Batman Forever

SPOILER WARNING!!! This Post spoils movie Batman Forever.

I don't know how much you can consider that this is sequel to Burton movies. Story forgets somethings that happened during first movies. Also actor who plays Batman and actor who plays Harvey Dent are changed. Change from Michael Keaton to Val Kilmer was well informed. Change from Billy Dee Williams to Tommy Lee Jones was not. Like no nerd would notice that Lando Calrissian was changed to white man. I would have liked to see Billy Dee Williams in that role.

Joel Schumacher replacing Tim Burton as director meant that this movie lost all vision and became more product than art. Joel Schumacher don't seem to know what he is doing. He tries to mix darkness of Burton movies with content of 60s tv-series.

Bruce Wayne has changed from lonely awkward millionaire to business man and playboy with dark secret. Being Batman seems to be extreme hobby to him. Along collecting cars and motorbikes. Big question is how he got time for all this. This movie suffers greatly from two of its main characters. First one is Riddler and the other is Robin. I don't like Riddler character and this movie is one reason why. Jim Carrey makes Riddler too much annoying comedy character. In 60s tv-series Riddler had many layers thanks to great actor. In this he is one dimensional and annoying.

Robin is another character I don't like in Batman. Robin makes Batman less dark and less edgy. Batman is always better without Robin. In this movie Robin is annoying teenager. He almost exposes Batman's true identity by stealing batmobile. Worst thing of all, he brings 60s Robin to this movie. And to next movie.

Movie has it moments. Most of those involve Two-Face without Riddler. Val Kilmer could have been great in darker movie. He has edge needed for darker characters. Val Kilmer's talent is lost in stupid love story and Nicole Kidman not able to follow him. Same goes to Chris O'Donnell. He can't follow Val Kilmer. Val Kilmer takes this movie to dark places but other actors in those scenes can't follow him. That is one problem of this movie. Another is that this movie has seeds of disaster that made next movie so bad. There are product placements, there are things from 60s Batman, there are vehicles which reason is to sell toys and there is suit related humor.

To be honest, this was better than I remember it to be. This was darker than I remember. Val Kilmer carry this movie. He is the reason this is as good as this is. Tim Burton may have had some input to this movie. There are still things that made first movies good and things that made next movie bad are toned down. Even with all flaws this is still watchable movie.