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Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Batman Forever (1995)

Batman Forever (1995)

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Released 10-May-1999
Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Action	Biographies-Cast & Crew
Rating
Year Of Production	1995
Running Time	116:39 (Case: 122)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Programme	Cast & Crew
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Joel Schumacher
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Val Kilmer Tommy Lee Jones Jim Carrey Nicole Kidman Chris O'Donnell Michael Gough Pat Hingle
Case	Amaray-Transparent	Starring
RPI	$29.95	Music	Elliot Goldenthal

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No	Miscellaneous
Subtitles	English French Italian Dutch Arabic Spanish Portuguese English for the Hearing Impaired Italian for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

Once more, the good guys and the bad guys are getting ready to do battle.

In the green corner, representing the bad guys we have: The Riddler/Edward Nygma (Jim Carrey), and Harvey Two Face/Harvey Dent (Tommy Lee Jones).

Aaaannnnd in the black corner, representing the good guys we have: Batman/Bruce Wayne (Val Kilmer) and Robin/Dick Grayson (Chris O'Donnell).

Also featuring: Nicole Kidman as the seriously hot Chase Meridian, who definitely catches the eye of Batman and Drew Barrymore, as the beautiful Sugar.

Let the battle begin.

Don't wish to see plot synopses in the future? Change your configuration.

Transfer Quality

Video

The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 (not 1.85:1 as stated on the back cover), and is 16x9 enhanced.

Overall the picture is a little soft, but it is clear and sharp for foreground objects. The picture usually lacks background detail, which makes it appear blurry on many occasions. Surprisingly, this does not overly detract from the movie. No low-level noise was noted, and the shadow detail was very good. Only one scene seemed to be just a bit on the dark side, which is probably a director's choice and not a transfer problem.

There is some trivial edge enhancement at 30:37 and 57:51, which I doubt that you will notice if you are actually watching the movie.

The colours are well saturated and natural looking, with perfect skin tones. There are many scenes that contain vibrant colours that stand out amongst the dark scenery - the back-street alley night fight is a perfect example of this. However, colour is still not as lush or vibrant as some of the more recent films that I have seen, such as Bicentennial Man.

The background suffers from an almost constant grain, which is not overly distracting, but there are a couple of occasions where it spills over into the foreground, such as at 87:16 and 110:33. For TV owners, this grain should hardly be noticeable.

Film artefacts are very rare and are always small and unobtrusive. This transfer is alias-free except for one trivial occurrence at 47:34. Moiré effects are limited to two deliberate cinematic occurrences at 35:44 and 78:23 - 78:27, but there really is nothing to complain about here.

This movie is on a single layer disc, which is surprising considering the movies’ running time.

*Video Ratings Summary*
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

There are three Dolby Digital 5.1, 384Kb/s soundtracks on this DVD; English, French and Italian. The default is the English soundtrack and this is the one that I listened to.

The dialogue was extremely clear and easy to understand throughout the entire movie.

Audio sync was not a problem at all with this transfer, and was completely spot on. There are a couple of occurrences of looping or dialogue replacement. These are noticeable, but inconsequential.

Elliot Goldenthal's musical score suits the movie well.

The surround channels are very aggressively used for ambience, music and lots of special effects. Directional effects and sound placement within the sound field are very good, which puts you in amongst the action.

The subwoofer is continually being used to add bass to most scenes and is highly active during the dramatic sequences, which there are plenty of.

*Audio Ratings Summary*
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

The extras are limited to Cast & Crew Biographies and Filmographies. Note that there are no Production Notes on the disc itself as is incorrectly claimed on the packaging.

The menu consists of a 16x9 enhanced still picture of the main characters gathered around the menu options, which are; Jump To Scene (39), Cast & Crew and Languages. All menus are 16x9 enhanced. Since the movie starts playing when you insert the disc, Warners obviously didn't see the need to include a Play Movie option on the main menu. This makes playing the movie awkward once you have gone to the Main Menu.

Cast & Crew

This section contains Biographies and Highlight Filmographies for Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Nicole Kidman, Chris O'Donnell, Michael Gough, Pat Hingle and Joel Schumacher.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

Additional Pan & Scan version
Production Notes

The Region 1 DVD reviews that I read did not mention any graininess or background softness, but given that Warner also produced the R1 version of this DVD, and given the age of this title, it is more than likely that it too suffers from the same limitations. So, I think it will come down to whether you prefer the PAL or the NTSC format.

Summary

Batman Forever is a great movie, presented with a very solid transfer.

The picture quality is very good, with only some grain and softness slightly spoiling the image.

This is an excellent audio transfer, and is of reference quality (just).

The extras are limited.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment
DVD	Sony DVP-725, using Component output
Display	Sony Projector VPH-G70 (No Line Doubler), Technics Da-Lite matt screen with gain of 1.0 (229cm). This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio Decoder	Built in to DVD player. Calibrated with Video Essentials.
Amplification	Onkyo TX-SV919THX
Speakers	Fronts: Energy RVS-1 (3), Rears: Energy RVSS-1 (2), Subwoofer: Energy EPS-150 (1)

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