Val Kilmer Expounds On How 'Batman Forever' Went Wrong

At C2E2 last weekend, Val Kilmer participated in a panel where he discussed several of his projects. A full run-down is at Spinoff, but we’re going to focus on just the most important cinematic masterpiece of our time™, which you already know is none other than Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever. Yes, it’s been 17 years since Val Kilmer was lowered into the Batsuit, but any time he talks about being Batman, by God we’re going to cover that.

He talked about falling over constantly in the Batsuit:

“The suit takes an hour to get into, and you can’t do it by yourself, and then you can’t hear because there are really no earholes in it. Also you can’t turn your head and you can’t go to the bathroom by yourself. Plus, you fall over quite easily. It was like wearing a wetsuit that was several times tighter than one anyone else would wear, and then when you add the cape it’s almost psychedelic. Then I realized one day what wearing that suit was like. It was, ‘Oh! This is what being old feels like,’” the actor joked. “No one really listens to you any more. You can’t really talk or hear. You’re always falling over and someone has to help you go to the bathroom and get dressed.”

If old people were anything like Batman their children might call them more often. Just sayin’.

Kilmer also expressed love for Nolan’s Batman films and reminisced about where Batman Forever went wrong:

[On Nolan's films] “They are doing what I hoped we would do, but didn’t do,” the actor replied to much laughter and applause. [...] “I think because of Tim Burton’s success on the first film and Nicholson being so amazing that they kind of got carried away with the idea of the bad guy being immune to rules somehow,” Kilmer continued. “In the original film the Joker gets the hell kicked out of him and thrown off the bell tower. He suffers, and that sort of went away. Things became cute. It’s entertaining, but I think what they’re doing with the Batman films now is more in the original spirit of the character.”

This next part had nothing to do with Batman, but I feel compelled to shout about it from rooftops, completely without context:

“Plus I’ve got a short for the Mark Twain play that Jack Black has agreed to be in, and I’ve written a part for Werner Herzog, who will play a black widow. It’s a scene about ants, and it’s so absurd. Twain has this theory about how ants are overrated. Everyone talks about how industrious they are, and it’s a big lie,” Kilmer joked. “They kill each other and they’re really dumb. So me, Will Forte and Jack Black are going to do that as a skit.” [Spinoff]

A skit about stupid ants with Werner Herzog? I’m your huckleberry.

In other news, it’s been 17 years since Val Kilmer was Batman and we are all super, super old.

[Tip of the cowl to Blastr. Banner picture via Reddit]

UPDATE: Thanks to tenillusions for this brilliance.