic book style to Nicholson’s Joker but failed to reach the same level. Jim Carrey in the 90s is pretty much Riddler and takes his exhausting style into this film as well. I do believe Chris O’Donnell was one of my earliest crushes and probably due to this film, so I think I still have a slight soft spot for him. Nicole Kidman wasn’t given a massive amount to work with and that is a shame considering her calibre of acting. She should have been groundbreaking in this style of film but was wasted with a weak character.

Throwing everything together and thinking about the other Batman films we now have I guess this one does come across as very silly and even if it pains my younger self to admit that this isn’t really a very good film.