Posted By Dan Greenfield on Apr 2, 2025 | 8 comments

An uneven flick with some legit highs — particularly VAL KILMER, who has died at 65…

Val Kilmer has died at the age of 65 and while he was solid in any role he was in — he was a great Jim Morrison — at 13th Dimension we have to focus on his brief time as the Masked Manhunter in 1995’s Batman Forever.

Batman Forever has sort of unique spot in Batmovie lore: It was the uneven bridge between the Burton/Keaton years and the outlandish, grossly self-indulgent Batman & Robin.

And while few would put the movie at the top of their Batlist, there’s a lot to recommend it, so in honor of Kilmer, here are 13 REASONS TO LOVE BATMAN FOREVER.

(Tip of the cowl to my son Sam, who suggested the idea.)

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1. Val Kilmer. This isn’t a ranking but far and away the strongest part of the movie is Kilmer himself. I’ve long felt what Franco wrote in his appreciation — that Kilmer was probably the best mix of Batman and Bruce Wayne, compared to his colleagues in the Modern Age. His Batman wasn’t as intense as, say Bale or Pattinson’s, but it was solid — and his Bruce Wayne was the best outside of Adam West (who embodied the Caped Crusader’s suave alter ego, camp or no).

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2. The Opening Titles.

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3. Gotham City. Tim Burton and Anton Furst’s 1989 vision of Gotham was so influential that major aspects of its aesthetic endure to this day. But Joel Schumacher added a whole new element, with even more bananas statuary and a metropolis bathed in neon. It’s not grim and gritty but it most definitely fits the oeuvre.

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4. Dick Grayson’s Circus Duds. The Flying Graysons made their live-action screen debut, wearing outfits that closely mimicked Neal Adams’ Tim Drake Robin design. The circus suit is actually better than the too-dark armor that the Teen Wonder wears later in the movie.

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5. The Opening Sequence. Batman opened with the Dark Knight beating on a couple of thugs on a dreary rooftop. Batman Returns starts with Oswald Cobblepot’s parents abandoning him as a newborn. Each perfectly set the tone for what was to come. In Batman Forever, we start off with a bombastic, action-packed set piece, reminding us of the Masked Manhunter’s larger-than-life persona. All are different and all work really well.

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6. The Flaming Lips. The band’s discordant Bad Days is the perfect complement to Edward Nygma’s unraveling mind.

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7. Debi Mazar. Everything’s better with Debi Mazar in it.

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8. The Riddler’s Last Hurrah. By the late ’90s, DC didn’t really know what to do with the Riddler. Self-serious fans considered him a Joker knockoff and emblematic of the ’60s camp era, even though Frank Gorshin’s Prince of Puzzlers was the most menacing of Batman’s big-gun bad guys on the Adam West show.

Jim Carrey’s version was a direct riff on Gorshin, amplified by rubbery obnoxiousness. (“Was that over the top? I can never tell,” was the most meta commentary on Carrey’s entire career.) But this was really the last time we got the classic, manic jump-suited Riddler — on screen or on the page. I miss that guy — even if Carrey was too much to take.

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9. #TeamTommyLee. No-BS Tommy Lee Jones couldn’t stand Carrey. From The Hollywood Reporter: “The situation came to a head in the middle of production, before the two had their ‘biggest scene together’ on the Joel Schumacher film, when Carrey randomly popped into the same restaurant that Jones was having dinner…

“’The maitre said, ‘Oh, I hear you’re working with Tommy Lee Jones. He’s over in the corner having dinner.’ I went over and I said, ‘Hey Tommy, how are you doing?’ and the blood just drained from his face,’ Carrey said. ‘And he got up shaking — he must have been in mid-kill me fantasy or something like that. And he went to hug me and he said, ‘I hate you. I really don’t like you.’ And I said, ‘What’s the problem?’ and pulled up a chair, which probably wasn’t smart. And he said, ‘I cannot sanction your buffoonery.’”

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10. Hold Me, Thrill, Kiss Me, Kill Me. Seal is fine and all. And I’ve never been a big U2 fan. But this was pretty rad:

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11. This.

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12. Chase Meridian > Vicki Vale.

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13. These.

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MORE

— VAL KILMER: A Really Good BATMAN — and an Even Better BRUCE WAYNE. Click here.

— 13 QUICK THOUGHTS: In Defense of BATMAN & ROBIN. Click here.