My Review of "Batman Forever"

Batman Forever came out back in 1995. It was a changing of the guards as a lot of the major players of the first two movies were out and in came some new blood. We still had our main characters but the actors and people behind the camera were all different. Watching this movie now, gives me some perspective as to what they were trying to go for. The problem is that it didn't really work.

The movie starts off with a big caper pulled by a new villain named Two-face. It's over the top and very wild. There's still a little aesthetic reminiscent of the previous Batman movies. Though this time we have a much more colorful and vibrant version of things.

Of course Batman comes in to save the day but we get an introduction as to how crazy Two-face really is. He's adamant about killing Batman and will stop at nothing to do this. At the crime scene we're introduced to Batman/Bruce Wayne's new love interest by the name of Chase.

She's a psychologist that specializes in split personalities. I guess that's why she's investigating Two-face. It also lends well with the duality of Batman and his alter ego Bruce Wayne. There's a lot of duo themes throughout this movie. Everything will come in two.

For instance in the next scene we get introduced to yet another villain by the name of Edward. He starts off working for Bruce Wayne in some sort of invention department. His newest invention is some sort of mind contraption that allows for a more immersive television viewing experience. The problem is that it's very invasive to the human brain.

Bruce Wayne rejects his project despite Edward's desperate attempts to push the product. As a result we have our new super villain, Riddler. This new villain's prime directive is to get revenge on Bruce Wayne.

One of the things this movie does get right is the introduction of a new character to help out Batman. We get introduced to a trapeze artist named Richard who will later be dubbed Robin. They did a really good job in creating his character and flowing it into the Batman story. He has a tragic story similar to Bruce Wayne's and everything works out very parallel.

The movie's visuals are tonally all over the place. We have Two-face that shows up with everything looking very 50s era. You can see all his cars and style look very art deco. Then you have Riddler in a very futuristic style. Robin has a modern rocker edge to him and Batman is a clean cut preppy look. This movie tries to meld all of these styles together on screen and it feels discombobulated.

The story is also all over the place too in terms of tone. We have a more serious tone when it comes to Batman and Robin. That stuff I found pretty intriguing but then whenever the villains come into the movie it's like some sort of Saturday morning cartoon show. There's no real consistency and it's quite jarring while watching this.

Though I know hat they were trying to do. There are a ton of nods to the 60's Batman TV show. I noticed the whole Batman going up the side of the building and looking at the tenants while going up. The villain portion of the movie are reminiscent of the show as well. We even have Robin doing the whole "holey bat grills" as a joke in the movie. Again, I know what they're trying to do but it feels so off and hacked in.

This movie needed a few more revisions to get consistency up to par. I'm okay with a goofy movie but you can't have the movie going back and forth from serious to goofy so often. It really threw me out of the movie and at times I wanted to shut the movie off.

Overall, I didn't like this movie. I don't remember liking this movie back when it first came out and I'm not sure why I thought it would be any different now. Luckily I kind of understand why I don't like the movie but it doesn't negate the fact it's pretty bad. There are some nice moments but they are very few. I have to give this movie a 3.5 out of 10. I would not recommend this movie to anyone. Even if they were curious.