In June 1995 a pop confection hit thousands of movie screens. It seemed to embody what both boosters and critics have identified as that decade’s end-of-history nonchalance. It was, of all things, a Batman movie. And holding it together, the sturdy straight man surrounded by abject goofiness, was Val Kilmer, the actor who died at the age of 65 this week.

Batman Forever was the third movie in a franchise kicked off in 1989 by director Tim Burton’s brooding Batman. Starring Michael Keaton in the title role and Jack Nicholson as the Joker, Batman was, by the standards of the time, dark for a comic-book flick.