So I’ve been putting this off for a while.
I reviewed Batman, Batman Returns, and Batman Forever, and it only made sense to put a final nail in the coffin on this series of reviews with the worst of the worst. The comic book movie to (nearly) end all comic book movies and put movie Batman in hibernation for nearly a decade.
My fan theory was that it wasn’t the death of Rachel Dawes that made Bruce hang up the cape and cowl for all those years, it was a screening of Batman & Robin.
Joel Schumacher returns to finish what he started in his mission to make us ashamed to be Batman fans. After a montage of crotch and butt shots to help set the tone (I wish I was kidding), we’re treated to the first lines of dialogue written by an Oscar winning screenwriter.
“I want a car. Chicks dig the car.”
“This is why Superman works alone.”
They’re basically telling you right then and there, “Ok Bat-fans, you’re either in or you’re out.” It’s almost a challenge to the audience to see if they’re willing to stick it out or not because if you like one-liners, there’s plenty more where that came from!
And if you don’t, well…
It’s funny how now upon my latest viewing, I take a weird sort of comfort in this idiotic exchange. I know that it’s not going to get any better than this and I can abandon all hope that there’s some semblance of a watchable movie that lies ahead.
Let’s continue.
So the Ambiguously Gay Du-er… the DYANMIC Duo are off to the Gotham Museum of Art to battle Arnold Schwarzenegger wearing a Mr. Freeze costume. We’re told that’s what he calls himself, but it’s really just Schwarzenegger spouting a bunch of ice puns that sound like he wrote them himself.
Clooney arrives just in time to deliver the worst “I’m Batman” reading in all of Batman history followed by a Flintstones slide down a brontosaurus’ back. Again, I WISH I was kidding.
It’s kind of amazing how much more cartoonish this live-action movie is than the freaking cartoon. This is followed by Robin crashing through a wall on his motorcycle creating a perfectly shaped bat signal hole just in case you forgot you were watching a Batman movie.
After a handful more brilliant zingers, we’re treated to Batman on Ice. With just a click of the heels it’s go go gadget Bat skates. The only thing missing here are a few BIFS!, BAFFS!, and ZAPS!, underscored by the classic Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na theme song.
And I do just want to point out here that the icicles look like silicon and jiggle like it too when shaken. C’mon production design, what’s up with that?
Guys, we’re only seven minutes in to this two hour guano show, I don’t know if I can make it.
Alright, enough play-by-play nit-picking. Moving on.
Cut to Dr. Pamela Isley/a.k.a Poison Ivy/a.k.a. Uma Thurman giving a career worst performance. At least Schwarzenegger is kind of always Schwarzenegger so we don’t expect much from him, but Thurman was in Pulp Fiction!
Let’s take a time out here to point out that so far, this movie is following the Batman Forever formula beat-for-beat.
- We have the opening of shots of suiting up followed by a lame joke
- Batman exits the cave to fight villain #1 who we’ve never met before but is already fully formed
- The villain is pursued and the chase leads them to the skies
- The villain escapes by jumping out of the flying mode of transportation and either parachutes or sprouts metallic wings (since when did Freeze have that ability?) to safety
- We are then introduced to villain #2 who is a gawky scientist with unkempt hair who works for Wayne Tech (who later presents a proposal to Wayne and is rejected)
- Later, a video clip is shown to briefly fill in villain #1’s backstory for us
I’m sure the comparisons won’t stop there as we’ve got the new addition to the team coming later to discover Wayne’s secret as Dick did in the last one.
Continuing on, Isley is trying to figure out a way to harvest plant life that can defend itself. This is actually not a bad Poison Ivy scheme and fits her character. Too bad that’s about all they got right.
We then witness the birth of Bane who borrows elements of Captain America’s origin story (he’s even referred to as a super soldier) and turns into a shell of himself. Here, Bane is only recognizable in name and appearance alone. Most people when you tell them that Bane was actually in this movie don’t remember him appearing. That’s how insignificant his role is as they completely strip him of any personality and use him as hired muscle/driver and to sell toys.
Because if this movie is one thing, it’s “toyetic,” a marketing term I learned from Joel Schumacher when listening to the director’s commentary for this movie a while back. He apologizes several times throughout the commentary but I still have yet to forgive him. At least he knows.
Poison Ivy rises from her grave only to deliver the worst villain monologue in a comic book movie ever, making you wish she had stayed dead. It’s as if her preparation for the role required her to watch Eartha Kitt’s Catwoman performances before each take to help get into character.
So then along comes Barbara Wilson/a.k.a. the girl formerly known as Barbara Gordon/a.k.a. future Batgirl/a.k.a. Alicia Silverstone without the slightest hint of a British accent even though she lives in England and is a relative of Alfred’s. She’s not very good, but neither is this movie so she doesn’t bring it down.
Skip ahead to the next flamboyantly designed set that looks like Rainbow Brite threw up on a jungle, we have the weirdest scene in all of Bat movie history. Poison Ivy, (disguised as a purple gorilla?), crashes a charity auction where Batman and Robin are the celebrity guests.
Let’s just take a moment. Just a few years prior, Batman was an urban legend. A ghost story. Now he’s making public appearances? Come on!
So Poison Ivy strips off her costume, intoxicates the crowd with some pheromones, and then Batman and Robin start bidding on her. It’s a low point for Batman, for movies, and for humanity as a whole.
Ok I’m done. Let’s wrap this up.
THE GOOD
Next.
THE BAD
People like to bitch about the Bat nipples and the Bat credit card as some of the worse aspects of this movie, but those things are just icing on this crap cake.
The movie’s biggest crime is not that it completely makes a mockery of the Batman mythos while trying to sell us toys, but that it is boring. It’s not even a “so bad, it’s good” viewing experience. It’s just bad with no redeeming qualities. Say what you will about Batman Forever but at least it was entertaining at times.
Clooney has no Bat voice. He just uses the same voice throughout the movie. Like he’s not even trying. He and O’Donnell have zero chemistry. They seem like they’re in two different movies for most of their exchanges.
Maybe given the chance Clooney could have been a good Batman, but this was not it. At least he’s aware of it and this movie didn’t end his career. I don’t know if the same can be said for O’Donnell or Silverstone who never fully recovered from this mess.
And what is with Thurman’s weird inconsistent accent she seems to affect after her transformation? It seems to bounce back and forth from British to Southern. Ivy and Freeze team up, just as Two-Face and Riddler did in the last one. Here, she is madly in love with him for some inexplicable reason.
Even Vivica A. Fox shows up for no other reason than she has the hots for Freeze. What is it about him that is so irresistible to these women?
The biggest problem is that they all take the material too seriously. The tone of their performances and what they’re trying to deliver doesn’t match the set design, costumes, and cartoony sound effects.
It feels like they’re trying to elevate the material and rise above it but that was the complete wrong direction to take it. If everything looks like a cartoon, then don’t try to pretend it’s not and pull off a normal performance.
Adam West did it best in his portrayal of Batman and figured out a way to lend his performance to the material, but clearly that’s his area, and not the performers here.
So I’m not saying trying to sell some merch is a bad thing, but does that mean the movie has to be so damn obvious about it? This movie is so toyetic to the point where Poison Ivy even references her own action figure. For real.
Not only does this movie copy the formula of its predecessor, it sounded to me like it reused the exact same musical cues at the climax as well. How lazy can you get?
THE BAT
So one thing that might stick out to anyone who knows anything about Batgirl is that in the past she’s always been portrayed as related to Jim Gordon as his sometimes niece but usually daughter. But because Gordon is such a non-character in these movies, I guess it made sense to make her a relative of Alfred’s to keep it in the family.
We learn her parents are dead too which is a prerequisite for joining team Bat. Other than that bit of backstory and a side story about her secret life as a motorcycle racer (was that Coolio?)
Jason Woodrue is the mad scientist here responsible for both Bane and Poison Ivy’s transformation. He does have ties to Poison Ivy in the comics and so it makes sense to have him in here, but it could have just as easily been Professor Hugo Strange and it would not have made the slightest difference.
During a chase, Batman cuts his trained partner Robin’s engine when he thinks a jump is too dangerous and is trying to protect him. Yeah ok, I can buy that. That seems like something Batman would do.
BUT, then Batgirl shows up, and then all of a sudden she’s using a grappling hook and flying alongside them and he just lets it slide? WHAT?! This is so out of character I wanted to stop watching right then. But I was only 20 minutes from the end so I stuck it out for you folks.
They used Paul Dini’s backstory for Freeze from the BTAS episode “Heart of Ice,” but the animated version is unbeatable.
The pathos from the cartoon tops any performance Schwarzenegger could give. He was so wrongly cast it’s like they wanted to screw it up. I still can’t understand why it happened. Who thought he would make a good Freeze? “Heart of Ice” is one of the best animated episodes of all time and this movie just shits all over it.
THE CONCLUSION
I’m never suffering through this movie again. I don’t see the point. I know it’s bad and it’s not the kind of bad movie you can enjoy for how bad it is.
The whole thing just felt like a paycheck and nothing more for everyone involved. They just didn’t get it. I get that WB wanted to take Batman in a lighter direction after Burton’s Batman Returns but just because Batman Forever was successful, did they really need to go this far with it? I can’t think of any other franchise off the top of my head that made as drastic a turn in tone as this series did.
Actually I take back what I said before – two good things came out of this movie.
One, It was so poorly received that they had to reboot the Batman franchise entirely which gave us Nolan’s Bat movies, and
Two, that Smashing Pumpkins song in the soundtrack worked so well with the Watchmen trailer didn’t it?
My suggestion if you haven’t seen it and are considering watching it, do yourself a favor and watch “Heart of Ice” instead as well as the animated movie, Batman and Mr. Freeze: Subzero.
From what I’ve heard, that straight-to-video animated feature was meant to be released alongside Batman & Robin but realizing how the cartoon movie made the live-action movie look even worse by comparison, they delayed its release until the following year.
Shockingly, not even an arbitrary cameo from Coolio could save this terrible excuse for a movie.
