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

I can only echo the sentiments of other reviewers here where this edit is incredible. Batman Forever used to bore me, but this edit kept me engaged the entire time.

Phenomenal work was done here, and I can only recommend it highly.

A most impressive achievement of AI technology and fan commitment! While maintaining all the pros of the original Red Book Edition – that is the noir feeling through colour desaturation, the removal of a great deal of cheesiness and the integration of deleted scenes, in case you haven’t seen it – this Enhanced version manages to fix, for the most part, the faults of its predecessor. Although there’s still some small colour and contrast mismatch compared to the rest of the film, the deleted scenes do not stick out anymore thanks to the AI enhancement. The added heavy film grain is something that, as a kid of the VHS era myself, I can really appreciate, and the same goes for the desaturation and colour contrast in some scenes which reminded me of Sin City – and that is definitely a good thing! INIGHTMARES also fixes some of the choppy cuts that were present in the original fan-edit by Scaperat, like when Dick Grayson saves that woman from the hands of a street gang.

As for the cons, the Enhanced Edition carries that problem of the original studio cut with it, which no amount of editing could ever salvage. That is, its two antagonists who mostly act and talk like complete goofballs! The Riddler being essentially Jim Carrey I can live with, but Two-Face is still insufferable and out of character, no matter what.

Even so, INIGHTMARES’ Enhanced Edition is by far the best viewing experience of a highly problematic film, tainted by WB studios’ interference, and as far as I’m concerned the definitive cut of it. As I’ve written before in my review of Scaperat’s work, it successfully highlights not only some of its darkest aspects that were butchered in WB’s editing room, but also a stellar performance by Val Kilmer. And justifies, at long last, why Batman is Forever.

I will always keep good souvenirs from Batman Forever, the original movie was the first film I saw in theater, and the Red Book Edition was my first introduction to the world of fan editing.
Thank you so much for giving that legendary edit a neat polish, the 1080p makes the movie even more gorgeous, likes the credits added to the beginning in Arkham and finishing with Where is My Mind was an excellent choice, a good song in the credits always leaves a nice taste as far as I'm concerned.

I finally got around to watching this and I'm very happy I did. I went into this without having seen the original version of this movie in a while. Sometimes that's a better way to approach fanedits. I'm not looking for things that are different, I'm just soaking in the experience. I had read about scaperats version and INIGHTMARES version before, but not right before I watched it today. So I went into this with letting the experience speak for itself. It was amazing. I had always liked this movie, but this was probably the most enjoyable experience. The tone was a lot more serious and much more satisfying. I didn't find myself rolling my eyes a lot (thanks for cutting batmans butt). I appreciate that it attempted to be more like the previous Tim Burton installments without forcing that narrative on the viewer. It still held all of the good qualities and originality that part 3 had. The changes in color and grain of the video was awesome too. This paired with the upscaling made it feel like I was watching a bluray that still captured the feel of the 90s. I really appreciated the strong reds, greens, purples bordered with the grays and black around it- that may sound confusing if you've never seen this version, so watch it to see what I mean. But I feel this style of coloring for this particular movie captured the nostalgic feel of what made the first one great, and even the second one for that matter. The narrative and story told itself. You still get most of the movie you remember here just with some fat trimmed off. I appreciate this version a lot. There are a lot of edits that you read about and you can safely say "yeah, this needed to be done". Then there are the edits you finish watching and you realize "yeah, this needed to be done". After finising the movie, I realize the value of this to the Batman legacy. I now understand the hype around scaperats original version. I have not seen that particular one, but INIGHTMARES brought it to life for me in a high quality version. The cuts were seemless and the audio was very even. It felt like an official release with the flare of a die hard fan. There was one seen where the mouth didnt match the dialogue and a couple scenes where the video quality was slightly lower, but it was nothing to distracting, hence my 9 for visual editing. Otherwise I very very impressed with this edit and I don't think i'd change anything. Maybe I'll watch scaperats version next, or maybe I'll watch this again. Either way, I highly recommend checking this out.

Masterfully created update of a classic fanedit, one of those select few that have transcended our little niche communities and earned mainstream recognition, even from Joel Schumacher himself (even though it's unclear if he actually got to watch it). INIGHTMARES' version looks absolutely beautiful, the grainy quality and the quasi-black and white greatly enhance the narrative and make it more dreamlike, or should I say nightmarish; and the slight touches he added on his own are great aesthetic improvements. If I'm not giving this a perfect 10 overall is for the same shortcomings I find in Scaperat's original edit which don't fit my ideal vision, namely that he didn't cut much of Jim Carrey and I would have gone merciless on him. But if addressed, it wouldn't be Scaperat's edit anymore... In any case this is still a huge improvement over the theatrical version, and until the legendary Schumacher Cut is released (not holding my breath given what's happening with DC movies these days) this is one of the very best ways to watch Batman Forever, if not THE very best. Well done!