Batman And Robin
Joel Schumacher was actually a very good director, with a number of classics to his name (Lost Boys, Falling Down) but when he got connected to The Batman Franchise by way of an extremist reaction to Batman Returns which resulted in Tim Burton getting booted right out, Schumacher proved to be nothing more than a nuclear suicide option for the series starting with the clusterfuck that was Batman Forever where Val Kilmer was always looking for the script, Jim Carrey channeled Ace Ventura badly in playing Riddler, Tommy Lee Jones played Two Face more like he was playing The Joker than Two Face, Nicole Kidman kicked into full Fembot mode as the psychiatrist and only Chris O’Donnell as Robin emerged as a strong performance amongst the mess. Shockingly, Schumacher was asked back to direct in 1997, a move which saw Kilmer drop out of the series in disgust, forcing the key recasting of Batman which saw him now played by George Clooney, bringing back the smirking confidence which defined Adam West in the role even though it was best left in that particular era, but Schumacher here was on a mission to sell action figures and plastic toys, so he brought back the child friendly, campy style of the 1960s TV shows deliberately, scoring the casting coup of the millennium by getting none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger to play the second tier villain Mr. Freeze, a blue spray painted nut who screwed up his molecular structure whilst playing with cryogenics and now is doomed to be cold forever or else die in any warm environment including a beach. Arnold comes out to grand folly, given little to no backstory to tell as to what the hell is it he wants except to steal diamonds for their power cells in order to keep his ice suit going, but at least he delivers the worst Arnold one liners of his career here, one variation of cliches after another relating to the words, “cool”, “cold” and “ice”. Then we start playing a little game of “Alfred’s Getting Ready To Die” involving Michael Gough (Keaton’s standby Alfred who still upheld his dignity in The Schumacher Sequels) which leads to the unfortunate introduction of his speech impediment impaired niece (Alicia Silverstone, rarely seen in the mainstream after this once her speech impediment went untreated), Barbara (Wilson), who goes on to steal the Gordon Family Birthright and assume the role of Batgirl, with Silverstone reportedly having trouble fitting into the costume while the crew would laugh at her all day. Elle MacPherson is needlessly brought in to play the oblivious girlfriend of Bruce Wayne which is all part of his front operation to convince people that he’s a Trump like “playboy”. Into all of this is dropped O’Donnell as Grayson, trying his best to be credible but falling apart due to both a flailing script and his overwrought dueling attractions to both Silverstone (in truth a lying brat who steals motorcycles from the mansion and breaks into the batcave just because she can) and the OTHER major villain of the piece, Uma Thurman as runner up female villain Poison Ivy, who takes a bath in toxic chloroforms and emerges with superpowers (unlike Harley Quinn) as a half human, half plant hybrid who can spray pheromones and control minds (laughingly making a blithering idiot out of Pat Hingle’s stalwart Commissioner Gordon) along with a death kiss that she administers to John Glover and Jesse Ventura among others (and even a nasty deleted scene where she brutally murders MacPherson’s clueless girlfriend). Thurman makes the most of her offbeat bad girl part, playing it to the hilt and vamping it up all while triggering an intense feud between Grayson and Wayne over which one she loves the most. Freeze forms a tentative alliance with Ivy and then proceeds to kill everyone in sight with his ice gun, freezing their organic functions hence causing instant, irreversible death (amassing a body count that rivals Nicholson’s Joker) and indeed, the depth in the writing is completely gone except for a few strongly played “We love Alfred” bits even as Keaton still being on hand would have made it seem more authentic than smiling George Clooney. Thurman as Ivy has aged very well in the recent years of the post-Quinn era, but Arnold (pocketing a then record $25 million payday for only 6 weeks of work) plays his role as a full fledged circus clown, mugging away 90% of the time and trying to ignore those laughing at him in the background. Throw in fatally roided wrestler Jeep Swenson as a retarded version of Bane (a far cry from the constant shit talking mushmouth who broke Bale’s back), a set design derived from some kind of Neon Hell with the action scenes all seemingly shot in a roller rink, a verdict from Hollywood which stated that Silverstone and O’Donnell deserved to be punished over this which led to both of them bidding farewell to The A List (since Arnold and Clooney were obviously untouchable) and you’ve got this shitfest that should have been amazing had only Keaton and Burton been onboard for it…
3/10