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BATMAN & ROBIN (Joel Schumacher)



"Bad Writing, Bad Cast, Bad Directing, mix them together and you get Batman & Robin."

The Dark Knight, with his partner, the boy-wonder, must save Gotham once more. This time from the clutches of the Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy. With Ivy having the duo pitted against each other with her love potion, Freeze decides to cover the entire city in ICE. To make matters worse, their trusty butler Alfred is dying, from the same disease that took Mr. Freeze's wife. Can the help of Alfred's niece, BATGIRL be enough to stop Freeze and Ivy?

Joel Schumacher took on the role of bringing the Batman series into a new direction, geared towards younger kids. Forever, although not of the same caliber of Burton's films, was a nice new touch to the series. This time, the power behind WB wants the series to go even younger, and now we have a film full of cheesy one liners, crappy product placements and well...Elle Macpherson.

Batman and Robin continues the same style that was in Forever. Using the new bat suits with nipples, multiple villains, glow in the dark scenes and new crime fighters. Although, it takes a turn for the worse. Bad writing, bad cast, bad directing, mix them together and you get Batman and Robin.

Right from the start you know that the film is going to be bad, because we see Mr. Freeze, horribly miss-cast, spitting out one-liners the likes of "Chill" "Time to kick some ICE" and "Ice to see you!" This is not like the villain at all. Freeze is suppose to be a skinny, intelligent scientist. The opening fight scenes are terrible, as we see Freeze's gun get knocked out of his hands and then for some reason fly and stick to the top of the museum dinosaur. Playing hockey? The entire scene is too laughable, and shows you exactly what you are in-store for.

Another miscast would be the capped crusader himself. George Clooney, is not Bruce Wayne, or Batman for that matter. He doesn't have the charm, or the looks, or even the tone. If you really want to narrow it down, he doesn't even have the mouth for it. Clooney seemed too relaxed in the role, it seemed like he was just playing himself. Don't even get me started on Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl. First of all, she shouldn't even be the in film, too many characters, and secondly, if you indeed wanted her in the film, then make sure you have an actress you knows how to act. Seeing her spit out her lines was horrible. Then again, acting along side Chris O'Donnell, she is Oscar worthy.

The music, not as good as the Burton/Elfman score, does bring a smile to my face. It is a new style for the new films and it is really good. It fits perfectly with the whole Superhero/crime fighter style of the film. Other then Thurman, this is the only redeeming factor of the film.

Thurman, what a beautiful woman, who guess what is able to act. She pulls off Poison Ivy perfectly. She may have annoyed some people, but that it exactly what Poison Ivy does. Posion Ivy is a beautiful red headed, green wearing, mother nature loving bombshell. With Thurman having her own input on her character and how she wears her hair/uniform it comes off as a little bit better then the character create din the comics/animated show.

A lot of the scenes will make you laugh at how terrible they are, as well as make you roll your eyes at how convenient some things are, such as Freeze having those two cures in his suit for Alfred. Or how you can change the position of satellites to unfreeze the city. Not to mention the plot holes involving that.

Out of all four films, this one is definitely the weakest. In fact, it's so weak, it's one of the weakest films put to screen. I understand that the filmmakers were making it for kids and trying to have fun with the project...but when you have something that has a huge fan base, you do not mess with the formula. Burton had done it right, twice, and Schumacher had one good hit, here he misses the ball completely. It's nice to see that they are re-starting the series again, this time for the true fans of the series...not Mcdonalds kids.

3/10