Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever - A Misunderstood Masterpiece

This is by far one of your best Batman Video Essays

It wasn't misunderstood when it came out? Everyone was on that Batman Forever band wagon and the soundtrack had two hit songs? U2 and Seal and Jim Carrey was Hollywood's hottest commodity. Batman is my favorite superhero and love and support ALL films he was in. But it wasn't until the Dark Knight Trilogy came out during those years where Batman Forever got Batman and Robin treatment. To me? It's just how great that Dark Knight Trilogy was but it made Schumacher films look silly. I remember leaving the theater in 95 with my friends as I was a sophmore in high school at the time. And we loved it.

One of your points I agree with quite strongly is, when I heard Tommy Lee Jones was cast as Harvey dent/Two-Face I was excited. Tommy Lee Jones had the ability to play (and mannerism and look and voice) this character PERFECTLY. (A dark, brooding, gruff, twisted schizo) But he played it like he was copying Romero/Joker or Nicholson/Joker. It made no sense.

I really pray we get the rumoured directors cut, Val Kilmer was a really cool batman and could’ve had sooooo much potential. Supposedly it’s a lot darker which I feel can really add to the film! Forever is a decent movie, it gets connected with the next movie which sucks much worse

My favorite part of the movie is Batman running out of the fire

Yeah, it's kind of great. As a kid, I didn't appreciate the humor, wit, colorfullness, contrasts and characterization. Easily my favorte superhero movie from someone who doesn't really like superheroes!

I still would have liked this film better if Tim burton directed it…especially because I hear Robin Williams was originally casted as the riddler when Burton was gonna direct!

Batman forever will always be my favorite of the all the Batman movies. I don't care what anyone else says I loved it as a kid and I think in some ways love it even more now as an adult.

Kids were just saying what their parent's think.

I’m glad they introduced Robin

Thank you. For a long time this film was a guilty pleasure, despite crowds of fans screaming about how ridiculous it was. It was let down in part, as you suggest by Jones, and that character design. I saw it in the cinema when it was released and still have the McDonalds Batman tie in drinking glasses. Well, done. Thank you for sharing.

Kilmer’s film should have never been a direct sequel. But the 90s wasn’t a reboot-happy era of cinema since it was unheard of unless films with same lead characters but new universes were at least a decade apart in releases like Batman Begins and Batman Forever. It’s like playing in someone’s home court with the hometown fans cheering on the original, too much advantage of being first for Keaton

Honestly i've always thought that BATMAN wouldn't really ever put his children into his war! He would do anything to try and stop them from seeking revenge or from ending up like hime. Thats why he turns them into ROBINS so that way they wouldn't Give into their darkness's.

Years ago i was listening to U2 with my mom and ''Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me'' started playing. I was like ''wait, i remember this being from a movie'', and she said ''Yeah it's from that Val Kilmer Batman''. Then i got curious about it since i only watched it as a kid and i remember loving it, watched it again and it's no The Dark Knight or The Batman, the tone of humor/seriousness is all over the place but it's a really fun movie. Compared to Batman & Robin it's a goddamn masterpiece.

So because it did what they wanted it to, it's good? Serious, dark toned movies are always gonna better stand the test of time than campy jokey stuff like the Schumacher films.

After the flash i watched all batman films again just for nostalgia. The most unexpected thing happened

Before flash ben affleck was my favourite batman because he looked like batman after the flash from all the batman films i watched stg felt special about batman forever. I watched that one twice. Val kilmer who i hated as batman is now my favourite batman. Maybe when i was a kid i hated the movie for wrong reasons. Hes not as good as acting like batman unlike the others but unlike them he was kinda being himself which was great. He looked like a guy who could be batman and something about it makes me like him as batman. Now i have a feelimg that when Eisemberg said Zack telling him to be himself for lex got inspired by a previous dc movie. He meant val as batman sadly it did not workout for Jesse

To me, batmans allways been more grounded than the insanity of his villians, its how he copes, batman iscolder than even mr freeze to survive the depths of his enemies insanity.

I loved Batman forever.

I was 25 years old when this came out. I loved it then and I love it now. I enjoy all four Batman films for various different reasons, but honestly Batman Forever is my favorite of the four. Even though I feel that the 1989 film is overall the best entry, my personal favorite that I return to most is Batman Forever.

am i the only one who loved batman returns the best as a kid? LMAO. i didn’t even care for forever as much as the first two but that’s just me. personally, i definitely think this movie is very overhated. it has a rlly good batman arc and it kinda does feel like the end of a trilogy. tbe trilogy being batman 89, returns, and then forever. forever is drastically different from burtons batman films but forever still feels somewhat connected. bruce has to basically stop robin from going down the same path he did when he killed the joker in batman 89. it always goes right back to batman 89. forever is camp, but it’s not just that, there’s still a decent batman underneath all that camp.

when I was a kid I would watch this movie 3 times in one day. with my batman micheal keaton batman toy. I was 8.

This video was a Masterpiece! Thank you so much for making this.

Okay, I don't love Schumacher's Batman but for what I know Schumacher was a really good dude and a director with a vision, I respect him for this things...

I think people understood what the goal was, they just wanted something different. People wanted something with artistic integrity but got corporate greed shoved down their throats

Thank you for making this. I just watched this movie for the first time last night and I had thoughts and feelings and almost all of them are in this video so thank you for that.

An action movie had violence?😱

i love joels movies because he was the only director who embraced the fact that batman is a comic book hero, noland and synder never showed it, eben burtons movie didnt fully show it

The biggest issues with nolans batman and snyders movies, is they totally erased that baman is a comic book hero, while joels movies on the other hand embraced the fact. speaking of Joe the studios ddint fully allow him to see his vision

Aside from how improveable the film itself is, Val Kilmer's is the very best live Batman as yet; Handsome, misterious, aloof but empathetic, acrobátic though It was Thanks to the stunt double (It was the fuck about time) and as for the Batsuit, slight, flexible, sensual, the best one as well.
I LOVE this live Batman, It is the closest one to the Neal Adams' in a live action adaptation.

I love it

I must say that when I first saw the Batmobile in this reiteration, I was blown away.

I like how Tim was just laughing

I would have liked to see how val killmers batman evolved

Omfg, I just realized that Elon Musk is the Riddler. He wants to be Batman or Iron Man, but instead he’s a fucking insecure buffoon.

Anyway, I love Batman Forever and I love this channel. I’ve watched this so many times. Great work.

Definitely better than Batman and Robin

Call me crazy but I don’t think this movie is that bad. Sure it has horrible moments but the good moments are genuinely amazing.

People forget the Schumacher films werent meant to be anything but summer movie toy sellers, almost a return to the 60s campy comedy show. The problem was people want Batman to be dark and brooding and depressing and not a guy who dresses like a bat fighting dudes who tell riddles and rob jewelry stores for quick cash in thematic execution.

This movie is pure garbage in every level

I loved Batman Val.

Wow. What a story what an edit. The ending. Incredible stuff

Awesome video & deep dive into this utterly overlooked master piece of a film…is it perfect? Definitely not but it’s a different vibe & flavor of a Batman 🤙 Absolutely love this film & Joel should get more praise for the 2 films he did 💯😎

This just reaffirms my theory that val kilmer would have crushed it in a darker batman film like Nolans trilogy or matt reeves the batman.

Teenage me back then after watching this in the cinema it was the best Batman film and one of my favourite films top 5 isn't now I'm older. It's top 5 Batman films

RIP Joel. Talented filmmaker

I think you make a lot of really good points about the film, especially about Jim Carrey and the struggles that Schumacher had to deal with. But the cynical part of me laughs at the fact that nearly half of the quotes and clips you used has Joel say something along he lines of "Eh fuck it. Nobody will take it seriously- it's comic book movie!" At least that's how it can be taken.

My favorite batman will always be 89. But I agree that Burton took his "emo" flavor too far in "Returns". And that's what led to his exodus in the batman universe.