Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Fridge / BatmanForever

Go To

1Fridge moments in ''Film/BatmanForever''.
2----
3!!FridgeBrilliance
4* The title doesn't make a lot of sense until you realize that the Riddler's question mark is a major icon of the movie. Bruce addresses that if he finds happiness with someone he may be willing to give up being Batman, so the title of the movie could more accurately be "Batman, Forever?" An interesting case of the absolute ''lack'' of a TitleDrop.
5** The title drop happens in a deleted scene where Bruce finds his father's journal, discovers that it wasn't his fault his parents were murdered (they were going to the theater anyway) and him finding peace and going on with his mission, declaring to Alfred "I'm Batman... forever."
6** There is a scene in the finished movie where Bruce relates to Chase how he fell into the Batcave as a small boy after running away from home on a dark and stormy night clutching his dead fathers journal (which admittedly loses relevance without the above scene) and remarks "I fell...forever". That is as close to a TitleDrop as the movie gets, and basically what it means is Bruce thinks he is ''doomed'' to be Batman and is still falling through the metaphorical darkness. The central theme of the movie reflects this as Bruce is wondering if he can retire as Batman.
7** While unrelated, the word "forever" was also used in another dialogue. When Two-Face thought he killed Batman, he says "Farewell, forever, to that pointed-eared night rat!"
8* Dick Grayson (as Robin) announces that he is going to help Batman rescue Chase and says: "I can't promise you I won't kill Harvey." Up to this point, Dick had been referring to Harvey Dent exclusively as "Two-Face"... so the fact that he is willing to think of his would-be victim as a human being rather than a villainous monster indicates that he probably ''won't'' kill him after all.
9* Two-Face reflipping his coin in that fight scene. He's not reflipping it to get a different result. He's reflipping it everytime Bruce comes within range.
10** That scene can also be seen as him flipping the coin for each person he sees in the house at that moment, Alfred, Chase and Bruce.
11* As mentioned above on this page, ''Forever'' makes Batman's killing-of-mooks in the Burton films, despite going against Batman lore, intentional actions of canonicity, so that when he gives Dick Grayson words on why murdering Two-Face will do more harm to him than good, he isn't just preaching, he's relating from his own experience.
12* There's an infamous sequence in which Two-Face tricks Batman into a car chase. Batman gets away from him (using, yes, the ability to drive up walls), and nothing in particular seems to happen. However, Two-Face's first appearance in this scene is disguised as a woman pushing a cart in front of the Batmobile. This seems trivial, but notice the parallelism between this sudden stop and the one in ''Batman Returns'', this time for an actual old woman, in the midst of Batman being framed as a mad criminal. This echoing of that incident by Two-Face indicates that he was more than aware of it prior to being scarred. And, his whole character becomes much deeper. He's now out to rectify his mistake by letting a madman lose on Gotham, but once he gets scarred as result of Batman's failure, he can no longer be objective ("Emotion is always the enemy of true justice.") and must rely on the coin flip. In one, fell swoop, a subplot from one movie becomes more significant, an action scene from another actually has a point, and a character becomes more than a one-note joke. That's some intense fridge brilliance.
13* As [[VideoGame/LegoAdaptationGame a certain videogame]] would point out years later, the Riddler/Two-Face partnership is full of this: Riddler's endless questions and Two-Face's coin to answer them. They are each other's perfect {{Foil}}.
14* So it's been pointed out that, when we see Two-Face in his lair, eagle-eyed viewers can spot the Riddler in the background, waiting for his cue to enter the scene. Not only that, but people ask how come his Boxes were already in the lair when he needed them? A series of mistakes on the film-maker's part? Possibly...or, riddle me this: the Riddler already knew where Two-Face was hiding, so he broke in before Two-Face got there, and had the Boxes with him at the time, also explaining why he stood in the background watching this all play out so he could make his grand entrance (the main problem with this take is the clear absence of the Boxes earlier in the scene, meaning both interpretations leave us with a production error).
15* ''Of course'' Bruce Wayne insisted on Stickley being paid his death benefits, even though Wayne Enterprises officially didn't permit that in cases of suicide. He didn't believe for one second that Stickley killed himself. And figuring out that The Riddler was actually Edward Nygma proved he was right in not denying those benefits.
16-->'''Bruce:''' Stickley's suicide was obviously a computer-generated forgery.
17* The scene with Dick doing his laundry seems to be a goofy way to establish his martial arts skill, as he's using a clothesline with a drier ''right behind him''. However, he's still a kid from a traveling circus, and is probably more used to doing his laundry by hand because of not always having machines available.
18* Edward's more manic personality under his Riddler persona, which involves him often slipping into ridiculous voices and cartoonish body gestures, is likely simply because Jim Carrey was almost undoubtedly simply given free reign to let loose with what he does best. However, in character, one could definitely see how the guy who invented and tested on himself a device that literally beams television directly into the brain might have a tendency to adopt the personalities of different characters from the shows he watches. This isn't dissimilar the TV-warped psyche of Carrey's later role, [[Film/TheCableGuy Chip Douglas.]]
19* The Riddler claims he found Two-Face's lair with his Box, presumably by scanning for Dent's brain waves. If Nygma could find Two-Face this way, why couldn't he use this same method to find Batman and uncover his secret identity much earlier in the film? Because it would only work with Two-Face, due to him being the only person in town with ''dual brain patterns''!
20* When Two-Face is left at Robin's mercy, he exclaims, "Finally, justice is served! Let us die!" Is this Two-Face accepting defeat, or is it ''Harvey'' begging Robin to kill his second personality, and put him out of his misery?

Top