m3review: BATMAN AND ROBIN

BATMAN AND ROBIN

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6/16/97

<sigh>

Where to begin...

How about with a little list history.

The grain of sand around which Mike's Midnight Movie Reviews formed was BATMAN FOREVER. I first thought of publishing my reviews on a mailing list when I found myself retyping my raves for that movie to everyone I knew. I know it will ring of heresy to some of you Dark Knight/Tim Burton fans out there, but I thought BATMAN FOREVER was a total blast, the best of the series. Director Joel Schumacher had rinsed off the somber soot of BATMAN and BATMAN RETURNS, and unveiled a technicolor thrill ride that had me cheering at the end.

BATMAN AND ROBIN, however, is a different story.

Schumacher directs again, but the spices that made BATMAN FOREVER a delight have overwhelmed the dish. The comic book look has gone to the funny pages. The action-figure performances are now merely plastic. And the high-flying, don't-look-back storyline has become a meandering slugfest with little excitement.

The opening of BATMAN AND ROBIN mirrors that of BATMAN FOREVER. The Dynamic Duo suit up in a flourish of rubber gloves, boots and butts, then roar out of the Batcave to take on the new villain in a slam-bang action sequence. I brushed off their awkward opening exchange as they raced to the Gotham museum where Mr. Freeze was making his first appearance. I even brushed off Freeze's line, "The iceman cometh." But I realized that something was very wrong with this movie when Robin smashed through the wooden doors of the museum on his motorcycle, leaving a hole in the shape of the Robin logo. Shortly thereafter, Freeze's henchmen engage the superheroes in a game of hockey with a priceless diamond as the puck. I'm all for light-hearted action, but the unbelievability of the scene stripped it of any sense of tension or jeopardy.

From there, the story wanders. We get the genesis of Poison Ivy who decides to embark on a weakly motivated and poorly focused course of vengeance against Gotham City. We get the arrival of Alfred the Butler's niece, Barbara -- who will eventually become Batgirl. We get Batman and Robin struggling to define their partnership. We get Alfred searching for his long, lost brother and succumbing to disease. When the action sequences return, they still suffer from too much noise and little sense of peril.

Much of the dialogue has been replaced by an incessant string of puns. Here's a sample:

Robin: No sign of the snowman.

Batgirl: Maybe he melted away.

Batman: No, he's just hibernating.

What is this? Is this supposed to be funny? No-one in the audience laughed. By that time they were too weary from Mr. Freeze saying things like "Let's kick some ice" and Poison Ivy saying, "My vines have a crush on you!" Pun-heavy lines have been a staple of the BATMAN series from the start (the Joker was full of them). But never before have they supplanted the dialogue to this degree.

BATMAN AND ROBIN seems made to give its design and production personnel a retirement nest egg. The lighting, the sets, the computer imaging, the stunts all tend toward eye-candy overdose. I grew tired of the ponderous soundstages lit in the predictable palette of magenta, crimson, hyper yellow, electric blue, toxic-waste green. I grew sick at Gotham's computer-generated architecture now gone from steampunk to utter art-deco rococo. I appreciate the phenomenal amount of work and money that went into the look and feel of the film. Too bad it's such a waste.

More than any of its predecessors, BATMAN AND ROBIN draws on the 1960s TV series starring Adam West. Freeze's henchmen skate in and surround the Dynamic Duo. Poison Ivy blows tendrils of pink love powder at her victims. Commissioner Gordon and a crowd of his officers fall to the floor choking in clouds of dry ice. I mean, come on. When you use a "pweeooooo" whistle sound effect when someone is thrown across the room, you might as well add the "POW," "BAP," and "SOCK" over the punches.

The previous Batman movies had at least *some* hook to engage the brain. Not here. Nothing is on par with the Joker's mixed-media psychopathy or the Riddler's subtle spoof of the new media's instant moguls. The closest we get is Poison Ivy's kooky environmentalist posturing and a self-consciously P.C. contrast drawn between her passive-aggressive seduction tactics and Batgirl's proactive butt-kicking.

I suppose I should answer the inevitable question, "How is George Clooney as Batman?" Well, he's George Clooney. At this point in the series, I don't think anyone is really seeing Batman on the screen anymore; we're seeing whatever actor is playing Batman _this_ time. But if you wrestled me to the ground and pinned my arm behind my back, I'd give you this appraisal: Michael Keaton was a great Bruce Wayne, but a so-so Batman; Val Kilmer was a great Batman, but a crummy Bruce Wayne; George Clooney is the first person to wear both the cape and the tux believably. His voice and his chin fill out the Batmask nicely. And he certainly looks the playboy. To Clooney's credit, I detected traces of Keaton's Bruce Wayne in his performance.

Unfortunately, Clooney substitutes nonchalance for the guarded detachment that Kilmer and Keaton brought to the role. Clooney's Batman/Wayne probably would think nothing of knocking back a few beers with some buddies then showing off the Batcave. Perhaps we're to understand that Batman has loosened up since taking on a partner. Yet, the awkward "character growth" element of the script revolves around his unwillingness to trust others. I don't know. To me, his nonchalance felt like apathy.

I thought Chris O'Donnell was fantastic as Robin in BATMAN FOREVER. He made believable Dick Grayson's metamorphosis from grief-choked youth to avenger to hero. Here, O'Donnell carries over the passion from his last outing. But his performance is not equal -- mainly because the script is not equal. He's often made the foil for Batgirl's affected "girls rule, boys drool" attitude.

I expected Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl to be a lot more... well, fun. There's a unexpected degree of reserve to her character (perhaps to make up for Batman's lack thereof). She also seems to turn superhero just too swiftly, and she fit into the team way too easily. (Wait, am I really asking verisimilitude from this movie?) And as if Silverstone weren't already every boy geek's dream girl, catch this: Batgirl is a computer genius.

I don't know exactly what to say about Arnold Schwarzenegger. He fits BATMAN AND ROBIN well, primarily because it bears such great resemblance to the stereotypical "Arnie flick." I never thought of Mr. Freeze as having a Terminator build, though it does make him a more formidable opponent. I liked the touch of pathos in his motivation: his entire super-villain career is driven by his love for his cryogenically preserved wife. Freeze needs money to complete his research into a cure of her terminal disease. But the intelligence and occasional (very occasional) eloquence allotted his character get swallowed in Schwarzenegger's characteristic slur. Guess I still wish Patrick Stewart had been cast in the part as early rumors had it.

Uma Thurman was the most pleasant surprise in this whole sorry mess. I had hoped that a natural redhead, like Julianne Moore, would garner the role of Poison Ivy; I wasn't confident in what Uma could bring to it. But she works because -- let's face it -- she's one weird woman. She has a bizarre sort of beauty and a smile that suits evil well. She can wear a red wig, just fine, too. Unfortunately, while she is better than expected, she isn't all that great. Her Poison Ivy borrows heavily from Mae West and often becomes monotonous.

Believe it or not, there's _even more_ I can complain about (e-mail me if you want to hear it). But instead, I'll try to name some good things. I liked the scene in which Mr. Freeze leads his shivering henchmen in the "Snow Meiser/Heat Miser" song from "The Year Without a Santa Claus." I thought Ivy's muscle-bound sidekick, Bane, was *really* creepy. I liked the Smashing Pumpkins' soundtrack cut, even if it sounds like a remix of "Bodies" from _Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness_, and mainly because it signaled the end. The rest of the audience shared my relief. They applauded when the curtain went up for the movie's start, but when the curtain went down, they silently rushed for the door.

I can't imagine any fan of the previous Batman movies being satisfied spending $7.00 to see BATMAN AND ROBIN. It's 100% eye candy, nothing else. And if you _disliked_ BATMAN FOREVER, you will be tearing the screen from the walls during this one. It is abominable -- with an emphasis on "bomb."

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