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Unlike Burton, Schumacher doesn't let his stylistic and thematic fascinations run away with him; he keeps one hand on the wheel at all times. The result isn't as emotionally daring and visually outrageous as Burton at his best, but it's better paced and more consistently entertaining from one sequence to the next.
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75Schumacher's method is to use a lighter touch, to stay closer to the cartoon that Bob Kane created for DC Comics in 1939 and to temper Burton's nightmare world with an accessible, brightly colored TV palette.
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75It's an art-direction, Dolby-sound, special-effects extravaganza, a grand-scale effort that's more awe-inspiring than completely successful as entertainment.
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75It's lighter, brighter, funnier, faster-paced, and a whole lot more colorful than before.
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75Although the film's frenetic rhythm is reminiscent of an "Indiana Jones" picture, visually Schumacher directs it like a musical, turning each image into eye candy, weaving one lush set piece into the next, as if he were the Vincente Minnelli of blockbusters.
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70If the first two "Batman" movies (1989/1992) were the storm, then Batman Forever (1995) is the rainbow at the end of it. After seeing so much dark and doom, it's also refreshing to see some beaming color.
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70Working as much like a circus ringmaster as a director, Joel Schumacher has brought several critical qualities to the mix, starting with much more of a pop culture sensibility and a sense of fun than Tim Burton, who directed the first two pictures, and he has a stylish visual sensibility as well.
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63There is no rhythm to the movie, no ebb and flow; it's all flat-out spectacle.
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63At best, Batman Forever is mildly diverting, brainless fun that feels like a long trailer for a better film.
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63With an ace pop mechanic like Joel Schumacher now in charge of our hero's bruised psyche, the patient not only survives but thrives in the garishly garnished but never groaningly gruesome Batman Forever. [16 Jun 1995, Pg.01.D]
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60Yet while Schumacher has largely accomplished the goal of delivering a cinematic comic book, he's also left the movie hollow at its core -- a distinction that may not trouble Saturday-night audiences but that nonetheless dulls the film's impact beyond its sheer and unrelenting visual grandeur.
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60Carrey lights up an otherwise over-scripted, over-frenetic potboiler.
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60Sometimes thrilling, but rarely inspired, it is thoroughly-almost perfectly-adequate.
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50Except for the casting, it would be difficult to find any substantial difference between this movie and the previous ones, or this movie and any number of high-tech adventure movies of the last decade.
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50Alas, Schumacher doesn't ride on the momentum; worse, he's not an action director, and the film grinds to a dead stop every time it tries to speed up.
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50Directed by Joel Schumacher with occasional gestures toward social commentary, and enough spectacle to mask the movie's deep down emptiness.
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50As for the actual movie, it's the empty-calorie equivalent of a Happy Meal (another Batman tie-in), so clearly a product that the question of its cinematic merit is strictly an afterthought.
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50The movie does have somewhat more lilt and levity, much of it due to Jim Carrey as the Riddler. But there's still plenty of murk, physical and metaphysical, and more psychobabble about Bruce Wayne's obsessions and repressions.
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40If you can see beyond the eye-scorching neon and don't mind the desecration of a superhero icon, there's a few crumbs of enjoyment to be had.
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40There's so much and so little going on here simultaneously that you're not sure whether to squirm or doze.
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40Director Joel Schumacher submits to the Wagnerian bombast with an overly busy surface, and the script by Lee and Janet Scott Batchler and Akiva Goldsman basically runs through the formula as if it's a checklist.
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20The only thing Schumacher and his scrupulous craftsfolk forgot to give the movie was life -- the energizing spirit of wit and passion that makes scenes work and characters breathe.
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Schumacher's direction is coarse and slovenly: the picture has the self-conscious jokiness of the "Batman" TV series and the smudged, runny imagery of a cheaply printed comic book.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 12 out of 24
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Mixed: 6 out of 24
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Negative: 6 out of 24
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JamesT.10The best of all five batmans jim carrey rules.