Trailer Park: Batman Forever
Movie
Batman Forever, released June 16 1995
Trailer Synopsis
The Caped Crusader is back, and this time he has traded in Michael Keaton’s face for Val Kilmer’s. This version of Batman has to fight off Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) and the Riddler (Jim Carrey), who have teamed up to exploit some sort of mind control device that will wreak havoc in Gotham City. Both Bruce Wayne and Bats woo Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman) and have to deal with wannabe sidekick Robin (Chris O’Donnell). Along the way, glass will be broken, helicopters will be blown up, and everybody will use their performances to vacuum up massive swaths of director Joel Schumacher’s over-the-top scenery.
Does It Honestly Represents the Movie?
Does it ever! After the era-defining success of 1989’s Batman, Warner Bros. gave Tim Burton the green light for a sequel that resulted in the infinitely dark and abrasive Batman Returns in 1992. The second film was not nearly as successful culturally nor economically as its predecessor, but Warner Bros. liked cashing Batman checks enough to keep the gravy train going. So they re-jiggered the whole affair in an attempt to make the films more broadly palatable. They brought in Schumacher, who despite having authored some bombs was coming off a huge mainstream success in The Client, and replaced the exiting Keaton (who turned down $15 million because he did not like the script) with Kilmer, who was also on a bit of a cultural hot streak with his turn as Doc Holliday in Tombstone. For the villains, they brought in Jones (fresh from his career-defining performance in The Fugitive) and Carrey, who was commanding huge bank thanks to his 1994 triptych of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask and Dumb & Dumber. With Schumacher at the helm and all those big personalities on set, the subtle intricacies and character moments of the two Burton movies were out the window in favor of a more wiz-bang blockbuster aesthetic that favored splashy action set pieces, wild costuming, theatrical performances and one-liners about getting drive thru in the Batmobile. The trailer makes Batman Forever look campy and hyperactive, which is exactly what that movie is.
Does It Make You Want to See the Movie?
Definitely, though the trailer isn’t nearly as tight as it probably should be. There’s a bit if meandering in the beginning before we get to the character title cards, and they suggest a little bit of plot involving the Riddler before abandoning narrative in favor of explosions. But the thing that really sells me on this trailer now (and that sold me back in ‘95) is the narration, which is as delightfully over-the-top as the film itself. The whole “Love…is a game” and “Power…is a machine” stuff makes very little sense but adds just the right amount of pretense to make the proceedings feel more vital than they actually are. And it’s all a set-up to the hair-raising closing moment when the score swells and we get “Courage now; truth always; Batman Forever.” It’s so delightfully meaningless but I can’t not have a visceral reaction to it (and the backlit Batman logo doesn’t hurt either).
What’s Weird About It?
This is a largely conventional summer tentpole trailer, so it’s mostly about setting the table for the stars and giving away a handful of popcorn moments. For all its earned heavy-handedness, there’s a strange amount of focus on the “comedy” of Batman Forever. In the comics Bats tends to play it pretty cool and low-key, leaving the quips to somebody like Spider-Man. But Batman cranks out a bunch of brutal one-liners in the trailer (I particularly loathe the post-elevator attack “Going down?”). Did Warners have research that suggested audiences would be more into the character if he was a little more like John McClane? Or was it just accepted that all big-time action heroes had to behave like Arnold in Terminator 2? Either way, it’s jarring to hear Kilmer’s Batman reduced to a pun machine, and it’s especially strange in 2021 considering how much less fun that character got in subsequent film series. Can you imagine Christian Bale cracking wise while wearing the cowl? It wouldn’t make any sense (though admittedly Batman Forever is a VERY different type of movie than The Dark Knight).
It’s also not really weird considering how much they invested in him, but there is a lot of Carrey in this trailer. His version of the Riddler is as unhinged as any character he’s ever played, and the clips of him are all to show off that this is going to be a proper rubber-faced Carrey performance. It goes hard convincing Carrey fans who loved Dumb & Dumber but might have skipped Batman Returns that this was going to be another classic bit of physical comedy from their newly crowned clown prince.
Though Eliot Goldenthal scored that movie, that’s Danny Elfman’s iconic Batman theme underpinning all the action.
Speaking of music: The soundtrack, which went as high as number five on the Billboard 200, gets a title card at the end of the trailer that touts new tunes from U2, the Offspring, Seal, PJ Harvey, Mazzy Star and Brandy. The Seal contribution “Kiss From a Rose” was a number one hit and won a bunch of Grammys, and the U2 tune “Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me” is a top-shelf Zooropa-era b-side, but I’m fascinated by the fact that the Offspring are listed second (just after U2, who had the album’s lead single). It’s wild to think about, but they were one of the biggest bands in the country when Batman Forever hit theaters, riding high on the crossover success of their third album Smash. For MTV viewers, the Offspring might have been the most recognizable name on the whole album (at the time, U2 were entering into a post-Achtung fallow period, at least commercially). Their contribution, a cover of the Damned’s “Smash It Up,” is a decent little piece of punk rock genuflection.
Does It Spoil the Movie?
The trailer jumps right to the introduction of Robin, but Dick Grayson’s journey from acrobat to sidekick takes up most of the movie. I can’t imagine anybody would be doubtful that Bruce Wayne would eventually relent and let Grayson join him, but the trailer does give that away. Otherwise it’s pretty clean about plot and more focused on introducing its stars.
Final Analysis
I’ve seen a lot of people rank this as their least-favorite of any Batman movie, and those people are wrong. It’s a weird bridge movie between the baroque darkness of the Burton movies and the candy-coated mayhem of Schumacher’s Batman & Robin, but I love the go-for-broke performances from the villains so much. Everybody remembers Carry’s performance as the Riddler, but Jones’ psychotic take on Two-Face is just as lively and physical and unhinged. Though I’m sure he hated the experience, it appears to be the most fun Jones ever had on screen. Meanwhile, the trailer attempts to woo the people who liked the Burton movies and also the people who didn’t like the Burton movies (particularly Returns), and it struggles to settle on a tone (though admittedly so does the movie). It was effective: Batman Forever set a new record for biggest opening weekend of all time with $52.8 million in its first three days, topping the Jurassic Park record from two years prior. It made $336 million worldwide and was the highest-grossing film in the U.S. in 1995 (coming in ahead of Apollo 13 and the first Toy Story). I still don’t know how “courage now, truth always” applies to Batman Forever, but on the other hand that one Sunny Day Real Estate song really rips. 8/10