Crim at the Movies: Batman and Robin

[video=youtube;4RBXypX4qWI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RBXypX4qWI[/video]​

Let's rewind the clocks back to 1997, about 18 years ago. The year where Mike Tyson bites Evander Holyfield's ear, Tiger Woods became the youngest ever golfer to win the Masters ,Princess Diana of Wales is killed in a car crash and The Simpsons becomes the longest-running prime-time animated series of all time. .It was also a good year for Hollywood, with quite a few successful films being released. Men in Black, The Fifth Element, Tomorrow Never Dies, Starship Troopers and this really obscure movie that nobody has ever heard of, called Titanic, just to just name a few. Hell, even Princess Mononoke deserves a honourable mention.

But then again, it was also pretty bad. We had the Spawn movie, Anaconda and yet, one of these movies completely outclassed them all in terms of terrible. There was a movie with wooden performances and superhero nipples, there was a film that almost killed the DC Comics superhero movie franchise. There was a movie that was literally drowning in money and big-movie effects, along with having unspeakably bad performances. A film that promises and lacks snap or surprise, humour or even the basic necessity of an action movie, real thrills.

It's enough to drive you batty....

This is Batman and Robin, the worst Blockbuster of all time.

If we were to judge this movie by it's own worth, then Batman & Robin fails to engage the spirit of any of their characters and even fails at decent marketing in general. The movie ended up as an unbelievably shallow knock-off, leaving audiences to cringe at the unavoidable one-liners that make up an impressive amount of the script. I'm mean, seriously. The worst of the bunch is Mr.Freeze, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, where almost everytime he speaks in the movie, it has to tie in with a “Cold” joke. I would show you a piece of the dialogue, but I don't think it would do the movie any justice.

[video=youtube;SRH-Ywpz1_I]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRH-Ywpz1_I[/video]

Dude! You need to chill the **** out!​

Story-wise, it's not particularly engaging. According to the synopsis, this superhero adventure leaves Batman (George Clooney) and his partner, Robin (Chris O'Donnell), attempting to the foil the sinister schemes of a set of new villains, most notably the cold-hearted Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger)nd the sultry Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman). As the Dynamic Duo contends with these bad guys, a third hero, Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone), joins the ranks of the city's crime-fighters. It could sound like a somewhat exciting story, especially for a Superhero film in the 90's.

And surprise-suprise, it doesn't work. Personally, the casting itself had to the potential make a surprisingly good film. George Clooney could have made a great Batman (square jawed, popular with the ladies), but the script proved to be his biggest downfall due to the somewhat tame nature for it's PG-13 audience. Uma Thurman is perfect for Poison Ivy, and she is the ONLY actor that actually pulled off her role well. She also happened to be an attractive and quirky actress, but you wouldn't know it by the emphasis on camp context and innuendo in this film. Arnie didn't exactly need to be casted, but it's unfortunately time that we'll never get back. But Chris O'Donnell and Alicia Silverstone as Robin and Batgirl? Nope!

What happened? The first movie was the best of the series. Dark, psychotic and complex movie with over the top acting and settings. The Batmobile was beautiful, and so was the sets. The sequel shared some of the traits of its predecessor while adding more lunacy to the mix. It did suffer from the lack of talent (with a very notable Jack Nicholson)

And then Mr. Schumacher ruined everything.

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Since its from the same series, there is no excuse for the director to run wild and away from the spirit of the originals. We have a broken and tortured soul fighting to keep his humanity. When Schumacher took over however, Batman seems to have the coolest cars, to kiss the most beautiful girls and to have a lot of fun while doing this. At least the first two films acknowledged that killing or hurting people was a conscious choice which was painfully taken by Batman. Schumacher's films seemed to imply that violence was fun and part of Batman´s life.

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Let's forget that this moment NEVER HAPPENED!​

Batman & Robin is really beyond over the top, the costumes were a bit silly and the story was just too family friendly with the source material. The acting was just stupid and not true to Batman at all. The problem here was that the story and setting just had nothing to do with what Batman truly is and was just an excuse to spend stupid money. Just some cold-hearted director wishing for your capital....

I'll show myself out.....

This Movie received One out of Five Lionhearts