Sneak peak at 'Batman Forever'

You’ll have to wait until June 16 for the sex (Nicole Kidman in an overcoat and not much else), the violence (Jim Carrey as the Riddler), the kinkiness (Tommy Lee ”Two-Face” Jones with a girlfriend for each side of his split personality), and (thanks to Val Kilmer, who’s taken over Michael Keaton’s cave) the best lips in the business. But then, to hear director Joel Schumacher tell it, those blockbuster elements aren’t the point of this third installment in the Bruce Wayne saga. Batman Forever is really an existential quest.

”It’s a story about duality,” he says. ”Val struggling with whether or not Wayne and Batman can coexist, Chris O’Donnell as Robin as a mirror of Bruce Wayne, and Kidman [as a psychiatrist who] specializes in dual personalities. Of course, in my world, psychiatrists look like Nicole.”

For the design, Schumacher went by the book — Bob Kane’s original 56-year-old Batman comic book. Tim Burton, who directed the first two Batman movies and is a Forever producer, ”stayed truer to the Dark Knight series,” says Schumacher, referring to DC Comics’ brooding 1986 version of the Caped Crusader story. ”I went back to the comic books I fell in love with.” The result is a Gotham City with as much color as there was on the page.

Still, there are modern touches: Robin sports an earring and rides a Harley, and the 40-pound batsuits (one of which has the added adornment of nipples) have sleeker curves. ”You put that thing on and you want to inflict pain, it’s so cumbersome,” says Kilmer. The result may be a film that’s less bleak than its predecessors. Even so, ”this isn’t the Care Bears,” Schumacher notes. ”Batman will always have an edge.”