Movie Review: Batman & Robin

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Fun, charm

Cons: Camp, especially from the villains

The Bottom Line:

Franchise comes to end

With campy film that most hate

But still has some charms

“Secrets Are a Prerequisite in this House, Don’t You Think?”

Here it is – the film that killed the original Batman movie franchise.  Batman & Robin seems to be universally loathed.  I remember seeing it back in the second run theater in 1997 (are second run theaters still a thing?) and thinking it wasn’t that bad.  Even today, I don’t see why it is so loathed even though I can see some flaws.

When this movie picks up, Batman (George Clooney) and Robin (Chris O’Donnell) are about to find themselves facing a couple of new villains.  First up, Dr. Victor Fries (Arnold Schwarzenegger) has accidentally turned himself into Mr. Freeze while attempting to find a cure for his wife’s disease.  Now he’s attempting to collect enough diamonds to make his experiment work.  Meanwhile, an attempt to kill Dr. Pamela Isley (Uma Thurman) instead turns her into Poison Ivy, a woman out to save the environment and plants at any cost.  When these two villains team up, it causes plenty of problems for the town, especially since Batman and Robin can’t quite figure out how to work together.

Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne’s faithful butler Alfred (Michael Gough) gets a surprise visit from his niece Barbara (Alicia Silverstone).  And Barbara just might uncover some of the secrets of Wayne manner.  If she joins the fight, will that help defeat the villains?

Yes, there is a lot happening here, and it helps the fast pace that we get Mr. Freeze’s backstory in some quick exposition instead of watching it happen.  We do get to see Dr. Isley become Poison Ivy, but there isn’t a long backstory involved.  I did get a kick out of seeing John Glover as part of her backstory since he was part of Smallville for so many years.  Anyway, this movie is full speed ahead with the action.  There’s enough story to link the action scenes together, but it never bogs things down.

And we get plenty of action.  There are multiple action sequences filled with stunts and special effects.  Okay, so quite a bit of it is over the top, but I bought what I was seeing since as I turned off the logical part of my brain arguing that what I was watching wasn’t really possible.

So where does the movie go wrong?  It has a huge camp factor.  That is what has made this film so universally loathed.  And I get it.  I love puns, but even I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at some of the dialogue the characters were given to say.  Some of the performances really play into the camp as well, especially those coming from the villains.  They were over the top.  The heroes were better at finding the right balance.  Having just watched Batman Forever before I watched this, I’d argue that villains here aren’t that much more over the top than the villains in that movie were.  That one had Jim Carrey playing The Riddler, after all.

I think this doesn’t bother me as much as it does others for a couple of reasons.  I tolerate quite a bit of camp and cheese.  Just look at the amount of Hallmark movies I watch and review.  Also, this feels much more like a modern action film where the action drives the story and not the other way around.  The action scenes are definitely over the top, which again, feels like many of the modern action movies.  Yes, this is definitely the lightest of the original film franchise, but I enjoy light, so that’s another thing in the film’s favor as far as I am concerned.

What bothered me the most was Bruce Wayne’s love life.  Yes, he has a new girlfriend here.  She’s just background in a couple of scenes, not a major part of the story for the first time in the franchise – there’s just too much else going on.  However, it is implied that the two of them have been together for a long time.  Just how long has it been between movies, and what happened to his girlfriend from that one?

I see the flaws, and I can understand why it bothers people.  This certainly isn’t my favorite of the original Batman films.  But Batman & Robin has a certain charm to it that makes me enjoy it despite the flaws.