Batman Forever (1995)

Rating: B-

Dir: Joel Schumacher
Star: Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Nicole Kidman

Exchange your brain at the door for a bucket of popcorn, and you’ll enjoy this far more. It’s fast, vacuous stuff, with our mostly concealed hero treading a dodgy line between law-man and vigilante, in a dark and highly Blade Runner-esque future. Feel free to ignore the amusing but pointless henchman, and the nicely decorative female, seemingly there just to prove the hero is no sword-swallower. On the other hand, the villains are far more colourful, sharp, and get to blow things up for no readily apparent reason. Beneath the sweeping orchestral score (naturally shoe-horning in a few rock toons, for the obligatory soundtrack LP), the real star is the set. Must be embarrassing to be out-acted by buildings… Cinema as spectacle, this is an empty barrel making a hell of a lot of noise.