Batman Forever: Red Book Edition - The 15th Anniversary Enhanced Edition

I never enjoyed the original Batman Forever despite revisiting it many times always hoping this time I would find something to enjoy.
Now I have a version that is truly a good watch.

I love the noir feel of this edit. The near black & white + red look really works well to give this a lot of style and atmosphere. The added scenes add a lot more depth to the story especially the new opening and ending, Batman/Bruce is now fleshed out and someone I care about. I still find two-face irritating but not to the same degree.

Picture quality, editing, sound are all very good.

While my narrative gripes of the original "Red Book Edition" remain–

"I've always been a nostalgic fan of the original Batman Forever, but also a fan of darker takes on Batman. I think this edit did an admirable job of trying to darken it up, but just didn't measure up to my enjoyment of the original version. The addition of the deleted Arkham Asylum beginning, the "red book" subplot, and the alternate ending was excellent, but removing the exciting Batmobile sequence for a decidedly boring deleted scene between Bruce and Dick just took me right out of the movie."

–the difference is the superior audio/visual quality and editing. "Batman Forever: The Red Book Edition–The 15th Anniversary Edition" may not replace the original "Batman Forever" for me, but it is a very good alternative.

The song at the end really makes the whole cut for me. It's the perfect psychological exploration of the character's in the film. Also adds to the whole grunge feel of the redbook edition, which I feel like the original movie was trying to capture with u2. Love the grain, love the deleted scenes, I just kinda wish we still kept all the flirting between Chase and Bat-Man lol.. but that is my only complaint. And well, maybe we could have tweaked Riddler a little bit more. But those are such minor complaints, I very much love this edit. I think it's my favorite edit on this website. When for the longest time it was the paulisdead fanedit of this film because of it's danny elfman score, this version makes me appreciate the new scores.. thank you you two

Batman Forever has always been an underrated Batman movie in my opinion, on par with Batman Returns in regards to the Burton-Schumacher universe. It's not perfect by any means, but the mix of Burton's gothic world with the 60's Batman's wackiness made for an interesting blend, all held together by an incredibly somber and almost foreboding story for Bruce Wayne himself. Though it would have been great to see Michael Keaton wrap up his tenure as Batman with this third film, clearly meant to be a resolution to his multi-film character arc, Val Kilmer does an excellent job filling in his shoes.

To get to the edit itself, what I was most excited for is seeing a bit of a darker take on this film, for as much as I enjoy the silliness, it is clear that Schumacher's original intention was to create something more akin to Burton's work, until studio interference intervened. Right off the bat, I can safely say that this cut of the film does accomplish that; everything from the darker opening to the further exploration of Bruce's repressed memories to the general "Sin City-esque" color palette makes for a more emotionally dark and contemplative product than what we originally had.

At the same time, I did have some issues with the edit that detracted from my experience as a whole. Firstly, the obvious issue is all of the deleted scenes; this is just something that's unavoidable until we (hopefully) get an official Schumacher cut. The quality of the deleted scenes is just completely different from the rest of the film, and it does become distracting, especially when it's hard to actually make out certain character's faces.

Secondly, though I appreciated the change in color style, there were certain points in the film, namely the action scenes, where it was a little hard to tell what was actually happening on screen. The best example in my opinion was actually the opening on Arkham; I really had no idea what was going on (if the inmate was Harvey or the other security guard, or how he was even taken out of the cell). I do know this is a deleted scene, so maybe it was unfinished, but I think the black and white color made it especially hard to figure out.

Finally, my last issue was the decision to remove certain comedic moments over others. Certain scenes, like Chase's over the top flirting, Batman's "drive-thru" line, and Batman's thumbs up have been removed, yet most of the Riddler's gags, Dick's laundry scene, and the "Oh my god, it's boiling acid" line are still present. I guess I was just confused by some of the choices made, because I couldn't tell which tone the film was trying to go for by keeping certain aspects in the film. I think, either all of the comedic scenes should have been removed (except for the Riddler) or none of them (except for the butt-shots and opening).

Overall, despite these issues, I still very much enjoyed this edit. It was a different experience from my other times watching this movie, and though I can't say I liked it more than the original version, it's certainly an entertaining and thought-provoking experiment.

Thanks to Scaperat for coming up with this edit and to INIGHTMARES for providing the HD translation! The editing was pretty seamless.

For starters as a kid I loved the original. I grew up with it. Looking back I understand the reasoning behind the decision to go for a more video gamey action figure type movie. The Tim Burton movies were created for my dad, and these were created for me… this movie wasn’t even created to put my ass in seat in theaters(although it did) . It was created to sell toys to me on Christmas.

Anyway that aside this version of the movie cuts out everything that as a grown ass man I have grown to hate about the movie and adds the stuff that gives you more of a dark and adult tone.

If you are over the age of 40 and this isn’t your favorite version of Batman Forever then you seriously need to re-evaluate your life.

To put it frank, this edit is amazing and without it I would never watch this movie again. This is the go to version for adults and I will watch this version and only this version every year for Halloween until I die.

God Bless Val Kilmer!! Keep him in your prayers everyone!! Let his sacrifice be a reminder to get the HPV vaccine before practicing what my generation was told was a safe and effective alternative to sex!