Thursday, August 2, 2012

Ranking the Batman Movies: #15


15. Batman Forever
(1995)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Batman…Val Kilmer
Alfred…Michael Gough
James Gordon…Pat Hingle
The Riddler…Jim Carrey
Two-Face…Tommy Lee Jones
Dr. Chase Meridian…Nicole Kidman

Well, whaddya know? We populate the bottom of the list with both Joel Schumacher movies. Anyone even vaguely familiar with the franchise probably knew this would be the case. This was the first of the JS flicks. He was hired to lighten up the series after the macabre adventure that was Tim Burton’s Batman Returns. The results are fairly bad. The tone is uneven: dark and brooding at some points, over the top campy at others. It makes little to no sense whatsoever. As The Riddler, Jim Carrey delivers a completely unhinged performance. It’s like watching Frank Gorshin on speed. That part isn’t so bad because we kind of expect that from him. What’s bizarre is watching Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face behave the same way. It didn’t seem to fit either him or the character. Robin is introduced, for I don’t know what reason. The pleasant surprise is that Val Kilmer wasn’t too bad as Batman.

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