Batman Forever

Dallas Observer Matt Zoller Seitz

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.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Although 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.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It's lighter, brighter, funnier, faster-paced, and a whole lot more colorful than before.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Schumacher'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.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

It's an art-direction, Dolby-sound, special-effects extravaganza, a grand-scale effort that's more awe-inspiring than completely successful as entertainment.

Film Threat Clint Morris

If 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.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Working 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.

TV Guide Staff(not credited)

At best, Batman Forever is mildly diverting, brainless fun that feels like a long trailer for a better film.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

With 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]

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

There is no rhythm to the movie, no ebb and flow; it's all flat-out spectacle.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Carrey lights up an otherwise over-scripted, over-frenetic potboiler.

Washington Post Hal Hinson

Sometimes thrilling, but rarely inspired, it is thoroughly-almost perfectly-adequate.

Variety Brian Lowry

Yet 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.

Newsweek Jack Kroll

The 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.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Alas, 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.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

As 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.

San Francisco Examiner Barbara Shulgasser

Except 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.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Directed by Joel Schumacher with occasional gestures toward social commentary, and enough spectacle to mask the movie's deep down emptiness.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Director 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.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

There's so much and so little going on here simultaneously that you're not sure whether to squirm or doze.

Empire Adam Smith

If 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.

The New Yorker Terrence Rafferty

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.

Time Richard Corliss

The 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.