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Ability to Kick A**
Substantial. Until Christian Bale came along, as unbelievable as this sounds, BatKilmer was probably the only Batman to have bothered lifting a few g*ddamn weights. So he acquits himself well here, punching, kicking, and rope-swinging around about 200 times more a**-kickingly than Adam "Let's Tilt the Camera on Its Side So I Can Climb Up Buildings" West and Michael "I Can't Really Move in This Thing, So I'll Just Stand Here and Glower with a Poopy-Face" Keaton.
So it's unfortunate, but not really his fault, that the film elects to pit him against 120-pound man-child Jim Carrey and senior citizen Tommy Lee Jones, either of whom anyone in the audience for Batman Forever could probably take in a fight.
Coolness of Costume
BatKilmer starts Forever sporting probably the best of the Batsuits from the original movie franchise, keeping the black tones and yellow bat symbol of the Keaton era, yet improving upon them through the new outfit's improved mobility (Batman can actually kick things now without falling over) and the new actor's actual muscles (Val works out).
Towards the end of the movie, though, as if sensing the audience's growing boredom, BatKilmer shows up inexplicably in the Clooney model, all silver-colored and ridiculous, as if to say, "Hey, check it out! Now you can buy two toys!"
Rogues Gallery
Batman Forever officially marks the point where Batman's villains were deemed more interesting than Batman himself. They consequently stop making any kind of sense, existing only as a rickety vehicle for ham-fisted acting on the part of whichever name-brand celebrity they'd managed to land for the moviein this case, Carrey and Jones, who swallow unspeakably vast amounts of scenery without bothering to chew.
When you're able to compare Forever to its previous installment, Batman Returnsa film where Danny Devito crams handfuls of raw fish into his mouth while sitting among penguins with missiles strapped to their backs in a sewerand think, "You know, Forever is really where the villains became too campy," that's saying something.
Smoothness with the Ladies
BatKilmer takes a few spoonfuls of pants-sugar from Nicole Kidman in Forever, who plays Dr. Chase Meridian, a smoking-hot Gotham City psychiatrist who harbors an unhealthy sexual obsession with the Dark Knight. Perhaps due to the logistical problems of Val tapping the good doctor while in costume, Dr. Chase becomes one in a seemingly endless series of love interests from the original franchise to whom Batman gleefully reveals his secret identity for a booty call.
This prompts the question of why, if Batman's willing to take off his mask for any girl who wants to hit a mattress, he even bothers to wear a costume at all. If that's his priority here, surely "crime-fighting billionaire detective" is gonna rack a brother up more tail than "crazy dude in a flying rat outfit," right?
Posse
Alicia Silverstone's yet to be invited to the Batparty (see #4. George Clooney), but Forever sadly marks the introduction of The Great Unpleasantness: Chris O'Donnell, a veritable black hole of charisma who somehow convinced America he should be starring in films alongside Al Pacino and Gene Hackmanthis despite a complete inability to speak dialogue without sounding like he'd just been hit in the skull with a plank of wood. O'Donnell's an actor, in short, who makes one long for the playful, layered nuance of a Keanu Reeves performance.
BatKilmer stumbles on Unpleasantness at the Gotham Circus while trying to put the moves on Dr. Chase by asking her out "rock-climbing"because when you're a crime-fighting billionaire, dinner and a movie's out of the question, evidently. Two-Face (Jones) interrupts BatKilmer's mountain-scaling ("And then back to my place?") overture by holding the circus hostage for a reason that's probably stupid. O'Donnell's trapeze-tumbling parents help out by plummeting embarrassingly to their deaths:
In BatKilmer's mind, anybody who loses their parents must necessarily want to take up a life of dressing ridiculously and administering vigilante justice, and so offers Unpleasantness a job as Robin, his boy sidekick. To the audible groans of everyone who's just endured five minutes of O'Donnell's acting and now realizes they're about to be forced through another hour's worth, Unpleasantness accepts.
Homoerotic Subtext?
The post-Adam West, rebooted Batman franchise had so far wisely avoided homoeroticism simply by not including Robin in any of the movies. Batman Forever breaks from this reasonable choice, and so we get many scenes with Kilmer and O'Donnell casting smoldering looks at each other, presumably because they're furious, but possibly because, "damn it, when is that troublesome man gonna kiss me?"
