Batman Forever

Bruce Wayne and his young ward Dick Grayson tackle crime as Batman and Robin. When villains Two-Face and the Riddler team up to take over Gotham City by beating Batman, the dynamic duo find themselves in a battle for the city.

This third of the series rings the alarm bells early when the credits tell us that Burton is out and thoughtless crowd pleaser Schumacher is in! If that's not bad enough Keaton is replaced by Val Kilmer. The story to this makes the first two films look like Shakespeare. Here the script is pointless and any character development is thrown out the window. The story is little more than an excuse for two things, 1 - big action scenes and 2 - big hammy performances from whoever is playing the villains this time. As such it doesn't do anything new. The main loss is the loss of darkness - Schumacher maximises the audience by making it kiddie friendly and losing any edge the original had.

The action scenes are all OTT and mere spectacle, but they lack tension and excitement and it's really hard to care. Outside of the spectacle we are left with the performances. Carrey is good if you like his brand of mugging, but he does get tiresome in his cartoon character role. Jones is wasted as Two-Face and is forced to sit in the shadow of Carrey's ham. Kilmer is a non-entity, Batman comes second to the villains and the attempts to give him a character are ham-fisted and clumsy. Kidman is a stupid love interest and there is no chemistry between her and Kilmer. O'Donnell is OK but did we need a Robin?

Overall this is a step away from the comic book and a leap towards the camp 1960's Batman. Schumacher takes what should be a dark, almost disturbing story of a man who is not too far removed from the super-villains he must catch and turns it into a childish ill-formed Happy Meal. Terrible.