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Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Nicole Kidman, Chris O'Donnell ... see more see more... , Michael Gough , Rene Auberjonois , Drew Barrymore , Ed Begley Jr , Jack Betts , Michael Paul Chan , Ria Coyne , Jon Favreau , John Fink , Joe Grifasi , Cindy Herron , Pat Hingle , Gary Kasper , Maurice Lamont , Debi Mazar , Philip Moon , Dennis Paladino , Jim Palmer , Kimberly Scott , Eileen Seeley , Jessica Tuck , Bruce Roberts , Mike Smith , Corey Jacoby , Elizabeth Sanders , Greg Lauren , Jed Curtis , Don 'The Dragon' Wilson , Peter Radon

Director Joel Schumacher inherited the Batman franchise from Tim Burton and began steering it in the campier direction of the Sixties television show with this third installment. First-time Batman/Bru... read more read more...ce Wayne (Val Kilmer), in his only outing as the Caped Crusader, is effectively brooding as he ponders strange dreams about his parents' death and escapes his own near-demise at the hands of Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones), a former district attorney driven insane and turned into a master criminal when a gangster throws acid in his face. Meanwhile, as sexy psychologist Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman) tries to analyze and seduce both Bruce Wayne and Batman, Wayne Enterprises employee Edward Nygma (Jim Carrey) reacts badly to getting fired, using his self-invented mind-energy device to transform into the super-intelligent Riddler. The Riddler teams up with Two-Face to bring down Batman and drain the minds of Gotham City residents with his device, while Batman gets some much-needed help in the form of circus performer Dick Grayson (Chris O'Donnell), out for vengeance after being orphaned by Two-Face. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi

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42% liked it

533,017 ratings

Critics

44% liked it

55 critics

PG-13, 1 hr. 22 min.

Directed by: Joel Schumacher

Release Date: June 16, 1995

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DVD Release Date: August 27, 1997

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Flixster Reviews (23,870)

  • phubbs1
    October 22, 2011
    phubbs1
    The last Batman movie before the crash, this is still pretty cool, its lost allot of the gothic touch but not tooooo over the top on the neon camp look, its just right...almost. Its just Kilmer isn't that good, his Batsuit is probably the sharpest of all the films in my opinion b... read moreut I prefer Keaton.
    Carrey and Jones save the day as the villians lets be honest, their lunacy is funny and creative but they do seem alittle too similar for my liking but Carrey is just perfect. Less said about the nightmare that was 'Robin' the better but to be honest its handled reasonably and could of been worse.

    Overall for the time it wasn't too bad and it certainly did well, the Batmobile still looks awesome too.
  • theunknownhobo
    October 5, 2011
    theunknownhobo
    The best ... and I mean THE BEST Batman movie.
  • spielberg00
    September 4, 2011
    spielberg00
    Suffering the "threequel effect" from beginning to end, BATMAN FOREVER is a tedious superhero movie. It now stars Val Kilmer as the titular character, a less believable Batman than even Michael Keaton, who was a hard one to take into mind. And along with the whole superficialit... read morey of the plot, the villains aren't all that great either. The three previous villains were the Joker (Jack Nicholson), Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Penguin (Danny DeVito). Now, we have another duo, consisting of the Riddler (Jim Carrey) and Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones). Unlike in BATMAN and BATMAN RETURNS, these villains are more silly and ridiculous than creepy. Just look at the DVD box--their outfits give away all the asininity. Should you see this? I wouldn't recommend it. If you do, will you like it? It depends if you can stand Jim Carrey in more than just comedy and drama.
  • mumby1988
    August 4, 2011
    mumby1988
    Changing the director in the middle of a franchise can create seismic differences in the quality of the respective instalments. Sometimes this is for the better: Alfonso Cuaron lifted the Harry Potter series with Prisoner of Azkaban, bringing a real sense of magic and wonder wher... read moree Chris Columbus had failed on both counts. On other occasions, such as this one, the franchise does not benefit, resulting in a film with none of the weight of Tim Burton's instalments and which is nothing more nor less than a little bit boring.

    The key to understanding Batman Forever lies in the relationship between Tim Burton and his replacement Joel Schumacher. Despite having left the director's chair after the mixed reception of Batman Returns, Burton stayed on to produce the third instalment at the behest of Warner Brothers. While this did not give him anything resembling creative control, it did give him a certain amount of power on the set, so that he could always step in if he felt that things were going too far off the rails.

    As a result of Burton's presence there is some degree of continuity between the universe of Returns and Forever. Despite its gaudier design and campier style, it doesn't feel entirely like you've switched over to the TV series right after watching the second film. Certain sections, such as the death of Bruce's parents, have been reshot so that they retain their existing composition but with the new colour scheme and editing style. By making the head of Arkham Asylum a goofy-haired man called Dr. Burton, the series tips its hat to his style and sensibility, acknowledging that without him we would never have got this far.

    But while we are ostensibly in the same Gotham City, the emphasis has been shifted away from expressionist architecture and dark anti-heroes, and onto something a lot more frivolous. Where Burton uses style as a means of expressing deeper themes or character traits, Schumacher is all about style for its own sake, and never mind the story. This reflects their respective beginnings as filmmakers: Burton cut his teeth in animation, creating drawings which had to speak a thousand words, while Schumacher started out designing costumes for Woody Allen's Sleeper.

    What we end up with is a film which is lit to within an inch of its life, but scripted to a bare minimum. Like the TV series, there is a central plot which is relatively thin and largely implausible, around which action set-pieces can be positioned and stretched out for as long as is necessary. There are big references to Schumacher's back catalogue throughout - the street gang with fluorescent make-up are a re-tuning of the vampires from The Lost Boys, while the scenes with Nicole Kidman's psychiatrist tread very close to the dialogue in Flatliners.

    Batman Forever is often cited as the point when the Batman series shifted from being about the comics to being about the merchandise. Many fans have cited Val Kilmer's opening lines about "getting drive-through" as the moment at which the franchise jumped the shark. There is a large amount of truth in this: the shift towards brighter colours, sillier villains and the increased hardware available to Batman points towards a desire to sell action figures and lunchboxes rather than something more grown-up.

    But while there is a market-driven edge to this Batman instalment, it is not as crass or as cynical as it could have been. The plot is at best ironic and at worst duplicitous - creating an evil weapon which warps people's minds through television, when whole sections of the film resemble a commercial, at least in the way that they are lit. But it doesn't force the merchandise down the viewer's throat like Batman and Robin did, and compared to the work of Michael Bay it's totally harmless.

    For its first 45 minutes, the predominant reaction to Batman Forever is not betrayal or disgust but boredom. The opening set-piece, involving Two Face's elaborate heist and a safe full of acid, feels dragged out and is played for laughs way too obviously. The stunts become increasingly preposterous and the supporting characters have less personality than in the Burton films.

    Whereas in Batman Returns there was a sense of all the villains and some of the bystanders having minds of their own, the security guard in the bank is confined to whining "Oh no!" with increasing desperation. There is less of a role for Pat Hingle as Commissioner Gordon, and Michael Gough is increasingly sidelined. During the set-pieces Schumacher's love of aesthetics becomes frequently overbearing. In the sequence on the rocks near the Riddler's lair, there is so much green on the screen that you can't see what's going on. It's like watching Flash Gordon without the wit or directorial vision.

    The performances reflect this sense frustration. Val Kilmer is a plank as Bruce Wayne, and has an off-putting, haughty quality which conveys that Kilmer thought he was above the role. When he's in the bat-suit, he unwittingly pouts in almost every scene, as though he saw wearing the mask as an excuse to stop acting, at least with his face. Jim Carrey does an awful lot of gurning as Edward Nigma, and he only stops being annoying when he's being reined in by Tommy Lee Jones, who genuinely gets the character and seems to be having fun.

    Nicole Kidman, whose character was written specifically for the film, spends an awful lot of her screen time doing nothing but wandering around in a little black dress. Like Kim Basinger in the first film, whatever attempt is made to build her character up as intelligent is eventually undone; she ends up as a damsel in distress, accompanied by a gratuitous upskirt shot as she falls out of the tube. And Chris O'Donnell never entirely convinces either as Dick Grayson or as Robin. When he pretends to be Batman while facing the street gang, we're laughing at him as much as with him.

    However, after we have cantered through the Riddler's backstory and drunk our fill of pouting, whinging, gurning and flirting, Batman Forever finally kicks into gear and starts to have a plot which feels like it has something to say. It stops being an overgrown kid playing with toys and becomes a film about repression of childhood memories.

    Where the previous two films dealt with Batman as an outsider, who may be no better than the villains he is fighting, Batman Forever asks the question of whether Bruce Wayne can ever live with himself, as Batman and as a fractured human being. There is continuity from Batman Returns in the role of women; Chase makes a passing reference to Catwoman on the rooftop, and she proves instrumental in helping Bruce come to terms with himself.

    The point seems to be that the central dilemma of Batman is always the same - where does the man end and the bat begin, both in terms of personality and in terms of authorit. The various villains or sideshows which Batman encounters are just different ways of asking the same questions, whether through violence (Two-Face), riddles (The Riddler) or seduction (Chase). Considering what happened with the sequel, one could argue that this is just a ploy to have infinite new villains turn up in infinite new films, but at least the film has the guts to raise one of the central issues of the comics, even if it handles it with kid gloves.

    Batman Forever is a noisy, incoherent and often dull third instalment of a franchise which was already showing signs of fatigue. For all its good intentions and attempts to grapple with several ideas, it never follows through enough with any of them to cut the mustard, resorting to special effects to disguise Schumacher's shortcomings as a storyteller. But despite this, it's passingly entertaining, with Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey eventually coming through with the goods as a double act. It's a consistent and inoffensive disappointment; if only the same could be said for the sequel.
  • fb729949618
    July 31, 2011
    fb729949618
    From a critic standpoint it's bad, but as a child it was action packed, funny, and cool. Descent movie for what it was, and for being a 90's superhero movie.
  • fb535316333
    July 21, 2011
    fb535316333
    If it weren't for Carrey's Riddler, I would have had a hard time finishing this movie. But I digress, it achieves what it sets out to even though for the most part you can't help but wonder if it was worth it.

    It's like a terrible fusion of Adam West Batman with Burton's style f... read moreused with new-age technology of neon lights and flare. It's big, loud, but rarely ever fun. Watchable? Sure why not.
  • blkbomb
    July 11, 2011
    blkbomb
    Two-Face: Don't worry, people, no need for alarm, it's just a good-old fashioned, low-tech stick up! We're interested in the basics: cash, jewelry, cellular telephones. Just hand them over nicely, and no one will be hurt.

    What Schumacher did with Batman Forever and Batman & Rob... read morein was pretty disgraceful to where Burton had Batman going in the first two movies. Burton had Gotham City looking dark and Shumacher came along and made it look like a disco. There's lights flashing everywhere and it's really just annoying.

    Then there's the villains; there's Two-Face and The Riddler. Both are played extremely over the top. I feel that Tommy Lee Jones pulled his off, but I really don't think that Jim Carey was able to pull off the extremely over the top Riddler. The other characters of interest include Bruce Waynes new love interest played by Nicole Kidman. It's one of her few performances I don't liked. Then there's Batman, played by Val Kilmer in this one; which is a step down from Michael Keaton in the first two.

    While there's all these things I don't like about the movie, somehow I still find myself enjoying it. It's undeniabley entertaining. It's still a complete shame what Schumacher did though.
  • fb100002359227440
    June 25, 2011
    fb100002359227440
    Forever forgettable.
  • ajv2688
    June 6, 2011
    ajv2688
    With a new director and main actors, comes a new style of Batman movies, a more silly one-liner joke version of Batman. It's a lot different from Burton's films, and not in a good way. Still, the story does continue to follow the comics, unlike the newer movies. This movie is ... read morepretty ridiculous at times, but it does have Jim Carrey as the Riddler, which is perfect casting, and it does have a bit of good humor here and there. It's not a waste of time, it's just not the best Batman movie.
  • skeletonking101
    May 11, 2011
    skeletonking101
    A great and entertaining film, i mean its not one of the best superhero films but it had a lot of fun moments and entertainment factor.

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Critic Reviews

Owen Gleiberman
July 6, 2010
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

By now, Jim Carrey is doing sarcastic takes on his own sarcasm, and there's something funny and a little scary in that. Full Review

Jonathan Rosenbaum
April 16, 2007
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

Joel Schumacher submits to the Wagnerian bombast with an overly busy surface, and the script by Lee and Janet Scott Batchler and Akiva Goldsman basically runs through the formula as if it's a checklist. Full Review

Brian Lowry
April 16, 2007
Brian Lowry, Variety

As for Kilmer, he gamely steps into the dual Batman/Wayne role but can't get much traction, finding, as Michael Keaton had, that beyond a stern jaw there's not much to be done with it, since the suit ... Full Review

Janet Maslin
May 20, 2003
Janet Maslin, New York Times

The film recovers from that initial confusion to get stronger as it goes along, and to shape up as a free-form playground for its various masquerading stars. Full Review

Peter Travers
May 12, 2001
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Batman Forever is in and out but wins in the end by staying true to its unbridled comic spirit.

Kenneth Turan
February 13, 2001
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

This loud and boisterous comic book confidential is serviceable enough to satisfy. Full Review

James Berardinelli
January 1, 2000
James Berardinelli, ReelViews

It's lighter, brighter, funnier, faster-paced, and a whole lot more colorful than before. Full Review

Roger Ebert
January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

It's great bubble gum for the eyes. Full Review

Desson Thomson
January 1, 2000
Desson Thomson, Washington Post

Carrey lights up an otherwise over-scripted, over-frenetic potboiler. Full Review

Sean Means
January 1, 2000
Sean Means, Film.com

Minds in neutral, zoning out on the eye candy.

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    • Riddler/Edward Nygma: Joygasm!
    • Riddler/Edward Nygma: Joygasm!
    • Riddler/Edward Nygma: Spank me!
    • Riddler/Edward Nygma: Riddle me this, riddle me that, who's afraid of the big, black bat?
    • Batman / Bruce Wayne: Chicks love the car.
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  • In which Batman film does Nicole Kidman star?  Answer »
  • in wich batman movie we can hear this beautiful song?  Answer »
  • In which Batman movie did Robin, played by Chris O'Donnell, make his first appearance?  Answer »
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