Right OK usually on this blog I like to review films that are of good quality and have many redeeming aspects to them. However after reviewing The Room and having so much fun writing it I figured it was time I looked at some other bad movies and I thought why not go for a real stinker. So this post will be on what is widely regarded as one of the worst movies of all time and that is Batman and Robin as directed by Joel Schumacher.
So let's look at this frozen turkey of a film and see if it is as bad as they say....
STORY
OK so about the story which begins with the story's main villain, Mr Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who steals a cache of diamonds. Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle) soon alerts Batman (George Clooney) and Robin (Chris O'Donnell) to the scene of where the crime is taking place and they show up and chase after Freeze only to fail to capture him. On researching a bit more about Freeze, Bruce Wayne (also Clooney of course) finds out that his real name is Victor Fries and he was once a scientist who suffered an accident in a cryogenics lab and since then he has had to wear a diamond-powered subzero suit to keep him alive. Freeze however had also at the time been working on a cure to try and treat his wife who is suffering from a terminal illness called MacGregor's Syndrome.
In the meantime a botanist named Dr Pamela Isley (Uma Thurman) experiments with a strength serum to mutate plants so they can fight back against mankind. Isley however is angered by her senior colleague Dr Jason Woodrue (John Glover) as she discovers that he has been using her serum which he has nicknamed "Venom" and uses it on a skinny prisoner which transforms him into a masked muscle man and super soldier, Bane (Robert "Jeep" Swenson). Isley soon confronts Woodrue over his misuse of her serum and when she refuses to partner with him, Woodrue attempts to kill Isley by pushing her into a load of animal-plant toxins and chemicals. However Isley soon is ressurected as the seductive and beautiful Poison Ivy and she kills Woodrue with a poisonous kiss from her lips and afterward announces her intention to have plant life take over the world.
Meanwhile a young girl named Barbara Wilson (Alicia Silverstone) turns up at Wayne manor who turns out to be the niece of Bruce's butler, Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Gough) and she is invited to stay at the manor, however while Barbara is there she sneaks off at night with a motorbike. Later on Ivy arrives in Gotham city with Bane at her side as her bodyguard and she interrupts a Wayne enterprises conference at Gotham observatory where a giant telescope is being unveiled. Ivy challenges Bruce to use his fortune to safeguard the natural environment at the expense of millions of human lives, which Bruce refuses to do but he instead gives her an invite to Gotham's botanical gardens fundraiser where he says Batman and Robin will be attending. Ivy turns up at the fundraiser in a sexy outfit she uses her pheromone dust to seduce everyone including Batman and Robin, who are in fact there to lure Freeze to the place so they can capture him.
And its not too long before Freeze shows up and causes chaos at the event but he is eventually captured by Batman, however Ivy is taken by Freeze's ruthless nature and she soon rescues him from his cell at Arkham Asylum. Freeze tells Ivy of his wife and that they must move her as he has her kept in cryogenic sleep but Ivy turns off her life support and later lies to Freeze that Batman killed her by deactivating it. This enrages Freeze who vows to take his revenge over Batman and Gotham by freezing the city using the telescope as a giant freeze ray, which will allow Ivy to regrow the Earth with her mutant plants. Meanwhile we also learn that Alfred is dying from the same disease that Freeze's wife has and Barbara with Alfred's help soon discovers the Batcave thanks to an encoded disc he gave her, which reveals a digital message that he also designed a suit for her to join Batman and Robin to fight crime as Batgirl. And its from here the three of them must work together to prevent Freeze and Ivy from carrying out their nefarious plan.......
THOUGHTS
There is little doubt that Batman and Robin easily ranks as the worst of all of the Batman films ever put on screen. Joel Schumacher previously directed the average Batman Forever which was a commerical success however and as such based on the popularity of that film he was brought back to direct this one. However I'm sure this is one film I bet he wished he hadn't directed and after the film was lambasted by the critics he even went on to apologise to the fans afterward for it. And even the cast lashed out at how bad it was received as George Clooney who played Batman in the film even went as far as to say that he felt the film was a "waste of money" and that "I think we have killed the franchise". Schumacher himself did say at the time of the film's release that he felt it was a good idea to keep the film family-friendly and to get away from the dark and more tortured potrayals of Batman in the past. And there is not much doubt that the film does keep up the rather camp and light tone of Batman Forever but here is exaggerates it even further than necessary.
PERFORMANCES
Performance wise it has to be said that this film is not great as despite its surprisingly good cast most of them are given virtually nothing to work with. Starting with George Clooney who was woefully miscast here as Batman/Bruce Wayne and he even looks uncomfortable playing the part in the film himself. Clooney who is of course a fine actor (even though he can't stop wobbling his head when he speaks!) is reduced to playing the part in a rather one dimensional way and his attempts at comedy in the film are pretty forced looking. Clooney does still have the odd amusing moment in the film such as the scene where Ivy attempts to seduce Batman for the umpteenth time with her pheromone spray and shakes his head saying "Why are all the gorgeous ones homicidal maniacs?!". And there is the scene at the start of the film where Batman and Robin suit up (complete with ridiculous close-ups of the outfits assess, legs and even suit nipples!). And afterwards Robin turns to Batman and says "I want a car. Chicks dig the car!" and Batman groans saying "This is why Superman works alone!". And lastly there is the scene which left alot of Batman fans in a state of outrage where Batman and Robin at the fundraiser event bid over Poison Ivy and as they try and outbid each other Batman pulls out his Bat credit card and says "Never leave the cave without it!". It is a truly cringeworthy moment but I have to say it is funny in its own awful way.
Next up there is Arnold Schwarzenegger as Freeze even though he is credited as the top billing I thought he deserves to be put second her as it is a Batman film after all! Arnie never was a great actor and will always be limited by Austrian accent but believe it or not his performance is actually not bad here as Mr Freeze (yep I need my head checked!) and even if he is working with piss poor material he still seems to be enjoying himself here. But it has to be said that Arnie does deliver some truly awful and silly one-liners that are mostly all connected in some way to ice! Still Arnie has some fun moments also such as the scene where Batman and Robin first show up at the start of the film and Freeze says to Batman "You're not sending ME to the cooler!". Then there is the scene where Freeze sits with his wife who is in a cryogenic glass chamber whilst he watches their wedding video one of Freeze's henchman walks and interrupts him and Freeze angrily grabs his freeze gun and turns the henchman into a block of ice and he says "I hate it when they talk during the movie!". Another amusing moment is when Freeze gatecrashes the fundraiser and says "Right everbody! Chill!" and he starts randomly freezing people with his ice gun. And in the scene Freeze approaches Ivy who tries to use her pheromones on him but to no avail as Freeze tells her "I'm afraid it doesn't work on the cold hearted! Let me guess, Plant Girl? Vine Lady? Huh? Hand over the diamond Garden Gal, or I'll turn you into mulch!". And then there is the scene where (SPOILER BUT WHO CARES RIGHT??!!) after Batman has defeated Freeze near the end he tells him that Freeze's wife is still alive and that he can continue to try and work on a cure for her and if he could help him to cure Alfred. And out of gratitude for saving his wife, Freeze gives Batman two small tubes of liquid, which is presumably the cure for the early stage of MacGregor's disease and says to him "Take two of these and call me in the morning!".
Uma Thurman fairs pretty well in her role as the beautiful but deadly Poison Ivy and she nails the seductiveness of her character well enough and Uma even affects a pretty decent RP English accent. Uma however falls foul of the same cack dialogue as the rest of the cast but she still has some amusing moments, such as the scene where Ivy fights with Batgirl and says "As I told Lady Freeze when I pulled her plug, this is a one woman show!". And then there is the scene where Batman and Robin get carried away as they bid over Ivy and she says "You two boys aren't going to start fighting over little old me, now are you?!". And lastly of course there is the moment in the scene where Ivy fights Batgirl that Batgirl kicks Ivy into one of her big plants and Ivy cries out "CURSES!" just as the plant consumes her.
Chris O'Donnell reprising his role as Robin/Dick Grayson is OK in the part but he essentially plays Robin as a whiny git who most of the time is fed up playing second fiddle to Batman and he always moans about wanting to step into the limelight on his own. And this often can make O'Donnell's performance a bit grating when all we hear is Robin bitch and moan and saying things like "I want a Robin sign put up!" and "Its always Batman and Robin, its never Robin and Batman!" and "That's it! I'm going solo!". Achh shut it! Still O'Donnell does have the odd amusing moment in the film and the one that sticks out is when Barbara first turns up at Wayne manor and she rings the door bell and he takes a look at her and says "Please be looking for me!". And then there is the scene where Dick follows Barbara out one night to a street race on motorbikes and he get's involved in the race which ends with Barbara's crashing her bike and nearly fall over the edge of a cliff and Dick manages to just catch her leg before she falls and he says hanging upside down "So THIS is where you hang out!".
Alicia Silverstone also does OK I guess with her role as Barbara Wilson/Batgirl but she too is given not much to work with and this film pretty much effectively killed her acting career in prominent movies and has since then appeared in some more lowbrow films and is now more accurately filed under the "where is she now?" field. Alicia does have the odd good moment in the film however too such as the scene where she speaks to Dick about Alfred and she says "Don't you see how Alfred is trying to hide the pain all the time. Alfred's sick". And later on there is the scene where Batgirl fights Ivy and she says to her "Chicks like you give women a bad name!".
And the last few I will mention are Michael Gough who in all honesty is better than all of them as Alfred Pennyworth and he actually manages to bring some charm to his role and although the film barely allows for it, some poignancy to Alfred's character especially as we discover he is suffering from the terminal illness that is MacGregor's syndrome. John Glover also is not too bad as the somewhat camp and villainous Doctor Woodrue who meets his demise at the hands of Poison Ivy. And Glover has a good moment (well if you want to call it that!) when he attempts to kill Pamela Isley in the event that would lead to her becoming Poison Ivy as she refuses to help him he says "Well, I can respect your opinion, Sadly I'm not good at rejection, I'm afraid you'll have to die!". And last of all Robert "Jeep" Swenson fairs OK in his physical role as Bane but the character is giving a pretty poor representation here overall but I guess that's not really his fault. Swenson himself a professional wrestler at the time, unfortunately died of a heart attack not long after filming was completed.
DIRECTION AND MUSIC
Well what can you say about the film's director??? It has to be said that Joel Schumacher had done a pretty poor job here as the film's pacing is at times a bit sluggish and inconsistent and the action is not very well staged either as the fight scenes are pretty cluttered looking. Schumacher of course went overkill with the campness and he even includes cringeworthy close-up shots of Batman and Robin getting suited up as the camera zooms in on their asses, legs, arms and even the nipples on their suits! Overall I think its safe to say that this is not one of the Joel Schumacher better directed films. Music wise however the film features a surprisingly good score by the excellent composer Elliot Goldenthal and its a shame as the scores deserves to be in a much better film than this! The film also features a pretty good song over the credits by the rock band The Smashing Pumpkins "The begining is the end is the beginning" which again is a shame it wasn't used in a better film.
FLAWS
As Batman and Robin's flaws...... ha ha where to begin??!! Well to begin it has to be that the film tries too hard to pay homage to the style of Batman 60's TVseries that it kills the spirit of the original Batman character which Tim Burton managed to nail successfully in the first Batman film, but by the time we've hit Batman and Robin the caped crusader has now degenerated into just a poor parody of himself. The film also poorly deals with some of its other characters particularly Bane, who in the comics and also as depicted in The Dark Knight Rises is a ruthless and intelligent villain who had the brains and brawn to match Batman. However here Bane is reduced to just a mindless henchman who obeys any orders given to him by Poison Ivy! And Bane's character is reduced to just saying single words such as his name or something else and even in one scene he resorts to giving out very simple exposition as we see him plant some strange pointed iced devices at the observatory as he says "Bomb!" every time he plants one down, just so we know that it is in fact bombs that he IS planting! Yeah OK Bane we get the idea. You don't need to tell us its a bomb every time you set one down!
It also has to be said that the film's dialogue is pretty atrocious most of the time and it is filled with awful one-liners even though I've previously mentioned some of the less awful ones. But there are some really daft lines such as the one near the beginning when Freeze says to Batman "What killed the dinosaurs? The Ice age!!!" before freezing a full sized dinosaur model. Then there are naff lines such as the one where Babara says to Dick about Alfred "I'm going to take him away from this single life of servitude!" as well as Robin at the start saying to Batman "I want a car! Chicks dig the car!" yeah but do they dig you?! Not to mention O'Donnell's worst line ever when Robin in one scene surfs through the skies shouting out "Cowabunga!!". Achh shut up! Not to mention there are some real corny introduction lines such as the way that Batman introduces himself to Freeze at the start by saying "Hey Freeze! I'm Batman!" as he slides down the model of the dinosaur. Yes I'd guess Freeze knows who you are Batman you don't need to spell it out for him!
As for some of the film's plot holes..... well lol again where to begin? For starters how does Freeze's ice gun have such a dramatic impact on collapsing structures such as walls and roofs? It seems pretty stupid that it would have such an immediate and powerful effect such as in the scene when we see Freeze using the liquid cooling from his suit to freeze the pipes which breaks down a hole in the wall of his cell to allow him to escape with Ivy and Bane. Not only that there is the scene where Freeze turns on the freezing temperatures in his hideout when Commissioner Gordon and his men arrive and they nearly freeze to death and Gordon struggles and crawls over to the panel with a lever which changes the temps back to normal and as soon as he does this his men instantly stand up as if nothing happened! Yep that's Hollywood action movie logic for you!
I also thought it was pretty stupid when Freeze attempts to freeze the whole city using the giant telescope as an ice gun that as Batman later says "they have 11 mintues to defrost the city!". And in the time it takes that whole sequence to take place it seems to take a bit longer than 11 minutes from when Freezes starts to use the telescope. And it also seems mighty convenient that Batman knows just how to realign the satelittes using the telescope to reverse the ice effects and use the sun to melt them and not only that even Barbara get's in on it as well as she seems to know just how to solve it too!
Another issue comes in the scene when Poison ivy kisses Robin and as she thinks her poision will have killed him he suddenly peels off the false rubber lips which protected him from her and he says "Rubber lips are immune to your charms!". But at this point Robin is still in touching distance of Ivy so what is it to stop her form simply grabbing him and kissing him again, which would now surely result in his death as he has now removed his false lips! And that way it would save her having to deal with Robin at all!
Also another stupid moment in the film comes from when Mr Freeze forces his freezing henchman to do a sing along in subzero temperatures at his hideout to the song of "I'm Mr White Christmas. I'm Mr Snow". I mean what the hell is the point of this scene??! It is incredibly silly and serves no purpose whatsoever to the story other than say maybe that Freeze is a bit of a sadist and loves making his henchman work at pointless menial tasks in freezing temperatures! Also I'm surprised his henchmen don't freeze to death in Freeze's hideout given the subzero temperatures. And lastly also regarding Freeze when he turns up in Ivy's cell at the end of the film he is fully suited up again and he vows to make her life a living hell. OK but how can he keep his suit fully powered for long? Because surely he will need a supply of diamonds again and I'd imagine they only last for so long so he would probably need to rely on someone getting him so MORE diamonds to keep his suit going! Again it doesn't really make much sense but then little does in this film.
And another issue I have is with Barbara's character who engages in some seemingly pointless bike races which she later reveals she took up racing because "When my parents died, racing took the pain away". Yeahhh OK. And later there is the scene where Barbara tries to suss out the password for Alfred's encoded CD and she tries a variety of different passwords and ends up looking at a photo of Alfred's wife, Margaret, which has her nickname "Peg" written on it and she types it in and bingo! She has full access to the confidential files on the location of the Batcave etc! I mean Peg is not exactly a security conscious password is it??? And any hacker would have a pretty decent stab at that and it would be even spelt out for them on the picture so not much homework would be required! Also given that Alfred in the film is suffering from such a life threatening illness I just wonder when he found the time to put together the Batgirl suit for her??? Its not like he took her measurements or anything at any point in the film! And lastly regarding Barbara its rather ridiculous that neither Batman nor Robin recognised that its Barbara wearing an eye mask at first as it clearly her! I mean duh!
Anyway that's me done looking at the flaws.
SUM UP
So to sum up Batman and Robin is a mess, is it one of the worst films of all time??? Well its definitely not a good one, in fact its pretty bad, but calling it one of the all time worst films might be a bit harsh. But even though it is pretty naff overall it still does have some enjoyable moments here and there but at the end of the day it will forever be remembered morely as the film that nearly killed off the franchise and for that reason I can't really recommend it. However its worth checking out only if you want a reminder of just how big a pile of guff it is, so all in all its a bad un.
So that's it for my look at Batman and Robin and I'll be back soon with another post.
Until then bye for now.
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