Superheroes: Batman Forever
Batman Forever does something that Batman and Batman Returns were unable to do: it makes Batman a proper protagonist, with goals and desires of his own. Not merely reacting to events, Bruce/Batman is after something in Forever. His various allies and antagonists, seductions and betrayals are all thematically consistent and relevant to his struggle. This does not mean that the finished movie is without flaws.
WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST WANT? Bruce Wayne wants to lead a "normal life." He wants to be able to fall in love, put his demons to rest and have a fully integrated personality. Life, as life will, has other plans. Just as Bruce is motivated by an unending revenge for his parents’ death, Two-Face is motivated by an irrational desire for revenge upon Batman. Two-Face’s sense of justice (arbitrary and cruel) and divided-down-the-middle personality are twisted mirrors of Bruce. Bruce would love nothing better than to put away Two-Face, settle down with that nice Dr. Meridian (astonishingly, yet another blonde with a bat obsession — how lucky can one guy get?) and hang up his cape for good.
But Two-Face has other plans. His Batman obsession causes him to disrupt a circus that Bruce is attending. He terrorizes the crowd and causes the deaths of the family of Dick Grayson, who then becomes a kind of mini-Batman himself, vowing revenge upon Two-Face. Bruce takes the young Dick into his care and tries to set him on the path of light, but again, life conspires to force a young man into a life of superheroism.
You know, I’m not sure where this notion came from that it’s a curse to be Batman. In the comics, and on the Adam West show, Batman didn’t suffer for his decision, he was a rich guy who was really smart and drove a cool car and beat up criminals — where was the suffering? What caused the shift from Batman being a joyful adventure for boys to being a brooding creep who spends all his time wondering if he’s doing the right thing? (A similar thing happened to James Bond around the same time — his movies went from being campy larks to being dark, violent "issues" dramas. Was it Reagan? Crack? Or was it merely the audience getting old?
(Once, while I was in a large group of people, I described comic books as "adolescent power fantasies." A bright-eyed young man perked up at that said no, that’s not what comics are — he said that the comics he read weren’t adolescent power fantasies at all, they were adult, complex dramas about the misuse of power and the great responsibilities power brings. What he failed to understand is that what he described is merely another kind of adolescent power fantasy. "I can’t kiss a girl because girls are yucky and I’m having too much fun being a cool bat dude" is no more or less an adolescent fantasy than "I can’t kiss a girl because I’m terribly concerned with the limits of my powers and my impact on society." And who said that adolescent power fantasies are an unfit subject for entertainment anyway?)
Anyway, so far so good. Batman wants to have a normal life with a pretty girl, but his past continues to haunt him both psychologically (in the form of haunting dreams) and physically (in the form of Two-Face). And he’s given a young protege to to reflect upon him the decisions he’s made in life. Excellent! Now what?
Well, to complicate things, here comes Dr. Edward Nygma. What does Dr. Nygma want? Dr. Nygma wants to be Bruce Wayne. He’s Rupert Pupkin (or Mark Chapman) — he identifies so strongly with the object of his affection that he must destroy it in order to feel real. Along the way, Nygma becomes The Riddler, a man obsessed with questions and answers — and the accumulation of knowledge. So that all works — Batman Forever, like the previous two movies, is primarily a psychodrama about bifurcated personalities trying to reintegrate. Unlike the first two movies, Forever makes its title character its protagonist instead of sympathizing with its monsters.
For me, the problem starts with Nygma’s device — a brainwave-altering whatsit that just happens to also be a mind-reading device. First of all, a villain stumbling upon a grand scheme to implement strikes me as weak plotting, but also I can’t quite see how "The Bad Guy With a Mind-Reading Device" fits in to a story about people trying to integrate their personalities. The Riddler, we could say, creates his device in order to best Bruce Wayne, to become smarter, cannier and wealthier than his idol, and thus realize himself — but why mind-reading? Why are riddles and mind-reading the key to his self-realization?
That may seem like nit-picking — the villain has to have some sort of plan, why not reading the minds of the citizens of Gotham? — but the Riddler’s mind-reading whatsit comes to dominate the entire movie, and turns out to serve only one plot-point — the Riddler, with his device, is able to read the mind of Bruce Wayne, and thus discover his secret — that he is Batman. Apart from that, there doesn’t seem to be any thematic point to the Riddler’s scheme, it’s all just production design and cumbersome action set-pieces.
It also, sadly, takes away time from Two-Face, one of the most thematically resonant of all Batman villains. The idea that a character as rich and full of potential as Two-Face has only one purpose — kill the Batman — is ludicrous. The result is that Two-Face has no inner life, he’s only a plot device — worse, he becomes a henchman to the Riddler, a giggling gnat in criminal-mastermind terms. With no character to play, Two-Face becomes single-minded — an oxymoron. To make matters worse, Two-Face is played by Tommy Lee Jones, one of America’s greatest, most accomplished, most subtle actors, as a shouting, screaming, smirking, mincing, pun-spewing, giggling miscreant in Halloween makeup. The script gives Two-Face his essential coin, but it also robs him of his pathology — his coin-flip isn’t a compulsion, it’s an affectation. He only does it when he feels like it, and if he doesn’t like how the coin lands, he flips it again until he gets the answer he desires. Or, he proceeds with his plan and merely alters it to give lip-service to the decision of his coin. The narrative of Forever holds Two-Face at arm’s length, and Two-Face holds his coin at arm’s length, as if to say "Okay, I’ve got the zany makeup, I’ve got the incessant "two" puns, isn’t that enough? I don’t really have to abide by the rules of my pathology, do I?"
(The Riddler’s sole pathology in the comics is that he cannot help but reveal himself to his pursuer — if his pursuer is smart enough to add up his clues. That the script takes this conceit and turns it into a story of obsession is actually rather brilliant. Why would the Riddler take the time to develop his devilish riddles if he didn’t desire to be caught? Dr. Nygma pursues his unattainable Bruce Wayne out of love, but, as the Riddler he’s able to turn the tables and have the object of his love pursue him instead, with the ultimate goal of being caught. In that regard, the Riddler’s whatsit serves his agenda in that it brings Bruce/Batman, powerless and subservient, to his very feet.)
Still, even with all this, there’s no reason why Forever shouldn’t work on a script level. But when people think of Batman Forever they think of Jim Carrey’s wacky, zany, Bugs-Bunny-on-speed Riddler, and Batman’s ass (pictured above). It’s bad enough that Tommy Lee Jones is given no character to play, but he is forced to dial up his performance to Wagnerian heights of screaming camp just to remain onscreen with the hyper-kooky Carrey. Carrey’s performance becomes the tonal touchstone for the whole movie, the result being that the movie refuses to take itself seriously.
(There are also a few structural issues regarding the Riddler’s plot that I find hard to swallow, but since the movie doesn’t really care about the logic of its central plot device, I feel silly doing so.)
Which, so what? Where is it written that a movie about people dressing up in crazy costumes is required to take itself seriously? Indeed, a sense of joy and adventure, of play, had been signally lacking in the previous Batman movies, why not lighten up a little? And yes, I find plenty of scenes in Forever that strike the right tone of stylish pop grandeur without disappearing over the edge of camp or giving in to morbid self-regard. But there are too few of them, and Forever, like its primary antagonist, cannot help but to sabotage itself.
So here’s something dumb to nitpick…
Isn’t Nicole Kidman a redhead?
Re: So here’s something dumb to nitpick…
In real life, I think she is, but she’s pretty blond in Batman Forever.
You’re right about how muddled the whole film becomes all due to not really analyzing their villains’ motivations. That machine the Riddler made was so vague and much more sci-fi than Batman normally offers.
I know the next Batman movie is the worst, but I hope you don’t skimp on why. I am so curious to see it given a probing look.
The Riddler’s mind-reading thingy is not only vague, it keeps changing its properties and expanding its uses — and seems to do so of its own accord.
Jim Carrey needed to be *directed* in that movie, or they should have got someone else. Instead he’s unleashed, and that breaks things for me. (And I often *like* Carrey.) He can DO creepy/obsessive, and he can DO lovelorn, and he can DO smart and inspired. I agree that you’ve analysed the character very effectively here, in terms of what it should be and what the script wants him to be. He’s a really smart guy who’s a bit obsessive, gets burned by the guy he wants most to impress, and develops an unhealthy riddle obsession. Once Batman beats him, his obsession is to *outwit* Batman. Or it ought to be. Learning everything possible is a means to an end.
Instead, we get THE MASK PART 1.5, with fewer special effects.
And Here’s my problem with ALL of these films after the first: too many villains. Two-face, handled well, is enough to handle, and you can still use the story to get Robin in there.
I think that kids still love the easy-to-understand capes-vs-baddies stuff, but there’s no reason why you can’t have Bruce conflicted about his role — IIRC, even some of the earlier (40s) comic stories portrayed that, especially once he stopped using guns. Frank Miller wasn’t the first to examine the broken psyche that drives Batman, though he pushed it as far as it would go.
Obsession isn’t healthy, and Bruce lets his obsession consume his life — that has always been clear. It’s a natural fit for the Two-face story, and of course it’s great fodder for the “your antagonists exist to help you integrate rogue impulses and unpleasant aspects of yourself”.
i wonder if batman’s double-life dilemma was foisted upon the film version because hollywood didn’t think women would see a movie with a stalwart hero. maybe they think the female audience demands the hero be forced to choose between his job and his love. not saying it’s right or that i in any way agree, just sayin’…
and if he doesn’t like how the coin lands, he flips it again until he gets the answer he desires. Or, he proceeds with his plan and merely alters it to give lip-service to the decision of his coin.
That drove me mad when I saw it in the theater all those years ago–I can still remember being outraged that Two-Face was presented that way. It took away everything fascinating and frightening about him and turned him into a garden variety psychopath. I remember Richard Moll’s performace as Two-Face in the cartoon being so much more frightening and more in line with the current portrayal–even though a lot of the performance is dictated by the animators, his voice was perfect.
One thing that did disappoint me with Aaron Eckhart’s casting as Dent was that I really, really wanted a black Harvey Dent, as we’d seen Billy Dee Williams briefly in the first Burton and as was depicted in the cartoon. I don’t know if that’s against the original comic but I always thought that was a brilliant idea–black men in American culture are usually depicted as either 100% righteous and assimilated into white culture or thug life stereotypes–it seemed like an interesting opportunity to dissect that media-generated idea. There’s very rarely a depiction of a black man that falls in between, where you have a normal middle-class person who reads Science fiction and enjoys Nascar or something. I don’t watch much TV these days so I’m probably missing out on a lot of really fascinating characters who break that mold but I also came up with this observation in the late nineties.
Not that I’m dismissing Eckhart’s portrayal at all–that was just brilliant as far as I’m concerned.
Haha, for some reason, your comment gave me the idea for a black Jekyll and Hyde. Though I’m not sure if it would be serious or comical.
So, if most superhero comic books are adolescent power fantasies, what about them would need to be changed in order to make them a more adult fantasy? Or are all power fantasies adolescent by definition?
I’ve always wondered about this. I mean, I grew up with comics, I still read many of them, and I also enjoy a lot of Japanese manga that’s aimed primarily at teenage boys — “Naruto”, for example. I won’t claim Naruto or Green Lantern to be Shakespeare, but they are enjoyable art and entertainment. Where does the line between adolescent and adult fantasy entertainment lie? What seperates Green Lantern from your average Tom Clancy adventure thriller (just to pick one possible example) that makes the former adolescent and the latter adult?
I won’t claim to know the answer to this, but I’m curious about your take on it.
That statement bothered me a little, for a couple reasons.
First, “adolescent”? Are you saying it’s adolescent to desire power, or that comics are inherently jejune? Because I beg to differ, on both counts.
Second, some of the best comics (Watchmen, for one) deal with powerful characters who at the end of the day are powerless to do anything. What kind of a power fantasy is that?
Also you are using the word “comics” to refer to superhero comics, which while being the largest and most visible genre of the medium, does not represent the whole. American Splendor and Local are not adolescent power fantasies, thanks.
Well, we’re discussing superheroes here, so yes, I’m referring to superhero comics, not Maus.
Watchmen is also an adolescent power fantasy, it’s just a more complex, sophisticated version.
And, as I’ve said, there’s nothing wrong with any of that.
I’m just having trouble owning the word “immature”. You’re probably right. TS
Here is a fun(?) experiment everyone can (probably) try at home.
Take a copy of Batman Forever. Put it in your DVD playing device and skip ahead to the death of Dick Grayson’s parents (and brother, who I don’t know to have any precedent in any other version of Robin’s backstory.)
Remove Batman Forver and insert the disc of “Batman: The Animated Series – Volume 2” that includes “Robin’s Reckoning” and skip ahead to the same event (minus the brother).
Your conclusions will be your own, but I think you will find that the animated TV show uses staging (and the limitations of an animated TV show ostensibly aimed at children) to convey the horror of what has just taken place much more effectively by showing much less. You may also conclude that animation is cooler than live-action, but I don’t think the comparison here is entirely fair.
One of a very few things I like in both this and the following film is the expansion on an idea from the Burton films: that the gangs of Gotham City are highly themed in their choice of identifying costumes. This is one example of the film not taking the concept to seriously and the end result actually being somewhat fun and enjoyable to look at.
But yeah, the handling of Two-Face in this movie is probably one of its biggest stumbling points and a good example of why superhero movies (or pretty much any movies, I guess) not to take on too many characters at once. I totally agree that Tommy Lee Jones is utterly wated in this role. They might as well have hired Steve the set custodian. I wonder if there’s ever been a good result when an actor is being interviewed about a particular role and says “Well my kids thought it would be really cool if I was in this movie.”
The theme-costumed henchmen dates back to the Adam West show, and the comics before them. I personally see no reason why a villain needs theme costumes for his or her henchmen, much less Tommy guns with neon lights in them, but they do not significantly impede my enjoyment of the screenplay.
As for actors taking roles because they want to look cool to their kids, absolutely, it happens all the time.
The thing is that the films seem to expand it beyond the villains own henchmen to the unaffiliated street gangs of Gotham, such as the blacklight makeup gang Dick Grayson takes on.
Yes, I’m sure many actors take roles to delight their offspring, but does it ever end well, particularly when the actor in question gives this reason when asked why he or she took the role in the first place?
Yeah, I find the Blacklight gang to be particularly unterrifying, but then Gotham, until just recently, has always been a rather stylized place to live.
I see no reason why an actor taking a role in order to look cool, to his or her kids or to anyone, can’t deliver a substantial, worthwhile performance, as long as the screenplay is there to provide the material for interpretation. You think that Kate Winslet wanted to play an illiterate Nazi in order to shine a light on the too-often-overlooked plight of illiterate Nazis?
here’s one
Viggo Mortensen took Aragon in Lord of the Rings because of his kids. He was a replacement for someone else and they had already begun shooting. He started reading the books in the plane on the way over. Great result IMHO.
Raye
Re: here’s one
No argument there. I guess it was silly of me to think that actors taking on roles because theirs kids think it would be cool can’t lead to good performances. But I still do get a little worried if it doesn’t seem like they have any other reason for accepting the offer.
Re: here’s one
In most cases, the reason is “money”. These are professional people, hired to do a job: as long as they do it well, what do their inner motivations matter?
Re: here’s one
Agreed. Many roles are taken because of money or publicity, right? Bankable actors have to stay bankable, so they have to take on that next big budget, high profile role or else they start to slip. Not to say that actors can’t hold out for good scripts, but the reason so many professionals do any job they do, even creative ones, often boils down to something other than “because it’s going to be art.”
Re: here’s one
In the case of Tommy Lee Jones, he had been a great actor for 20 years and had just won an Oscar, he saw that he had a big chance to cash in big time (Jack Nicholson cleared more than $50 million for Batman) and took it. I doubt the performance he delivered was the one he had in his mind when he took the part, but what was his choice? There was no part to play, and he had to share the screen with a cartoon character.
Re: here’s one
You’re right (and that comment is shaping up to be one of the dumber things I’ve said). I’ve seen performances in various media that I couldn’t find much fault with and heard the actor say after the fact “I did my best, but it was just a job and I didn’t give it much thought once it was over.” Which is fine. If you really love a particular character, it’s more fun to find out that the actor in question really loved playing the role and thinks about it as much as you do, if not more. But in the end, if somebody does a top notch job, I don’t really mind if it was really just a job to him or her.
I wonder if there’s ever been a good result when an actor is being interviewed about a particular role and says “Well my kids thought it would be really cool if I was in this movie.”
Robbie Coltrane’s kids insisted he should take the part as Hagrid in Harry Potter, and that turned out well for him
Does Lee Meriweather in the Adam West Batman film qualify? Within the limitations of that particular film, I thought she performed quite well.
Mathew Mcconaughey was almost captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribean, but he was busy doing Reign of Fire at the time and Johnny Depp wanted to work on an animated Disney movie for his kids sake, and all worked out well…
I liked Val Kilmer in the role, on the general basis that I saw Real Genius when I was 12 and am incapable of not liking Val Kilmer. Other than that I found this movie to be more or less a waste.
Using Two-Face as a (ahem) second rate Joker
knockoff was profound disappointment.
Using Two-Face as a (ahem) second rate Joker
knockoff was profound disappointment.
that’s odd, since i always felt that the Riddler’s portrayal was just that..
They both were. I’m on record for saying that Jones should have given back his Oscar for Buttman Forever.
One of the things that had bothered me about BF was the casting. I’ve nothing against Val Kilmer, but he was miscast as Batman. I’ve nothing against Christ O’Donnell, and he made a great Dick Grayson, but…
… I hated it that Robin looked older than Batman.
That said, I also noticed that the Batman series followed the pattern of the Superman series:
First movie was good.
Second movie was also good (I’m talking Donner cut, though).
Third movie catered to a then hot comedy guest villain (Pryor in Superman 3; Carrey in Batman 3)
Fourth movie was so godam awful it buried the franchise.
See, I didn’t like Kilmer as Bruce Wayne- he just looked too much like a surfer-dude fratboy type. Disguised by the heavy rubber mask, I could take him a bit better.
There’s a scene in the climax of this flick which bugged me, too, when I saw it in theatre: I forget exactly how it happened, but I recall Kidman’s character falling off the Riddler’s platform, seemingly to her death, but Bats stops her freefall by throwing a Batarand with a steel cable attached around her, yanking her to a stop. The way it was shot, it seemed to me that even if the physics would allow the batarang to catch her, the impact from being yanked to a halt with a steel cable wrapped around her body would have cut her in half. Then again, I’m a graphic designer, not a physicist so that may be perfectly plausible. I doubt it, though.
The notion of grim, driven Batman was introduced gradually in the comics; of course, he started out that way early on in his history but soon became more of a genial father figure/detective sort, culminating with the ludicrous outer space stories of the late 50’s and early 60’s, and of course the Camp TV Batman…and that’s why he’s portrayed as such a stick these days.
In the wake of that TV show everyone, i.e., the Great Unwashed, thought the character was a buffoon, much to the chagrin of comics fans…and when those same comics fans who hated buffoonish TV Batman grew up and started writing comics, well, they couldn’t wait to steer him towards the way he’s presented today. Actually, for my money the animated Batman, especially the last couple of years as well as in the subsequent Batman Beyond, successfully straddled the line, making Bruce/Bats dark, but not too dark. The comics themselves are only now backing away from the too-grim portrayal.
And that concludes the little history lesson!
The trouble, it seems to me, is that Batman, and all superheroes, are, at their roots, fantasy figures. Take them too seriously — that is, remove them from their worlds — and they become ridiculous. Lord of the Rings is able to take itself seriously because it takes place in its own world that runs by its own rules, but if you make the superhero’s world too real, the essential fantasy element gets lost and the hero looks silly.
The way it was shot, it seemed to me that even if the physics would allow the batarang to catch her, the impact from being yanked to a halt with a steel cable wrapped around her body would have cut her in half.
I note that, to cross universes here, in the comics this is basically how Gwen Stacy dies; The Green Goblin drops her, and Spider-Man webs her….jerking her fall to a stop and breaking her neck.
Although there’s apparently debate among fans (and even the creators) whether she was already dead at the point where the Green Goblin dropped her, making Spider-Man’s decision to try to stop her fall irrelevant…
Wasn’t there a sound effect along the lines of “crack” after Spider-man catches her with the web? Isn’t that a pretty good idea that it was him that caused her death. Also, it’s much more resonant if he was the one to accidentally kill her and not the Green Goblin.
Well, it’s complicated.
I’ll let wikipedia explain the controversy better than I can: The Night Gwen Stacy Died – Cause of Death
Kilmer
You make no mention of Val Kilmer, who took over for Keaton because (I believe) Keaton felt the movies weren’t focused enough on the character of Batman, rather on the villains.
Though it’s very different from Keaton’s, I kind of like Kilmer’s performance … I don’t know if it’s just projection on my part, but he seems like the kinda guy who could be rich and yet twisted on the inside.
Re: Kilmer
I pretty much like all the actors who have played Bruce Wayne, they’re a pretty capable bunch. It is ironic that Keaton left at the moment that they figured out how to make Batman the star of his own series.
One thing I did notice about the Kilmer Bruce is that he’s no longer a philanthropist who sits and broods all day — this movie introduces the Captain of Industry Bruce, which will become the standard from now on.
Burton vs. Schumacher
I was thinking about the art design/production design of the two Burton and two Schumacher films and how big and elaborate and busy they are.
The Burton films clearly derive from the comic books, partially, but also from the usual Burton sources like classic horror/monster movies, German expressionism, Gothic art and architecture, cartoonists like Edward Gorey, the darker children’s books, etc. Batman Returns seems to move further from the “comic book” source and deeper into “Burtonland.” Both films have narrative flaws and fail to satisfy me on the “action movie level,” but strike me as consistent with Tim Burton’s cinematic vision.
I’m not sure what the unifying “design vision” of the Joel Schumacher films is supposed to be. To me they don’t feel significantly closer to the comics than the Burton films, although they retain traces of Burton’s pop-Gothic sensibility. (One could make a case that they look like comic book cover art.) They have more neon, more Greco-Roman statuary, more homoeroticism, which I guess adds up to a 1970s Broadway/Andrew Lloyd Webber/disco look.
It’s funny how much more realistic and “clean,” overall, are the other major superhero movie franchises like Superman, Spider-man, X-Men. It’s like Burton’s first Batman sent the character (and the rest of the superhero films of the 1990s) into this weird, overdesigned detour.
Re: Burton vs. Schumacher
Everyone dogpiles onto the George Clooney one for how awful it is, but I have to admit, I do like the audacity of a Gotham City where the statues are so large that you can have an extended car chase on one of them.
And now, in the Christian Bale films, we have a Gotham City that is….oh, Chicago.
My sister was asking me why THE DARK KNIGHT is in Chicago, since Gotham City, with the “Gotham”, would seem to be New York City.
But then, where does that place Metropolis?
Apparently their locations are fluid in different iterations of the comics; and in some versions, Gotham City and Metropolis are just across the river from each other.
Re: Burton vs. Schumacher
I always thought Metropolis was supposed to be Good New York and Gotham City was Bad New York.
-Doctor Handsome
It may’ve been Frank Miller’s DKR in all of its anguish, casting that kind of light on the already dark Danny O’Neil stories. Likewise, it is also a curse to be Daredevil, anyone in Sin City, and apparently the Spirit.
Its kind of funny. It used be the post modern rebellious thing to point out that being a super hero means you’re most likely insane. Now its the post modern thing to point out that it might be awesome (like Grant Morrison’s stuff). Its odd.
Where is it written that a movie about people dressing up in crazy costumes is required to take itself seriously?
They don’t, and there’s been a number of entertaining movies that play the fun side, but I suspect that after a taste of something darker and more serious, audiences found this a disappointing return to camp form.
As for Bruce being broken — for me, it simply boils down to “he’s more interesting that way.” I like Batman better than Superman because the portrayals that I’m most familiar with give him a meaningful inner conflict, whereas Superman is usually pretty unconflicted. There’s no particular hook for me, in Superman; I only find him interesting when (say) he’s been stabbed with a piece of kryptonite. If Batman drove around saying, “hey, isn’t my life awesome?,” I’d yawn and change the channel. [See: Wanted.]
I liked this one in the theatres. I was 15 at the time and haven’t seen it since so I think I’ll keep my momories on the positive side.
The only real crime this film is guilty of is that Tommy Lee’s makeup took less time to put on than Jim Carey’s riddler makeup. That’s just stupid. There’s a makeup person somehwere who should have been fired.