Batman and Robin? Try Flatman and Ribbon.
A movie review by "Average Joe" Barlow
(c) Copyright 1998
STARRING: Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, Uma Thurman, Chris
O'Donnell, Alicia Silverstone
DIRECTOR: Joel Schumacher
WRITER: Akiva Goldsman
RATED/YEAR: PG-13/1997
LENGTH: 125 mins
It's always painful to witness the degredation of someone you dearly love... to watch, helpless, as a once strong family member succumbs to illness or the ravages of old age. Gradually the strength and personality traits that you remember so fondly vanish as the person dwindles away, replaced by a shell of their former self. They may still breathe, and perhaps even move around from time to time, but it's obvious that their spark is gone. Watching it happen to my grandfather was difficult enough... and now I get to see the same thing occur to the Batman film series. Oh joy. I was a big fan of the dark vision Tim Burton brought to the first two Batman outings. Gotham actually breathed on the silver screen; it was sinister and full of secrets. Michael Keaton didn't so much play Batman as BECOME him. The cherry on top was the great characterization, far more in keeping with Bob Kane's original comic books than the campy sixties television show. Gone were the WHAPS! and POWS! of Adam West, replaced with great action sequences and an intense score from composer extrordinaire Danny Elfman. I even went so far as to buy one of those goofy t-shirts with the bat logo boldly emblazoned on it. (Yes, that's right... I was one of THOSE guys.) Situations beyond my control prevented me from seeing the third film ("Batman Forever"), helmed by director Joel Shumaucher and starring Val Kilmer as the caped crusader, but when the fourth installment appeared in theaters, I was more than game. Another trip to Gotham, and with the lovely and talented Uma Thurman to boot? How could I possibly resist? Ho boy. How our naievity mocks us. "Batman and Robin" starts off with the obligatory action sequence, in which Batman (George Clooney) and his increasingly annoying sidekick Robin (Chris O'Donnell) attempt to foil Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) in a diamond robbery. In an interesting interpretation of physics, Freeze launches our heroes high into the atmosphere in some sort of rocket-thingy whose purpose is never explained. Batman urgently tells Robin that they must stop the rocket, because it will soon explode and turn Gotham into a huge crater. Then, in an amazingly bold feat of self-contradiction, B&R set the rocket to self-destruct. How do they escape? Simple. They skateboard back down through the atmosphere to Gotham. Yes, you read that right. Skateboard. Through the air. Back down to Gotham. Read it again so your brain absorbs the absurdity of the situation. Then witness how B&R boldly blow up the rocket mere moments after explaining the importance of not letting it explode. Next we're off to the Amazon jungle to enjoy the cliched ramblings of a Dr. Clayton Forrester look-alike as he attempts to turn a 98-pound weakling into a sumu wrestler via some sort of venom-juice. He is of course successful, and all goes well until Dr. Unattractive (Uma Thurman) uncovers the secret plot. The mad scientist isn't happy, and kills her to demonstrate this. She rewards him by coming back to life as a sexy super villain and killing him with a poison kiss. Lucky guy: not only does he get to smooch one of the most beautiful women currently working in the movie industry, but he gets to exit the film very early to boot. Back at Wayne Manor, Bruce Wayne's aged butler Alfred gets a lovely surprise on the doorstep: Alicia Silverstone, who plays his British niece, has come for an unannounced visit (and apparently left her accent at home). They fondle each other for a bit in one of the most disturbing (yet not actually dirty) displays of affection ever captured on film. Robin becomes infatuated with her, and follows her one night when she steals a motorcycle to go racing. She of course gets in trouble and he saves her, because, after all, she's only a woman. In one of my favorite scenes, Robin and the future Batgirl find themselves dangling off a bridge. Robin has somehow managed to wrap his foot around a metal bar, which assumedly prevents him from falling off the bridge into the rushing water below. Visualize with me, now: we have our wormy hero, hanging off the bridge by one foot. He is holding on to Alicia Silverstone. That's two of them, dangling precariously by one foot. Then, we cut to... the two of them safely back at Wayne Manor. No explanation whatsoever. To quote Lenny from the Simpsons: "We won't bore you with the details of our miraculous escape." It gets worse. In an attempt to assumedly add a comic-book feel to the film, the director has inserted cartoon sound effects into the fight scenes. For example, when one of the evil henchmen falls down a staircase, we hear a sound similar to Wile E. Coyote falling off a cliff. Whether this was supposed to inspire laughter is unknown. It did get a reaction from me, though I doubt very much it was the one the director wanted. In the most vomitous feel-good ending of the summer, Mr. Freeze helps Batman cure Alfred of a crippling disease. It just so happens that Freeze is the world's leading expert on this particular disease. That's pushing believability as it is... but would you believe Freeze just happens to carry the cure for the disease in his armband? My, isn't that convenient. Next, stir in a lousy soundtrack and lots of people flying around on wires that are almost invisible during the fight scenes. Add a dash of some of the most poorly-handled special effects of the summer, sprinkled in with some gratingly bad puns courtesy of screenwriter Akiva Goldsman. Is the bile rising yet? Arnold's acting has all the depth and range I've come to expect from his post-Conan movies, which is to say, none at all. His films, however, are more about attitude than acting, and I can't really hold his performance against him. In a movie like "The Running Man," where the story is strong enough to let me ignore his terrible line-reads, it's not a problem... but in "Batman and Robin," it's simply one more thing to bristle at. It doesn't help that most of his dialogue consists of groanably bad puns, either. And not bad in a fun kind of way; just really *awful*. Alicia Silverstone is fine in her role, but it's so poorly written that it could do her professional reputation more harm than good. Her character alternates between strong and fragile, determined and waffling. Poor Alicia; I know she tried hard, and I don't fault her. Same with Uma and Chris O'Donnell; no problems with them personally, except they should've had the will-power to turn down a script this bad. This movie also attempts to set the Women's Rights movement back thirty years. Every woman in this film is portrayed very badly, from the aforementioned Alicia Silverstone to Bruce Wayne's marriage-hungry girlfriend (Elle MacPherson). And Uma? Well, Batgirl comments on Uma's character: "People like you give women a bad name!" True enough. If the movie has one good thing, it's George Clooney. Many folks are in strong disagreement with me, but I thought his performance as Batman was at least as strong as Keaton's. I don't watch TV so I've never seen whatever show he's on ("ER," maybe?), but I liked him here. Unfortunately, no matter how talented Clooney may be as an actor, he can't carry a film when the script has him doing nothing more than standing around, staring, and occasionally barking such helpful lines as "Let's go!" and "That was close!" Despite all that, Clooney was surprisingly likeable... which says quite a bit about his screen presence. One thing the film gets right is the depiction of Gotham itself. Like Burton, Schumacher knows how to create memorable images of a city caught in the struggle of good and evil. Some of the scenes of frozen city streets (courtesy of Mr. Freeze) are particularly well done. The lighting, costumes and sets are all lovely... but a few pretty pictures aren't enough to save this clunker. In conclusion: There are worse movies in existence, but it still hurts to encounter a film this far off the mark. With a better script, this could've been the ultimate Batman extravaganza; instead, one is left with what could only generously be called a mediocre film. Better luck next time, Mr. Schumacher. We'll be waiting... same bat time, same bat channel.
RATING: 1.5 stars (out of a possible five)
This review was originally rewritten: June 22, 1997 Revised: July 2, 1998
Copyright (c) 1998 by Joe Barlow. This review may be freely distributed as long as ABSOLUTELY NO CHANGES are made and this disclaimer remains attached. It may not reproduced for profit without the written consent of the author. If you have comments or questions, please send them to: jbarlow at earthling dot net (substituting the appropriate symbols, to discourage spam).
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"Average Joe" Barlow MiSTie #73097
jbarlow@YOURearthling.PANTSnet http://www.ipass.net/~jbarlow
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