Leading man of 1990s Hollywood, Val Kilmer, has died at 65 from pneumonia. Battling cancer since 2014, he has not been a frequent presence on our film screens for most of this century. While he has recently done some interesting projects, he never recaptured his fame and box-office draw of the 1980s and ‘90s, when he appeared in iconic films such as Top Gun (1986) and Batman Forever (1995).
His standout performance as Tom Cruise’s swaggering, self-assured rival Iceman in Top Gun made him a star. But the film that really cemented his reputation as a leading man was Oliver Stone’s The Doors (1991), in which he played Jim Morrison to astonishing effect. He is the best thing about that film.
Kilmer starred as Doc Holliday in the 1993 film Tombstone – a kind of cross between a superhero film and a western.
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In 1993, he starred as Doc Holliday in Tombstone, a stylish modern western, which he co-headlined with Kurt Russell as Wyatt Earp. It was perhaps the most ’90s of the ’90s westerns. Kilmer’s performance was crowd-pleasing and critically acclaimed. His 2020 memoir, I’m Your Huckleberry, took its name from a line Kilmer spoke in the film.
In some ways, it is a superhero film with cowboys – as you can see so clearly in the poster. It was this performance that put Kilmer on the radar of Warner Bros when they were looking to cast a new Batman after Michael Keaton abandoned the suit.
Batman Forever
We’ve got used to superhero films having cinematic universes and narrative continuity between films, but in the 1990s that had not quite been established.
Warner Bros had struck cinematic gold with the first modern superhero blockbuster, Superman (1978) starring Christopher Reeve, but faced diminishing critical and financial returns with each subsequent film in the series. After Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) failed to connect with audiences, the studio turned to Batman to be its cinematic icon. In those days, one superhero film every couple of years was seen as sufficient. Fortunately, Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), two dark takes on the Batman story both starring Michael Keaton, were hits.
However, Batman Returns was regarded by audiences and critics as too “dark”, and too Burton. Both Burton and the studio felt a change of pace was needed for a third film. Joel Schumacher was brought on as director and, perhaps due to the departure of Burton, Keaton also chose to leave the series.
Fresh off Tombstone, Kilmer was cast as the superhero.
Batman Forever took a goofier tone, inspired just as much by the campy 1960s TV series as the dark gothic noir style of Burton. It is still brooding, but the film is more bombastic, more colourful. Noted for performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey as the villains – and the costumes that famously featured nipples and codpieces – Kilmer’s performance got lost.