Review of Batman Forever (1995) by Kyle M — 11 Sep 2014

This was the point where the Batman films weakened and the original series started bottoming. Tim Burton's - on the producer's chair this time - Batman's third heroic deed explores more the mythos and bright, colorful designs from the past appearances on paper and screen, but was restricted to go into a new direction as family friendly than the usual dark places. It's weak, questionable, and hugely flawed in structure and presentation of the storyline.

Similar to the first outing released in 1989 with Jack Nicholson as the Joker and Michael Keaton as the Dark Knight, the hero again gets overshadowed by the villains due to the actors portraying them were energetic. Tommy Lee Jones as a different Two-Face captures Nicholson's energetic portrayal of the Joker in the first film, while Jim Carrey was good as The Riddler with his own personality and charisma. On the heroic side, Val Kilmer done okay as Bruce Wayne than wearing the suit. Chris O' Donnell put enough young energy as Robin to pass this time only. So basically, the characterization of the first three films only focuses on the additions than the main heroic character.

"Batman Forever" was unfortunately infected by the bad luck that was happening in the superhero genre. I haven't seen "Batman & Robin" yet (not sure I'm going to), but this is the weakest and the least of all Batman films.

It's interesting to note that the first two of the original film series were similarly acclaimed - with lower acclaims - as the first two Superman films were, and both of the third outings went down, and the fourth worsens. It seems that "Superman III" and IV were probably the source of the bad luck disease that was infecting from selective to most superhero films of the 90s. (B-).