Comic Book Movies 101: Batman Forever

22nd Mar 2011

Mentioning the film Batman Forever to a few of my nearest and dearest provoked responses such as “Oh lord, really?”, “Bullshit” and “At least it’s not Batman and Robin”. Some tried in vain to nominate me for the Victoria Cross for just getting through it in one sitting without crying. Well, they haven’t mentioned this to me yet but I’m pretty sure they will have done. In any case, Joel Schumacher’s 1995 caped crusader effort may have done well at the box office but it’s left a trail of broken dreams behind it ever since (at least until Christopher Nolan stepped up to the mark, anyway).

At the risk of being hunted down by Dark Knight aficionados I would like to propose that the Schumacher double-instalment is not only a memorable family-friendly (yes, I remember watching this in 1995… when I was five) and decidedly original take on the dynamic duo’s coming together, but also a terrific homage to the only true Batman to have graced the small and silver screens, Adam West. Perhaps the only Batman not to have got bogged down with the psychosis of being, as Dr Meridian points out “a fully grown man dressed as a flying rodent” (NB “Bats aren’t rodents” – thanks Val Kilmer). This early crime fighter took the job at face value and quite simply went about fighting crime with none of the bravado, darkness or drama of later Batmen. The cowl and cape simply served as a cunning disguise by which criminals and wrongdoers could recognise him without knowing his identity.

Val Kilmer’s Batman is a perfect middle point between Adam West and Christian Bale. He has all the suaveness, sex appeal (who could forget the famously eyebrow-raising arse shot?) and high-tech genius of a modern Batman but still manages to retain the balanced sense of morals and public decency which is so integral to any credible crime fighter – I’m sure if you saw a police van smashing the place up as Christian Bale does you’d at least tut and roll your eyes, if not write a stern letter to your local authority. And so whilst Val Kilmer does have the gadgets, he has the good sense to use them to public advantage rather than catching the criminal at the cost of the tax payer (tsk tsk).

The story is suitably preposterous with technology which hearkens back to Commodore Schmidlapp’s dehydrator. The Riddler and Two-Face have teamed up in the wake of the Riddler’s new invention: a device which beams television directly into people’s brains, which of course the two bad ’uns intend to use to read and subsequently control people’s minds, including Bruce Wayne. Batman leaps onto the case without a second thought, but things become complicated after Two-Face kills the parents and brother of Dick Grayson, the youngest star of acrobatic team The Flying Graysons. Wayne feels partly responsible for their death and identifies with the orphaned acrobat, and accordingly takes him in as his youthful ward.

Driven by revenge, Dick discovers the Batcave and goes on a bit of a rampage in the “Other Car” before deciding to forcibly team up with the caped crusader to become his sidekick, Robin. Blah blah blah. Robin and Batman’s love interest, Dr Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman) gets kidnapped, big explosions ensue and the Riddler ends up in Arkham Asylum, convinced that he is Batman. And Gotham City is saved again… for now!

A fairly standard premise for Batman then. What makes Batman Forever particularly memorable are its set design, cinematography and deliciously nostalgic screenplay. Batman Forever boasts four writers, all of whom must have either grown up with daily instalments of the 60s Batman or have done their homework extremely well. Or both. The most obvious hearkening-back comes from Robin’s exclamation “holey rusted metal, Batman! The ground, it’s all metal. It’s full of holes. You know, holey”. It’s impossible to ignore delightful exchange between Bruce and his faithful butler Alfred as they piece together the clues left by the Riddler which see them getting from the numbers 13, 1, 8 and 5 to Edward Nigma in about three sentences. Alfred, ever the reliable confidante, can also be trusted to produce some crackers, my personal favourite coming as Batman is on the verge of speeding away into the crime ridden night: “Can I persuade you to take a sandwich, sir?” The steely response to which is “I’ll get a drive-thru.”

But it’s not just the screenplay which makes Batman Forever a great watch; the actors have a profound appreciation of their role not as serious, emotionally and mentally deep characters such as those we see in the Nolan set, but as farcical caricatures of imaginary super-villains in an imaginary city where the impossible is possible. Batman Forever is pure fantasy and everybody on board with the film has borne that in mind from the second the first pen hit the first sheet of paper to the final cut made on the last day of editing. There are no pretences of grandeur or gravitas, just pure fun and adventure with a bit of darkness thrown in to bring Batman into the 90s. A hearty pat on the back to Joel Schumacher for having the bravery and integrity of a true superhero. He stuck to his guns when the whole world was smacking their foreheads against the wall in pain and dreaming of a world where Gotham City was in a permanent state of power failure and Batman has had too much Botox and accordingly lost the use of his facial muscles.