Batman & Robin

Both of us have fond memories of the pre-Christopher-Nolan, non-Christian-Bale version of Batman. The movies were fun, and everyone knew they were campy. No one expected great American cinema when they went to see the old Batman movies. We knew what we were getting ourselves into.



Directed by: Joel Schumacher (The Phantom of the Opera, Batman Forever)
Starring: George Clooney, Chris O'Donnell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman, Alicia Silverstone
Plot Summary: "This is the movie that Logic forgot."

In the beginning, we were fairly comfortable with the level of camp. It was painful to hear the terrible dialogue, especially with the "Watch me deliver this pun!" delivery. ESPECIALLY in Arnold's accent, or with Clooney's carelessness, or Chris's "I'M ROBIN, DAMMIT" conviction, or Alicia's weird thing she does with her bottom lip, or Uma's accent-from-everywhere. One thing we noticed from the get-go: Clooney just didn't give a s*** and it's confusing to try and figure out why he agreed to do the movie. Even he called it "a huge waste of money."

(Several) Observations Made As We Watched:
--"Hey, Alfred's dying."
--"That is a giant penis, and Robin's holding on for dear life."
--"They're playing hockey with A GIANT DIAMOND!"
--"This is so much better than The Fog."
--"I wish the Beach Boys were playing, that's what this needs, doesn't it?"
--"Ever since Robin joined the team, it's been one big Dumbass Moment."
--"Uma Thurman is an Amazon woman."
--"How can Batman fight minions if he can't turn his head in the Batsuit?"
--"Superman would be really helpful right now... Any other superhero would be more useful than Batman is in this movie."
--"What is this thing with the satellites?! Like, I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND!"
--"Now, I've seen unscientific superhero movies... but this takes the cake."

"The novelty of it being bad has kind of worn off."

Batman & Robin is 2 hours and 5 minutes long. They could've -- and should've -- shaved at least 20 minutes off the ending of this movie, because not only does it feel like it overstays its welcome, but the last 20 minutes give a big middle finger to whatever logic was present. There's always a separate sense of reality in a superhero movie, but the rules that this one had established and abided by suddenly didn't exist. The exact moment: When Mr. Freeze freezes the city and the Bat-team attempts to fix it by using satellites to take sunlight from the Congo. WHAT THE F***?!

Here's an interesting thought: Does your perspective on some of the more outlandish directing choices change when you know that director Joel Schumacher is openly gay? Bad directing is bad directing, no doubt about it. But the first two movies, Batman and Batman Returns, while still goofy, are markedly darker, with WAY fewer homoerotic undertones than the last two in this incarnation of the Batman series. (Plus, they were directed by Tim Burton.) It's not a bad thing, to acknowledge the raging homeroticism that has ALWAYS been present in the Batman/Robin relationship, but just look at what happened to the Batsuits. Namely, the Bat-nipples:

Batman Returns (Burton) vs. Batman Forever (Schumacher)















The Best Part: How important Robin believes he is. Little Dick Grayson (AKA Hot Chris O'Donnell) is so serious about working together with Batman, as a team, that you kinda root for him to show his worth by the end of the movie, instead of continuing the stupid decisions he makes for 3/4 of it.

The Worst Part: Everything could've been fixed with a better script.

"Can you imagine Christian Bale's Batman putting up with any of this?"
"No. Everyone would be dead."

There's a lot to say about this movie, but let's just say this: The campiness we already knew was coming was only funny for the first half-hour. After that, it was just bad. If anything, it just made us want to watch Batman Forever. Since it's enjoyable, yet a complete joke of a movie, we'll give it a C+.

PS: This is a conversation we seriously just had:

"My head still hurts from The Fog!"
"The Fog is gone, Sarah! It's gone!"
"IT WILL LIVE IN INFAMY!"

(Poster, trailer and images © Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.)