Batman and Robin *** (1997, George Clooney, Chris O’Donnell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman, Alicia Silverstone, Michael Gough, Pat Hingle) – Classic Movie Review 524

Director Joel Schumacher’s critically bashed 1997 effort is his sequel to his 1995 Batman Forever. Unfortunately, Batman and Robin is everybody’s least favourite Batman movie, but it does at least look a treat and have an enjoyable campy atmosphere.

The completely miscast and embarrassed-looking George Clooney takes over as Batman after Val Kilmer walks, and it’s a near disaster of performance as well as casting. He just doesn’t look right in the Batman suit, he’s a lounge lizard sort of man who wears the other kind of suit to perfection. A returning Chris O’Donnell is again more than just okay as Robin the Boy Wonder – he’s absolutely fine, though admittedly he was better when he shared screen chemistry with Val Kilmer’s Batman in Batman Forever.

In the thinnish plot here, the dynamic duo have to battle the evil Mr Freeze aka Dr Victor Fries (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Poison Ivy aka Dr Pamela Isley (Uma Thurman).

It is very lucky that these two actors are aboard because they liven things up no end. Alicia Silverstone looks good but dramatically she isn’t much help to the movie as Batgirl.

Michael Gough is back as butler Alfred Pennyworth, Pat Hingle is again Commissioner James Gordon, and Elle Macpherson (as Julie Madison), Viveca A Fox, Vendela Kirsebom and Elizabeth Sanders are also in the cast. It’s the first live action appearance of Julie Madison, created in the comics in 1939 as Batman’s first significant love interest.

This massive disappointment for a while effectively killed the Batman franchise until director Christopher Nolan brought Batman back to the big screen with Batman Begins in 2005.

Technically this is a remake of the 1949 entertaining 15-part serial Batman and Robin, in which Robert Lowery as Batman and Johnny Duncan as Robin battle the wicked Wizard.

Adam West and Burt Ward re-created their hit TV series roles as billionaire Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson for the 1966 feature Batman: The Movie.

Schumacher says that he was under pressure from toy companies and Warner Brothers to deliver a family-friendly film and admits he went too far in that direction, but takes full responsibility for the end result and apologizes to fans who were disappointed. ‘If there’s anyone that loved Batman Forever and went into Batman and Robin with great anticipation, if I disappointed them in any way, then I really want to apologize, cause it wasn’t my intention. My intention was just to entertain them. I felt I disappointed a lot of older fans by being too conscious of the family aspect. Now I owe the hardcore fans the Batman movie they would love me to give them.’ Alas, it never happened.

Schumacher says that screenwriter ‘Akiva Goldsman was blamed a lot for this sort of lightness and humour and fun and games of Batman and Robin but that’s not fair. I take full responsibility. I mean Akiva did write the script but I shot it and worked with Akiva, so you know, if you love a movie, there are hundreds of people who made it lovable for you. If you don’t like it, blame the director. That what our name’s there for.’

And why did Val Kilmer walk? ‘Val did me two great favours,’ Schumacher says. ‘When I wanted him to be Batman, he said yes. Then he created a situation which allowed me not to have him play Batman again. They were both happy, happy instances, for which I will always be grateful.’

Mr Freeze is no science genius apparently. When he says ‘At 30,000 feet, your heart will freeze and beat no more’, he doesn’t seem to know that the human heart can survive that altitude without freezing and his limbs would freeze before the heart.

Even after the fiasco of his Daredevil casting in 2003, Ben Affleck is cast as the new Batman in 2013. Matt Damon denied rumours that he would play Robin! This was released as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016).

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© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Film Review 524 derekwinnert.com