I sat down to rewatch this wondering if it would still be as bad as I remembered. It's got to have been a good two decades since I saw it last. Maybe the older me would be more forgiving of its sins, more willing to laugh off its many blunders, and finally learn to accept it for what it is, not what the teenage me desperately hoped it would be. I wasn't even a quarter of the way through before I realised there was just no chance of that ever happening. This is bad and not even the type of bad I can laugh at. This is the type of bad that just make me feel sad, like watching an aging singer try to knock out the hits when they are long past their best and struggling to hold a tune.
Although reactions to it were mixed, Batman Forever ended up being a big hit and the studio wasted no time green-lighting a sequel. However, Val Kilmer didn't want to put on the cowl again and so was replaced by George Clooney. For much of his early career, Clooney was a jobbing TV actor with a few b-movie credits under his belt. Then E.R. made him an international heartthrob and naturally movie stardom beckoned, but unlike David Caruso he made the smart move of sticking with his hit show in case that didn't work out. It did, but there were certainly some pretty big bumps along the way. His post-Doug Ross movie career was a mixture of cult classics (From Dusk till Dawn), generic action films (The Peacemaker), by the numbers romcoms (One Fine Day), and this big budget superhero calamity that will haunt him until the end of his very handsome days.
Batman & Robin has a lot of problems, so many problems, and almost all of them can be blamed on the fact that the studio rushed it into production and invited way too many cooks into the kitchen. And I'm not just talking about executives and producers; word has it they had toy companies sit-in during meetings to pitch ideas. Even Bob Kane was dragged out of his death bed to consult and likely screw Bill Finger out of his rightful credit one last time. The resulting film is just bad in a truly embarrassing way. It wants to just be a campy fun time for all the family, but is so poorly made, so tonally uneven, so desperate to flog crappy merchandise, that you cringe watching every second of it. This is the type of film where you can just tell that no one had a good time making it and you just feel sorry for them.
From the very first moment we see him in the costume, Clooney looks awkward and uncomfortable, like he knows that he's completely wrong for this role, but it's too late to back out now. He's more relaxed as suave playboy Bruce Wayne, but still operating on autopilot, spending the bulk of the movie walking around with a look in his eyes that screams “I really need to fire my agent”. After this, I wouldn't be surprised if he seriously considered licking his wounds, giving up on the whole movie star thing, and just going back to County General to keep playing TV's sexiest medical professional for as long as he could.
In keeping with how incoherent this movie is, it takes Mr. Freeze's more sombre and tragic origin from Batman: The Animated Series and slaps it on an Adam West villain. When he's not brooding about his frozen wife, Victor is trying to get his hockey team henchmen to sing along to cartoons while he stomps around their creepy abandoned ice cream factory lair in his polar bear slippers and smoking cigars somehow (you can tell that was Arnie's suggestion). There's even a completely random girl goon who does nothing but look sexy. This rally is the closest we'll ever get to a big budget version of the Adam West series, just minus much of the charm and the 60s pop art aesthetic.
Uma Thurman also seem to be having fun as Poison Ivy, who is little more than a patchwork of recycled bits from villains past. She's a mousy nerd who gets murdered by her boss and is somehow reborn with powers and a more sultry personality, just like Catwoman. She's also a scientist who has some kind of vendetta against Bruce Wayne, just like the Riddler, although that subplot goes nowhere and in all honestly I zoned out for most of it. To achieve her plan of floral domination, Ivy teams up with Freeze, even though his plan to cover the world in ice doesn't at all jive with hers. Yeah, it is pretty obvious that the villains were just picked at random and the scriptwriters had no clue why they would ever work together. They even throw in Bane as Ivy's mumbling muscle because at this point why the hell not.
Notes and Quotes
--The most insufferable part of the movie is the whinny, petulant brat that is the Boy Wonder. When he shouted “cowabunga” was the exact moment I started rooting for the bad guys to end the world. Forget the Bat-Credit Card, that was the most embarrassing part of the movie.
--The only thing more distracting than Barbara's accent is her age. She can't be more than 16-17, yet her uncle is in his 80s and the photo he has of her mum looks like it was taken in the 40s. Just how old was Peg when she had her?
--Everyone, back to the Batcave to change into our variant costumes and pick up our special ice vehicles so there are some extra toys to sell.
--As with the first film, the guy playing the villain has top billing over the guy playing Batman because he was the bigger star at the time.
--One of the Arkham guards is played by Arnie's former Predator and Running Man co-star (as well as fellow future state governor) Jesse Ventura. Oh to go back to when these two getting elected was the craziest thing that happened in American politics.
--The movie technically has four supervillains in it since John Glover plays Doctor Jason Woodrue/Floronic Man.
--Like most movie illnesses, MacGregor's Syndrome seems to work more like a poison. Just take one does of the antidote and you're as right as rain.
Mr. Freeze: “What killed the dinosaurs? The Ice Age!”
Robin: “I want a car. Chicks dig the car.”
Batman: “This is why Superman works alone.”
Mr. Freeze: “Allow me to break the ice.”
Dr. Woodrue: “Well, I can respect your opinion. Sadly, I'm not good at rejection. I'm afraid you'll have to die!”
Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011 More Mark Greig
Mark, thank you for this amusing review. I never saw this movie, but I distinctly remember George Clooney saying early on that all he wanted was to not fuck up the franchise.
ReplyDeleteI remember when it first came out on dvd and the making of was just everyone involved saying "We're so sorry it was so bad".
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