बैटमैन और रॉबिन

Strangely enough, that's one ice-related pun that Mr.Freeze doesn't use in this film. Though it does adequately describe the movie. What was I thinking, watching Batman & Robin for a third time? Even worse, what was I doing actually starting to enjoy it?

Yes, there's something endearingly awful about a film that fails on almost every technical level. But it wasn't always so. The first two films in the franchise, anchored by the strong, and much undervalued lead of Michael Keaton, were enjoyable pop-art excursions by Tim Burton. The first, still by far the best, allowed Jack Nicholson to ham it up amongst retro stylings and the music of Prince. The second, Batman Returns, was a less successful effort to homage German expressionist cinema, the darkest of the four films, and struggled slightly under the weight of three villains.

The lesson wasn't learnt, and the usage of multiple baddies has been a fixed staple ever since. With the third, Batman Forever, the flat acting of new bat Val Kilmer was coupled with Joel Schumacher's garish direction and Chris O'Donnell's irritating Robin. Akiva Goldsman was now the writer, and any sense of depth had given way to trite puns and disjointed set pieces.

And so it was that everything that was symptomatically flawed with the series was expanded upon and magnified for the fourth, and by far the weakest, instalment. George Clooney has accepted a lot of the blame for this film, a humble admission but unfair. While he's clearly miscast as both Batman and Bruce Wayne, he doesn't give a bad performance per se. Rather, it's his back up that lets the side down. Uma Thurman (am I the only one who doesn't think she's that good-looking?) has a great time overdoing it as Poison Ivy, but she's joined by Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze. Schwarz, not exactly known for his acting skill, is unrecognisable under his costume, so what's the point? He gets to call Batman "Batunbuuurg", refers to Robin as "Buuurd Bouy" and only has 100 lines in total. The fact that 26% of these lines are lame puns on the word "ice" that even a two-year-old would struggle to find funny is even more deplorable. And when you hear Freeze tell Batman "Yew arr not zending mee too da cooola" the urge to use the video's "stop" button is almost insurmountable.

Bane makes up the trio, a monosyllabic muscleman in a gimp mask. A completely unnecessary addition, he offers nothing to the plot and goes largely forgotten. The introduction of wonky-mouthed Alicia Silverstone as a fatuous Batgirl character is also grating. And why doesn't her costume come fitted with Batnipples like the rest?

Tiny traces of amusement can be gleaned from Ivy's dialogue, with her urges that her "garden needs tending" adding some form of adult tone to the humour. However, it's unrelenting innuendo - "I'll help you grab your rocks" - does start to wear thin very quickly. I did smile at Batman's cashcard: "I never leave the cave without it"; and it's also nice to see some small references from other films. Even if it is just a glimpse of the Riddler's costume from Forever, some guards paraphrasing Cobra or some street bystanders dressed as Clockwork Orange Droogs. In fact, the idea of a Batman film as completely OTT comedy send-up may have worked, were the rest of the humour more sophisticated. "It's the hockey team from Hell"; "So this is where you hang out"; "I'll cancel the pizza"; oh, how lame and functional the dialogue is!

The film wraps up with a rather pathetic plot contrivance, and George having to dish out bland platitudes. "Not all heroes wear masks"; "to give life... that's true power". Oh, it really is abominably bad. Batman & Robin exists as a classic example of the Hollywood system folding in under its own weight. However, the universal slating this one got neglects one factor: while the least successful, it still made over $230,000,000 at the box office. I wonder how many people would be satisfied with "failures" like that?

I won't try and argue with anyone that says this movie is bad. It has a horrific script rife with far too many moments more interested in selling action figures than making sense. Arnold puts in the most camp performance as Mr. Freeze possibly ever that almost completely ruins what should be one of the most dramatic characters in the Batman lore.

George Clooney as Bruce Wayne isn't believable, Chris O'Donnell's Robin feels old and tired at this point after his kind of fresh feeling introduction in Batman Forever, the effects seem cheap and theme parkish (probably didn't help that Six Flags was really pushing live shows based on these movies back then) and so on and so forth.

If you were looking for a serious Batman movie, this totally missed the mark.

But what if, what if we just misunderstood what this movie was trying to do? What if the campiness, cheesiness, and ridiculousness was the entire point. What if instead of expecting The Dark Knight we should have been expecting Sharknado? Does it have any appeal as an expensive B movie satire?

In my opinion, it does. This movie is a BLAST to watch from the perspective that it's to be made fun of. Arnold Schwarzenegger's one liners become almost iconic when viewed from the lense of "what would be the dumbest, corniest, thing that could happen right now in this scene." Uma Thurman's over the top cringe worthy Poison Ivy is actually hilarious when you know what this actress is actually capable of when she's given a good role to work with. Bane looking something like a theme park mascot is impossible to take seriously when you've seen later, more serious versions of the character.

In short, for 1997 when this movie came out, and for a variety of marketing reasons, people didn't get that this movie was supposed to be a joke. People still had Tim Burton's Batman movies in their head they weren't expecting to go full Adam West.

That's a definite failure of the movie, to fail to make sure the audience understood what you were trying to do. But I think, 20 years later we can finally look back on this movie as being misunderstood in its time. It's suffered I think more than enough for the crime of being a joke that no one got. I think it's time people tried for a moment to rethink what this movie was.

If you still think this movie was the worst thing ever even after I've said my piece, I'm still not going to argue with you. I'm just going to smile as I agree with you.

Clearly a flashback to the 60s batman this was done with a wink. We got a ok cast here. Action is good but ofcourse over the top. And the lines are great just great. Arnie stole the show on this on. This is also a great one to watch with kids since it's not that dark as Batman or Batman begins and ofcourse the new trilogy. Kids who love Batman will love this, if your looking for a serious superhero action movie and don't feel nostalgic skip this please. I rate 6 because it's a refreshment in the series and has a great cast. This is a movie that produces memes 👍🏻

Back in the day, I felt disappointed when I watched it in theaters and I really disliked the movie for many reasons: it wasn't dark like the first two (same thing for "Foverer"), the dialogues ("chicks dig the car") the over-the-top silly acting, the props (batmobile, suits, weapons, etc), the goofy villains... However I loved the color palette and cinematography - it's pure Schumacher of course.

Over the years I have watched it again several times and when the BluRay came out I watched it more in depth and finally it happened: I like the movie now. Why? How? Well, nowadays I feel like I'm watching a "modern" take on the 60's TV series and it really makes sense to me for the very same elements I mentioned before: goofy villains, lots of colors, over-the-top cheesy acting, family-friendly overall tone. Gradually I started enjoying the movie in this context and I can say that I like it for what it is.

Unfortunately, this was the latest entry in the "comic-style" franchise.

Generally considered one of the worst things ever brought to the screen, Batman & Robin is very fun. When people say this movie is terrible, I agree but they never acknowledge the redeeming qualities, which are what make this movie bad. Doesn't make much sense? Arnold delivers cheesy puns and one-liners galore, they do suck but are hilarious at the same time. George Clooney does such a bad job, you can't help laughing. Everybody is so over-the-top and cheesy, you have to laugh. That may be why Chris O'Donnell's and Silverstone's careers were pretty much ruined after this: gets recognized for Scent of a Woman; breaks out in Batman Forever; then gets screwed in this. Silverstone does some music videos, breaks out in Clueless, then gets screwed by this. All other actors pretty much had their feet firmly planted. The set design and special effects were actually well-done. But people criticized this portion for being too weird-looking and overly-extravagant. Maybe they were, but doing all that the way Schumacher did is extremely difficult. Plus it saves us from the bad story and bad acting. I did say the acting is funny, but after a while it gets to be too much. It starts off fun, but eventually gets boring since there is no good plot or characters. It just keeps going until you have enough. I know that two hours isn't very long for a movie, but in this case, it was. Just take twenty minutes away and it would have been better.

2/4