So, since we've got the first two movies in the bag, let's keep this rolling into the Schumacher era. Batman Returns turned out to be so dark that the toy deal they had with McDonalds was cancelled and taken out of Happy Meals. Apparently a grim penguin man biting someone's nose into drawing blood and planning to kill children didn't go over well with parents. Tim Burton was immediately off the next movie and the studio decided that Joel Schumacher was a much safer bet. He set out to create a new Batman with the essence of Adam West in mind. Gotham was now colorful, brightly lit and more like a city of neon and jazz.
Right from the start, we get a bank heist with Tommy Lee Jones acting as Two Face like he's both the Joker and a Dick Tracy villain. The dialogue took a massive hit. The civilians in this movie act so over the top and the action is so sporadically huge. Everything that was subtle and dark in the first movie are now brightly lit and Val Kilmer puts on a much more light-hearted Batman. Given better circumstances, Kilmer could have been a great lead. He even did well as Bruce Wayne. The problem was the script. He has an overly provocative therapist horning after him like she thought she was hired for an adult film and, at the same time, has two variations of the Joker as villains.
Jim Carrey was a homerun when it came to casting. He took The Riddler to heart and he went big with it. The riddles are still lame, though, and everything doesn't seem to want to make sense throughout the runtime. Half of the stuff that happens, like how he edited a video to make it look like his boss committed suicide, or how there was already a Riddler type character with a game machine and a bobblehead, none of it made any sense. Logic went very much more aligned with the Silver Age of comic books.
There came another addition to the cast that actually made it to the fourth film, and that is Robin. Chris O'Donnell's induction into the film was a bit sketchy. He was supposed to be Dick Grayson, who was far younger when he became Batman's sidekick. It is understandable that he would want to go after Two Face for killing his family, but the way he just shoved himself into the lore was jarring. Stealing the Batmobile, saving Batman from dying while wearing his acrobat outfit, and then the full suit he was given seemingly out of nowhere, Robin just didn't feel like a natural part of the story for several reasons, and it really doesn't get any better in the next movie.
One great thing that followed the films in all four of them was Pat Hingle and Michael Gogh and they were an anchor when we needed them. Commissioner Gordan and Alfred Pennyworth are two characters that they took by storm and God rest them both. Even when things got nonsensical, these two stayed themselves and rocked their roles like they always did. Beyond these two characters, the movie series is literally unrecognizable from this point on.
How they gave Two Face two of so many things was meant to be comical. It makes no sense for real life, but sure, go ahead and have Drew Barrymore as one of two of his wives and make everything dual colors. The Riddler's lair is not any better as the question marks are everywhere to an impractical degree. The movie is entertaining in its strange decore, and it could have been good as a stand-alone universe movie, but it branded itself as the third entry in a series that it bears no resemblance to.
When you turn your brain off and activate your Batman fandom, you can enjoy this film as a silly Batman flick. Schumacher took what all of them said to heart and made it as safe and marketable as they possibly could. It worked. The toy sales were through the roof, the ticket sales were nice and plentiful, but the problem was that they changed everything. Parents came with the children they were with and they asked, along with the critics, what happened? This would be a massive precursor for what would come next, though. Schumacher seemingly won this round, but that inevitably led to him getting another film where he was given the keys to the kingdom. He took that control to the next level and I suppose that's the inescapable next review. I would like to escape, though. Robin, get the bat grapple!
