Don't get me wrong, this movie sucked, but Val played a suave Bruce and was a mysterious Batman. I liked him in it and felt like he was trying to act different than everyone else in the film.
shareWhy does everybody say this movie sucked? I haven't seen it since 1996...I remember liking it...I owned it on vhs. Does it just not hold up in general? Very dated, etc?
shareI sort of think of it as mediocre, and largely because it splits its focus. It's got too many goofy one-liners, Two-Face has as much wackiness as the Riddler, and even Batman is quipping with stuff like, "I'll get drive-thru." It's got that silliness in there, but it's also got acid traps, retains a lot of dark shadows, the murder of the Graysons, and so forth. So it kinda lives in two worlds and never makes enough of a commitment to either to really work. I also feel like Jim Carrey's Riddle is, like most films starring that fellow in the '90s, mostly a role for Jim Carrey to do his schtick. Carrey was ridiculously popular at the time, so they gave him a long leash. Kinda like how Robin Williams often received moments in his movies to "riff".
shareI think it's because it's a completely different tone to the first two films, but in a bad way. I feel like it's almost mocking Batman. There's quite a few unintentional laugh out loud moments.
shareYeah, I thought he was good at it, too.
I read somewhere that he was Bob Kane's favourite performance of the character, but I can't remember where I read it (and I don't know whether or not he just said that for publicity).
There's so much bad dialogue in this, but he manages to make them sound not so ridiculous.
shareYeah, I have to applaud his delivery on, "It's the car, right? Chicks dig the car?" because he manages to get it into deadpan-sarcastic territory where the line does kinda work. It's too bad he didn't get to work with a better script and a director who was sticking more with Burton's vision.
shareI think he would have done well if Tim Burton directed it.
shareThat's where I think Kilmer thrived in the role when compared to George Clooney. Val Kilmer unlike Clooney had the ability to make cheeseball lines like that work. Clooney I think, would've clearly sounded embarrassed, visibly irritated, and detached had he said "It's the car, right? Chicks dig the car?" I think that wrote that Kilmer brought a suaveness and a genuine feeling that he was the "smartest person in the room" when compared to say, Michael Keaton's interpretation or George Clooney's Bruce Wayne.
shareClooney's deadpan works with brilliant lines. From Dusk Till Dawn has him spitfiring so many brilliant lines, often with that wry detachment that really works, or a lot of the Coen Brothers' stuff he does. But stick him with a terrible script like Batman and Robin and he just sounds bored and aloof.
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