I wouldn’t categorize Val Kilmer as the world’s greatest working actor, but he has touched greatness, costarring with Hollywood’s superior echelon and working with world-class directors. Among his roles, Val can count God, Elvis, Batman, Jim Morrison, and John Holmes! For this immense range of acting prowess, I must salute the often puzzling, overblown career of Val Kilmer.
-Top Secret (1984)–This post-Airplane! Abrams and Zucker knee-slapper was our introduction to a fresh-faced kid named Val. A send-up of mediocre Elvis and WWII movies, Val plays rock ‘n’ roll singer Nick Rivers, who gets involved in a ridiculous web of intrigue and espionage. This movie boasts one of my all time favorite parody scenes: a classic Western-style bar fight that takes place completely underwater! Ha! That’s rich.
– The Saint (1997)–While not Val’s strongest role, this movie is a great showcase for his abilities as a doppelganger. As an international thief, Kilmer scrolls through an array of ingenious disguises, each one named after a Catholic saint–how very clever. The Saint, for this reason, plays to the cloak-and-dagger-fake-beard-and-glasses-handcuffed-to-a-briefcase-spy shit we all fantasize about in our ongoing adolescences.
– Willow (1988)–Reinforcing his ongoing connection to director Ron Howard (when will Val guest star on Arrested Development?) and co-starring with Leprechaun‘s diminutive Warwick Davis, Kilmer plays the rugged antihero swordsman Madmartigan. Together, he and Willow bust out their eight-sided dice and roll success with the rescue of a special golden child from an evil witch-bitch-queen.
– The Doors (1991)–It’s rumored that Val Kilmer wanted to play Jim Morrison so badly that he sent an audition video of himself singing Doors songs to Oliver Stone. Can you blame him? With all the peyote gobbling, whiskey guzzling, Nico fucking and bad poetry spewing, Morrison’s life was a freaking 24/7 love in, and Val wanted to break himself off a piece! LANCE CHESS
