Batman & Robin - Review

Batman Forever was exactly the kind of movie that Warner Bros was hoping for... a profitable, kid-friendly, summer blockbuster that led to lucrative merchandise sales, a high grossing box office take, and generally struck a chord with audiences (though most fans of the comic were not as impressed). So after it's success, the studio quickly rushed another film into production. Joel Schumacher returned in the director's chair, with George Clooney as the new Bruce Wayne/Batman and Chris O'Donnell reprising his role as Dick Grayson/Robin. Two new villains were introduced, Arnold Schwarzenegger the ice-cold killer, Mr. Freeze, and Uma Thurman as botanic beauty, Poison Ivy. Also introduced is Alicia Silverstone as Barbara Wilson aka Batgirl (well... an in name only version of Batgirl). The movie was released in 1997 to abysmal reviews and near-unanimous derision from audiences. Often considered one of the worst movies of all time, Batman & Robin came dangerously close to not only ruining Batman movies but superhero films in general. Is it really as bad as it's reputation proceeds it to be? Lets find out...

Bruce Wayne aka Batman (George Clooney) continues to defend the city of Gotham now with Dick Grayson aka Robin (Chris O'Donnell) as a fully fledged partner. Two new villains have set their sights on the city. The first of which is Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a scientist-turned-madman who ensnares his victims in a block of ice with his high tech freeze ray gun. Mr. Freeze was once a brilliant cryo-scientist named Dr. Victor Fries. When his beloved wife was diagnosed with a rare and fatal illness, he put her in a cryogenic freeze, preserving her life while he researched and developed a cure. After a freak accident, he fell into a tank of cryo-chemicals. While he survived the incident, the chemicals mutated his body, requiring him to live in a below freezing environment in order to survive. Wearing a cryo-suit powered by diamonds, he turned to a life of crime and waged war on the city of Gotham. The second to appear is the venomous Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman). Mirroring a similar origin to Mr. Freeze, Ivy was once known as Pamela Isley, a genius botanist and environmentalist. When she stumbled onto her boss performing illegal experiments with her supplies and research, she was doused in poisonous chemicals and left for dead. She arose as the beautiful plant-infused Poison Ivy, who kills her victims venom filled smooches. Meanwhile, tension arises between Batman & Robin, with the latter frustrated of constantly being in the former's shadow. All the while, Wayne and Grayson take in a new houseguest, their butler Alfred's niece, Barbara Wilson (Alicia Silverstone), who eventually discovers the secret of the batcave and takes on the mantle of Batgirl, and aids the two in taking down Ivy and Freeze.

It's interesting to watch movies that have reputations as the worst ever. On the surface, it's easy to see why this movie has that reputation. The acting, the direction, the script is all pretty much terrible, but there's something more sinister about this one.When you get right down to it, comparing a big budget blockbuster like Batman & Robin to some of cinema's other worst outings like Troll 2, The Room, Birdemic, or Plan 9 From Outer Space is not really a fair comparison. Those other films are bad for many of the same reasons I just mentioned, but the difference between them and this is that they were lower budget indie flicks made by people who lacked the necessary skills and knowledge needed to make a film. Plus, as bad as they were, there was a sense of passion behind them, a certain drive from the creators to make those movies and tell a story... and despite being terrible, they can be kind of intriguing to watch, maybe on a so-bad-its-good level, but also in a train-wreck sort of way to see passionate individuals try hard and fail miserably sort of way. Batman & Robin, on the other hand, is bad is in the worst possible way. The film fails on the basic merits of filmmaking, but what really makes it awful is that the people behind the film really didn't give a damn. The comic had been running for years, and had millions of dedicated fans who grew up and admired this character. To treat the property as an assembly line, corporate produced, two-hour toy commercial, insults the legions of fans, the creators of Batman, and the previous movies (as flawed as they were). It's basically like the studio was saying "we don't care about the fans enough to create anything worthwhile" despite numerous comics with great stories and a stellar animated TV series that was breaking boundaries and WINNING EMMY AWARDS AT THE TIME OF THE MOVIE'S RELEASE!!!!! There is NO FUCKING REASON this movie should have been this bad!!! 

Okay, putting beside the bias I may have for the characters and previous, there's just no escaping that this movie doesn't work. Joel Schumacher returns as director and once again brings forth the campy sensibilities from Batman Forever, only this time taking it to the next level. It took everything that didn't work in the last three movies and removes anything that did. The plot is non-existent, the dialogue is painful, the actors are miscast, the production design is ugly, and the action is embarrassing. The film gets criticized for it's largely campy direction, and for good reason. I'm not saying that camp is inherently a bad thing. It can be fun and enjoyable, hell there are tons of campy movies that are very entertaining, but there's a time and place for everything. The 60s series was campy, but the comics had rather humorous overtones at the time anyway, plus a darker and more faithful adaptation probably wouldn't have been as well received at the time. The previous three movies (of admittedly varying degrees of quality) had moments of good storytelling and enough of a darker edge to give the films some artistic merit. Batman & Robin using it's campy demeanor to tell dumb jokes, stage awkward action scenes, create lousy costumes (complete with bat nipples), and neglect it's duty to... you know, tell a story. The movie is just a mess.

The dramatic hook with this movie is that Alfred the Butler is dying. I get that Alfred was more than just a butler to Bruce Wayne, he was a surrogate father to Bruce after his parents were killed. Still, as the thematic plot for the movie... it's boring as hell. In a world with mutated supervillains, traumatized victims of circumstance, and evil plots galore, there were a million potential storylines to go with and they chose the one about the aging butler dying... that's a missed opportunity if I've ever heard one. Also, once again, in the tradition of these movies, the villains upstage the main character. Mr. Freeze was largely a pretty gimmicky villain with not much to him, though the Emmy winning animated series episode, Heart of Ice, reinvented his origin in spectacular form as the tragic lab accident victim trying to save his wife's life. To the film's credit, they actually did take that said backstory and apply to the Mr. Freeze here, unfortunately instead of developing that element of the character, they instead have him spending the entire movie spitting out embarrassingly bad one-liners, at least 90% of which are dumb ice-related puns. Some of which include... "The Ice-Man Cometh!!!" or "Alright everyone, CHILL!!!" and even "FREEZE IN HELL BATMAN!!!" (honestly, what does that last one even mean???). Poison Ivy is even worse. All she is here is a glorified eco-terrorist and femme fatale, chewing the scenery with equally lame dialogue and not doing anything even remotely threatening. Oh, and by the way, it's true that fan-favorite villain Bane is here too... as an in-name-only form. Instead of a super-smart bruiser with a severe steroid addiction from the comics, he's a mostly mute, henchmen thug, with an IQ of 5, who spends the whole movie grunting and growling. Honestly, it's like they were going out of there way to screw these villains up.

The cast is what frustrates me the most. It's not just that they're all uniformly bad (thought they are), it's that every actor has been good in something prior to this. George Clooney doesn't have an ounce the intimidating presence required to be the Dark Knight. As Batman, he's out cracking almost as many bad lines as the villains. As Bruce Wayne... he doesn't come off as the kind of guy who acts like a douche to deter people from suspecting him to be Batman... he just comes off as a douche. Chris O'Donnell isn't given a damn thing to do here expect bitch and whine throughout the movie's runtime. Alicia Silverstone is awkward and stale as Batgirl (and why the re-imagined her as Alfred's niece instead of Commissioner Gordon's daughter is beyond me), not one of her lines comes off as believable. As for Arnold as Freeze... it seems pointless to criticize the dude's acting at this point. Even if they did give him more to do than just shout dumb ice puns, I doubt he would have stepped up to the occasion. Arnold can be fun in other films, don't get me wrong. Many of his films are pretty enjoyable (Predator, Total Recall, True Lies, etc.) and some are even excellent (Terminator & Terminator 2), but this isn't one of those times. As for Uma Thurman... let's just say that it's a good thing she's got an in with Quentin Tarantino or else her career would truly be in jeopardy. It's fortunate that these actors have rebounded in some way after this movie... though I can't think of anything worthwhile that Alicia Silverstone has done since. Well, this film was bound to kill at least one person's career.

It's no exaggeration here folks, Batman & Robin really is as bad as it's reputation proceeds it to be. It's not just a bad movie, it's an embarrassment, a travesty, and an insult to the decades of comics and fans that came before it. It came dangerously close to killing not only the Batman film series, but the superhero genre as a whole. I was trying to think of a good zinger to close this review on, but none really sounded appropriate. So instead, I'm going to quote the great Mike Nelson from his Rifftrax rant on this film, "We come to the end of one of the worst movies ever created by humankind. Oh you can shower, you can scrub, but the stink of this one won't come out easy. The best of luck to you as you toss and turn at night trying with all the strength God affords you to forget the horrors contained within!" Couldn't have said it better myself.

My Score: Half Star out of 5!