The Weird Turn Pro

Batman & Robin
1997, PG-13
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Screenplay by Akiva Goldsman

Almost immediately, we are bombarded with dramatic introductions to Batman’s extensive line of “Burger King kids meal” themed gadgetry.  The vehicles have eclipsed the characters in dramatic importance.  This is a movie about toys.  Our heroes finally emerge, and they are already bickering.  Robin tells Alfred not to wait up.  Alfred says… he’ll cancel the pizzas?  Good God.  Two minutes in and something is already very, very wrong.

Batman and Robin drive their bat-vehicles at top speed through a flashy hall that seems far too extensively decorated for something no one is ever supposed to see.  A call comes in from the commissioner.  “There’s a new villain in town.”  He actually says that.  Some guy with a freeze gun is menacing people at the Gotham something-or-other.  Apparently, the costumed vigilante known as Batman has completely supplanted the police force in Gotham City.  Enter Arnold Schwartzenegger in a giant mechanical spacesuit.  “The Iceman cometh,” he says and begins covering people with ice.  Get it?  Responding to pleas for mercy he retorts, “My condition has left me cold.”  That would be two puns in under a minute.  Moments later, he’s found his quarry—a comically oversized diamond—the kind Sonic the Hedgehog might collect.  Batman shows up, crashing through yet another one of Gotham’s many glass-topped cathedral buildings.  He then skates down a conveniently-placed statue, and launches himself at Mr. Freeze.  “Get them!” Freeze wails, and his men—evil ice hockey placers—emerge from behind him.  I blinked, and in that time, Batman and Robin somehow both had their own hockey sticks.  At the press of a button, ice skates mechanically appear through the feet of our heroes—placed there, I guess, just in case this very, very weird situation occurred—and now they’re also playing ice hockey, using the huge diamond as the puck.  We’re now about five minutes in, and everything is totally and unequivocally screwed.

I’m exhausted.  I don’t care who wins and who loses, I just want this whole arduous viewing experience to end.

Batman & Robin is the fourth movie in the Batman franchise, and the second created by Joel Schumacher.  It seems to have started up right where the third film left off.  That is, except Batman’s jowls now belong to George Clooney.  Watching him continually attempt his trademarked “Clooney Head Bob” with a big, plastic helmet holding his face forward might be the only entertainment you’ll find in this movie.  Arnold Schwartzenegger and Uma Thurman spend all their screen time spitting bad puns all over you, Chris O’Donnell reminds us once again why the whole idea of Robin is badly conceived, and Alicia Silverstone makes for a whiny, petulant Batgirl.  Did I mention Batgirl races motorcycles?  Do you think that’s radical?  Warner Brothers believes you will.  You’re also supposed to believe in an ancient order of butlers.  That’s right, an ancient order of butlers.

One more thing, and this just has to be said.  Now, how can I put this lightly?  Well, let’s start with the bat-nipples.  Yes, much has been said of the infamous choice of Joel Schumacher to add faux nipples to the exterior of the plastic armor Batman and Robin wear.  Some have mentioned that they had their origins in the previous movie, Batman Forever.  That may be true, but here they stand out like Jujubees.  You will, however, find no nipples whatsoever on the Batgirl costume.  Now why do you think that is?  Do you think Sigmund Freud might hazard a guess?  I wonder what he’d think of the rest of the Batman & Robin movie, which contains lingering extreme close-ups of their asses and bulging codpieces.  Then, cut to a flashy city full of large Charles Atlas-type statues.  In one scene, they drive their ultra-phallic vehicles down the statue’s rippling, muscular arm.

Practically drowning in this sea of homoeroticism, our heroes are desperate to show us how much they want to screw one of the villains in this film, namely Poison Ivy.  They feverishly use her to show us how straight they really are, like Tom Cruise shouting his affection for Katie Holmes on Oprah.  But there’s another huge problem with this, and that’s the strange fact that Poison Ivy is not really a woman.  That may seem an odd thing to say as Poison Ivy is being played by the otherwise attractive Uma Thurman.  But if you’ve ever seen Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, or perhaps The Rocky Horror Picture Show, (or work a stone’s throw from Chelsea in New York City like I do), it should be pretty obvious that Uma is not playing a woman.  She is playing a drag queen.  Now, I have nothing against drag queens as they are much more entertaining than this movie could ever hope to be.  I’m simply stating the fact that… well… well let’s just say it.  This is the gayest Batman that’s ever likely to get made.

Who else could this movie possibly be for?  It can’t be for adults who are undoubtedly going to be turned off by the silliness which is so unrelenting they will not, for one moment, be able to take any of this seriously.  It also can’t be for children as the sexual overtones scream so loudly it’s hard to hear much else.  Like Catwoman in the second film languorously tongue-bathing her bondage leather in full, corny cat-mode, this movie tries with all its might to appeal to the clown-fetish in none of us, all the while selling an assembly line of toy spinoffs to our kids.  I find all of this to be more than just a little bit horrifying.

Mr. Joel Schumacher, please listen well: none of this gave anyone but you a boner, and I hope this movie annihilated your career.

Review by Master Jimmy