Batman & Robin

Stephen T wrote:

in the spirit of the Dark Knight, I thought I would go back and watch every batman ever released... and god some the batman's were terrible. This movie was complete crap. There were too many heroes and too many villans.. come on.. poison ivy? Victor Freeze? Robin? and holy bacon bits, Bat Girl. Please burn movie, and remove from this movie genome project.

Nephalim wrote on IMDB:

Don't get me wrong, the old Adam West Batman TV show was certainly funny, and given the times, a more accurate representation of what Batman was trying to be wouldn't have succeeded nearly as well. But the show still betrayed all the emotion and grimness of Batman's themes.

In Batman & Robin, Schumacher seems to be getting back to those roots. He treats the entire Batman franchise like a joke. Even if it was funny, this would be betraying the name of Batman. But here, seeing as it's NOT funny, it only succeeds in becoming the worst of the Batman movies, and, arguably, the worst films ever created. And I'm taking into account Plan 9 From Outer Space, Gigli, and You Got Served.

George Clooney just plays George Clooney. Which is the road he usually takes, but this suave, dashing, and charming Batman seems more like Mystery Men's Captain Amazing than the crimefighter of legend.   [ show more ]

There's Chris O'Donnell, the angst-ridden Robin trying to break out of Batman's shadow. The only thing he ever really does is act like a child.

Alicia Silverstone. Wow. I seriously wonder what makes someone say, "Hmm, who should we get to play Batgirl . . . I know! Alicia Silverstone!" No offense to Alicia, but she's out in right field on this one. Her tough-girl performance is sprinkled with reminders of her Clueless days. But all that aside, she actually does very little.

Now, onto the villains. Uma Thurman, who we know CAN act, is hamming it up to ridiculous proportions. First, when she's playing the nerdy Dr. Pamela, she exaggerates that to a level I thought impossible. And then she inexplicably turns into an extremely sexualized villainess whose plan, by the way, would kill all the plants she advocated protecting.

Arnold seems like the worst possible choice for Mr. Freeze. I mean, of all the Batman villains I could see him playing - Bane, for christ's sake - Mr. Freeze is not on that list. He possesses none of the emotionless, calculated, and cold (no pun intended) sociopathy which makes Mr. Freeze such a good character.

And then, all that aside, they're handed ridiculous catch phrases and cliches they're expected to say with any level of sincerity? At one point Mr. Freeze says "chill out." Of all the ways it sounds, menacing is not among them.

Seriously, I'd have more respect for Schumacher if I discovered that he hated Batman, and had intentionally ruined it with this garbage. Then, this might actually be just his own personal joke. Instead, it borders on a travesty of good cinema. I only wish that 0 stars was a selectable option at the imdb, for this film ALONE. [ show less ]

renodc wrote on IMDB:

This is the most disappointing movie in the history of film for me.

A 2 out of 10 is generous. I should give it a zero strictly based on the Bat Credit Card scene.

Every single individual whether it be producers, director, writer or actors (minus Chris O'Donnell) should be "Bat-Whipped" for this piece of junk. This is your typical "absolutely cannot fail" franchise in film getting raped by studio execs making critical content decisions about a film when they have no talent to do so. Batman is popular simply because of the comic book not because of that retarded TV show starring Adam West, but this movie is more fashioned after that campy trash. This was nothing but a slap in the face to every true fan of the Batman. The direction of Joel Schumacher was deplorable. The set designs looked cheap (the ice looked and acted like dried craft glue) and were visually painful, especially the overuse of the red neon hue in many scenes. The digital effects were OK but often over done. The production cost was extensive, and I wonder what percentage of the budget went to the salaries of Arnold, George, Uma and Alicia. I'm sure it was high. I know Arnold got $20 million, so the percentage had to be fairly high. Well, everyone one of them needed to give back large portions of their salaries because their performances were atrocious. Alicia Silverstone needs to give her entire salary back. Hers was probably one the worst performances ever in a major motion picture. Arnold can't act anyway so I wasn't really expecting much, but I was disappointed when I heard he was cast as Freeze because he in no way fits that character. Freeze was a scientist and when I look at Arnold my first thought is not "Scientist". Ben Kingsly or Patrick Stewart would have fit better. Uma, who is normally a credible actress, was too "drama queen" which made it hard to immerse yourself in scenes she was in. Clooney was totally miscast as Bruce Wayne/Batman. I mean it's hard not to laugh when Batman is shorter than Robin. George like Uma was too overly dramatic, especially in scenes with Alfred, which made it hard to take him seriously. Chris O'Donnell was really the only actor that seemed real. With all that, I would have to say the overwhelmingly worst part of this movie was the script. Akiva Goldsman should have been banned from Hollywood after this script. It was a completely brainless jumbled mess. The story, which was pitiful at best, gets completely lost in entirely too many characters. It was so frustrating seeing the origins of certain characters ripped too shreds as Goldsman attempted to jam them into the script. Batgirl, who should have never been in this film in the first place, was changed from Commissioner Gordon's daughter to Alfred's niece, which made absolutely no sense. In an attempt, to explain why Freeze was so muscular it was explained he was an Olympic gymnast. How freakin' stupid is that? Gymnasts by necessity need to be small in stature to perform well in gymnastics and Arnold is enormous. Goldsman's use of dialogue was highly irritating consisting of nothing but one juvenile one-liner after another after another after another. One other thing that really irritated me was the complete mishandling and waste of the character Bane. Bane is a much more complex and vicious villain in the comics, and this movie version with Bane reduces him to a mindless henchman. Bane deserves much more character development than he received in B&R. The same thing happened in Forever, when one of the most highly complex and interesting villains in the comics, Two-Face, got reduced to second billing. Note to Warner Bros. stop screwing with Batman he can sell himself, and stop trying to cram so many characters into the films, and understand nobody wants to see a Campy Caped Crusader.   [ show more ]

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