Director Joel Schumacher ("St. Elmo's Fire", "The Lost Boys", "A Time To Kill") takes over the reigns of the live-action "Batman" movies from Tim Burton, who stays involved behind the scenes as producer of 1995's "Batman Forever". The movie doesn't waste any time introducing Batman, AKA Bruce Wayne (Val Kilmer, taking over the role previously occupied by Michael Keaton). to Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman). She's a new psychoanalyst hired by Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle) to provide clues into the behavior of Harvey Two-Face, AKA Harvey Dent (Tommy Lee Jones), who has taken hostages he's threatening to kill inside a vault atop a Gotham City skyscraper. Two-Face eventually tricks Batman into a trap that nearly kills them and a hostage during a helicopter escape, but they all survive. Meanwhile, in one of Wayne Enterprises laboratories, a demented inventor called Edward Nygma (Jim Carrey) perfects a gizmo that will allow him to access the minds and most inner thoughts of those people on which it sets the glow of its powerful green beams of light. When his invention gets rejected by Bruce Wayne himself Nygma goes nuts, kills one of Wayne's assistants (after torturing him) and begins plotting how to take over Gotham's population with his prototype 3D Box.

Meanwhile Bruce Wayne, unaware of Nygma's growing threat, goes to visit Dr. Meridian to get her expert opinion (yeah right!) about a recurring series of visions he's been having about himself as a young man around the time his parents were murdered (the traumatic event that made him want to become a crime fighter). This visit shows Wayne that Dr. Meridian has more than just a passing interest in Batman (she seems to be obsessed with him), but the two hit it off well-enough for them to go to a circus performance being aired on local TV ('GNN Live'). But Harvey Two-Face and his men interrupt the performance, threaten to blow-up the tent with a giant bomb and steal valuables from those in attendance. The valiant efforts of a family of trapeze artists, The Flying Robyns, prevents Two-Face from getting away with his plans. Their temerity costs these trapeze artists their lives though, since they fall to the ground after the scaffolding that was holding them is machine-gunned by Two-Face. Only Dick Grayoon (Chris O'Donnell) survives the massacre, and Bruce takes pity on the young man's misfortune. He allows Dick to stay with him and his trusted butler Alfred (Michael Gough) at Wayne Manor until he gets his head together and stops thinking about tracking down Two-Face to avenge the deaths of his family.

But Dick is a very resourceful young man. He manages to avoid Alfred's vigilant eyes and tricks his way into the secret cave below Wayne Manor to discover, that besides dozens of vintage cars and motorcycles, Bruce Wayne also has... another car (wink, wink). In the meantime, after another attempt to kill Batman with an ambush in the streets of Gotham fails, Two-Face retreats to his hideout to let off steam with his assistants Sugar & Spice (Drew Barrymore and Debi Mazar). Then out of nowhere Edward Nygma, dressed in a green outfit and calling himself The Riddler, walks into Dent's hideout and proposes a deal. If Two-Face helps Nygma finance the launch of his 3D Box, he will help the overanxious Harvey Dent kill Batman once and for all. The plan takes shape, and soon the memories and inner thoughts of every citizen in Gotham are pillaged by The Riddler's gizmo for his own personal use. During a party to celebrate the success of the 3D Box's success Bruce Wayne (whose relationship with Dr. Meridian has deepened beyond a mere friendship) accidentally lets his thoughts be recorded by Nygma's machine, but not before another terror attack by Two-Face nearly kills Batman in a one-on-one showdown that could have been fatal for the Dark Knight if not for the timely assistance of... Dick Grayoon?!?! Will the newly-formed dynamic duo save Gotham City's stolen thoughts from the psychotic hands of Two-Face and The Riddler? Will Dr. Meridian appreciate the love of Bruce Wayne over the more exciting but cold persona of the Caped Crusader? Can Wayne stop Edward Nygma before he reveals to the world his true identity? Will young Dick Grayoon lose his humanity in his pursuit of revenge over what Two-Face did to his family? And while we're spewing rhetorical questions without providing meaningful answers, did Tim Burton actually approve of the way "Batman Forever" systematically stripped the franchise he helped create of any semblance of dignity and character development? Looking and sounding more ridiculous than even the 1960's Adam West TV series, "Batman Forever" replaces the gothic and purposefully-dark motifs of Burton's earlier films and Bob Kane's comic book with colorful slapstick. Stupid, moronic, idiotic, retarded and pointless slapstick that drove this viewer mad with anger back in 1995. I'm not a Batman fan in the least (although I dug "Batman Beyond" for the couple of years it was on the air), but to be shoved s*** this rancid down my throat by the same motion picture studio that allowed the "Superman" series to implode is so frustrating.

The acting is uniformly weaker than in previous "Batman" installments, although Jim Carrey is so far into The Riddler's persona when he yells/dances/screams/panzers about that even I was in awe at how much he could lose himself into his characters (regardless of how annoying they are). Tommy Lee Jones's take on Harvey Two-Face, on the other hand, is such a misfire that I have yet to meet anybody that was amused, bewildered, scared or in any way pleased with the man's decision to try to out-Carrey Jim Carrey (whether alone or with The Riddler by his side). Truly, truly awful. Val Kilmer does the best he can with the thankless role of being a straight man to two villains that are given free reign by director Schumacher to be campy. A few of Kilmer's scenes with Nicole Kidman (Ch.26-27) recall Keaton's wrestling-conscience moments with Bassinger and Pfeiffer in the prequels, but Kidman comes across as a sexually-voracious stalker more than anything resembling a therapist or a human being. The overt sexuality that Catwoman and Batman had in "Batman Returns" is sorely absent from the handful of quiet scenes in which Dr. Chase and our hero kiss and make-up (literally).

Chris O'Donnell's Robin, Michael Gough's Alfred and Pat Hingle's Commissioner Gordon are in tune with the excessive comic mischief of the new material, and the actors seem to be having fun with their roles. These three are secondary in both importance and screen time to the villains, the hero and the new look of the films. The special effects are more laden with CG imagery and outrageous stunts than in "Batman" and "Batman Returns", the result of a whole new crew of behind-the-scenes players (make-up wizard Rick Baker, visual effects maestro John Dykstra, production designer Barbara Ling, director of photography Stephen Goldblatt, etc.) at the service of Joel Schumacher's light-hearted and silly vision of what a "Batman" movie should be like. It's a shame that the expensive sets, attractive photography and much-improved special effects of "Batman Forever" come at the expense of having a heart, soul and human element that'd actually make me give a f*** about any of these overdressed losers and the noisy gadgets they keep heaving at each other.

Only one moment in "Batman Forever" stands out as clever-enough to be memorable, and that occurs when Bruce Wayne tells Dick Grayoon that '... the circus (for which Dick used to work) is halfway to Metropolis'. Nice of this DC comic universe to give a plug to the New York City equivalent of the other DC comic universe that Warner Bros. flushed down the toilet in its third movie incarnation. And we still have to talk about "Batman & Robin" tomorrow! L