Here’s a true story: It’s the summer of 1997 and I’m standing in line at the recently built Showcase North, the city of Worcester’s first multiplex. Me? I’m a real pompous A-hole film student at the time so I was probably queued up to see Gummo or some other outre arthouse flick (who am I kidding? I was seeing Con Air. You think they played Gummo in Worcester!?). As I’m waiting for my theater to be seated another screening starts to let out. A door swings open and out walks this rotund kid with an unironic mullet, bottle cap glasses, and a MST3K T-shirt. His hands are balled into fists and his face is beet red. He starts to pace back and forth, huffing and puffing. “I HATE Joel Schumacher,” he shouts, “I just HATE HIM!” His girlfriend quickly rushes after him, gently rubbing his shoulders and whispering “I know you do. It’s Ok, baby...” I hear this and I’m thinking “he best not be talking about the same cat who directed Flatliners! Man, I oughta tune him up for that talk!” Or at least dump a couple of nonpareils on his Tevas. I’m also thinking that Joel Schumacher isn’t exactly a household name...so why is Comic-Con here in such a twist? I glance up to see that the movie he has just watched is Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin...and he ain’t the only one coming out of the theater looking butthurt. I have myself a good laugh at all of this because I was born with near-complete immunity to the charms of comic book superhero movies. You remember when Freddie Mercury said that Jaws was never his scene and that he didn’t like Star Wars? So it goes with this writer and your Avengers and Supermen and Guardians of the Galaxy (although I did think Black Panther was pretty tight). I’m not callous, though. I’m not without sympathy for people who love an author/band/director/film series that continually disappoints them. Do you know how many times I have purchased a Weezer album over the last 20 years and screamed “god I HATE Rivers Cuomo!” Eight times out of the last ten albums. Yet I continue to buy them anyway! Whomever this kid was, I hope the Chris Nolan movies brought him some degree of solace.
While I’m known to throw a Scorsese-sized tantrum about superhero movies from time to time, I gotta cop to the fact that I was a pretty massive fan of Tim Burton’s Batman flicks. I mean...I was 10 when the first one came out. A summer tentpole blockbuster like that is like crack to a ten year-old. I had to have the toys and the ball cap and the trading cards and the weird soundtrack where Prince recorded himself having sex with Kim Basinger for 15 minutes....and I had to have them NOW! Batman Returns? Showed up at 6 AM so I could be the first to buy tickets for the very first local showing, which turned out to be unnecessary as it never even sold out. Batman Forever didn’t hit until ’95, which is post Tarantino. Which means that if a movie didn’t feature loads of graphic violence, a satchel of stolen diamonds, and a bunch of scenes where dudes sat around discussing the hidden meanings behind Boz Scaggs’ “Lido” then I was probably not interested. I saw Batman Forever in the theater and forgot about it before I hopped into my Dodge Shadow to drive home. The only thing I remember about Batman Forever is the soundtrack and how my pal Ritchie Rovezzi lost his virginity to Seal’s “Kiss from a Rose” after the prom that year. Actually, I’m scanning the track list now: Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Flaming Lips, AND Sunny Day Real Estate!? That’s a murder’s row right there!
What little desire I might’ve had to watch Batman & Robin was quickly extinguished by that one kid’s anti Joel Schumacher shit fit. It also won a bunch of awards and by “awards'' I mean Golden Raspberries. Since I’m currently quarantined for the next 1 to 24 months with a dwindling stack of VHS tapes I figured I would go ahead and check out Batman & Robin to see what all of the fuss was about. Mention Batman & Robin to anyone over the last 23 years and they are likely to have only remembered one thing: the fact that Batman’s costume has nipples. That sounds a little weird...no doubt...but I could never really understand why that would be such a big deal. That is, until I pressed play and a close-up of Batman’s nipples is literally the THIRD SHOT of the movie! I believe it goes; helmet, gloves, nipples, ass, and then codpiece. No, it’s really friggin’ weird, y’all....like if Larry Clark had directed a Batman movie. So the movie opens and Batman and Robin are chilling in the Batcave, shooting the breeze with their long suffering butler Alfred, who looks like he’s dying. Dying to not act in any more shitty Batman movies, amirite?? Don’t worry, homie--they got Mikey Caine waiting in the wings. I figured the actor who played Alfred (Michael Gough) was on his way out too but it turns out he still had another 14 years worth of life to live...so good on him. Commissioner Gordon buzzes in on the radio and announces that there’s a new villain in Gotham City so why don’t you stop washing your tights and go gettum?? I mean, why bother with character development when you can just have a character appear on screen and explain everything to us in the first two minutes of the movie??
This Mr Freeze guy is played by California’s 38th Governor and Jingle all the Way star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was paid $25 million dollars for 25 days of work on this flick. That’s right...a million bones a day. I’m not sure what governing pays but it sure as shit ain’t that. When I say he “worked” on this movie I mean he sat in a makeup chair for like 10 hours, screamed one-liners for two hours, showered, and then went out somewhere to cheat on Bobby Kennedy’s niece. His “acting” here makes his performance in Kindergarten Cop look like Daniel Day-Lewis in (name any Daniel Day-Lewis movie) by comparison. Batman and Robin rush to the Natural History Museum to confront Mr Freeze and his army of evil Ice Capades castoffs. “The Iceman cometh!” he bellows! “You’re not sending me to the cooler!” I think...I guess...Mr Freeze is there to steal diamonds because his ice suit is diamond-powered. He covers the entire museum and ice so they can all have themselves a skate off. Luckily Batman and Robin had the good foresight to wear boots with built-in retractable ice skate blades. There’s some stunts and people play hockey with diamonds and WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING!? To quote Blazing Saddles “I don’t know....but I hate it!” You can’t start a movie with a long ass action sequence when we don’t even know what the stakes are?? Who is doing what and why? We don’t even know that the dude in the Batman costume isn’t Val Kilmer yet! Eventually Mr Freeze hops into his spaceship and blasts the eff out of there with Batman and Robin giving chase. “Can you feel de icy cold of space!?” Freeze yells. (“Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids/In fact it’s cold as hell”--Elton John). He freezes Robin to death but Batman decides to be a pal and lets Freeze get away so he can defrost Robin. He lives.
The action then moves to some leftover Zamunda sets from Coming to America. There, we find Uma Thurman working as some sort of botanist under the tutelage of the evil Dr Woodrue. She’s trying to use plants to save the world but the evil doctor wants to use them for evil, being an evil doctor and all. At least I think that’s what’s happening. I start to check to see how much movie is still left to watch. Answer: a lot. Evil Doctor injects a bunch of poison into a dude with an average build, turning him into a musclebound monster. This is Bane...who I think is a big deal character in the more recent Batman flicks. Again, I wouldn’t be the one to ask. The Evil Doctor kills Uma Thurman by covering her with poisonous plants and snakes and shit but she immediately comes back to life as an evil seductress named Poison Ivy who can kill a man (or lady) with a simple kiss. Nowhere, at any point in this movie, does anyone mention that poison ivy is ITCHY AS SHIT!! Nothing sexy about a case of poison ivy...no sir/ma’am. Poison Ivy and Bane decide to head to Gotham city to fulfill some sort of HR clause that stipulates that there be both male and female villains. Seems reasonable.
Back at the Bathouse, Batman and Robin have changed into their civvies and the man who overplayed Jim Morrison to death is nowhere in sight! That’s right--Val Kilmer was well on his way to becoming the George Lazenby of the Batman franchise until 17 time People’s Sexiest Man Alive winner George Clooney parachuted into the series. And look...I love the Cloondog. He’s had an interesting career and he’s aged better than any man/woman/child/animal on the entire planet. He’s also a good do gooder offscreen, not to mention dead fookin’ sexy! He was 35 years old when he shot Batman & Robin and still mostly known for ER...so this had to be a huge pull for him. Well, you’d never know by watching him ‘cuz he looks like he DGAF!!! Like, he looks actively unhappy to be in this movie...sort of like Chevy Chase in every movie starring Chevy Chase. Chris O’Donnell, here playing Robin for the second time, also has negative charisma. Throw the two of them together and sparks DO NOT fly (must be all that ice). I have seen funeral parlor workers with snappier banter.
ANYWAY...we finally get Mr Freeze’s origin story: turns out he was actually a doctor named Victor Frieze who had his wife cryogenically frozen because she was suffering from a scarcely explained condition called MacGregor’s disease (as in Ewan?). I guess he biffed it up and froze himself and became an evil iceman...which is wicked convenient as his last name already sounds like FREEZE! If he was Dr Belcher then what--would his superpower be belching? I don’t know about y’all but I really hope they make a Mr Freeze origin story flick! I’d watch Joaquin Phoenix run around the Bronx trying to rub ice cubes on people’s nipples...begging people to give him a shit ton of Oscars. Mr Freeze wants to ice all of Gotham City and steal billions worth of diamonds and get his wife fixed up. Fair doss, mate. Poison Ivy wants to end the world and to start over from scratch. I mean...that’s more or less what’s actually happening as I sit here typing but it unfortunately has nothing to do with Uma Thurman (that I know of).
Batman and Robin are visited by Aerosmith CryinAmazinCrazy video star Alicia Silverstone, who claims to be Alfred’s niece from London. Homegirl must’ve left her accent on the aeroplane, eh? Robin is immediately smitten. Clooney hangs out in the background wearing a turtleneck, looking as bored as the people watching this movie. Later he steps out as Bruce Wayne to donate some sort of gigantor telescope to the city of Gotham. He’s accompanied by his longtime girlfriend Julie, who is basically an extra but who is also supermodel Elle Macpherson. I think she has six lines, one of which is “will you marry me” the answer to which is a resounding NO. Cloondog is a bachelor-4-life! Bruce Wayne has invited the entire city up to his pad for a Diamond Ball, which is kind of like a Diamond Jubilee but with no Queen. Wait, do people know that Bruce Wayne is Batman in this movie?? Does anyone care?? Hello??
So they have this party and it’s friggin’ bonkers. It looks like Studio 54...right down to the roller skating midgets with cocaine-packed mirrors on their heads. Poison Ivy shows up and blows pheromone dust all over everyone and the dudes are all in PLATOW, particularly Robin. Mr Freeze busts in and yells “alright everyone...CHILL!” A 45 minute long chase scene follows. I grow profoundly bored so I look up Joel Schumacher on the interwebs and learn that he claims to have slept with over 20,000 men! So he’s 80 years old now. Let’s say he’s been sexually active since he was 15. That’s like 383 dudes a year for 65 years! Like 1.1 dudes a day! I mean...I guess he did direct The Lost Boys...so you gotta give the guy a hand(job).
Like the late Mr Brown once said: what the fuck was I just talking about? Oh right...there’s a chase and Mr Freeze is captured and sent to Alan Arkham Asylum. Batman and Robin start to beef because Robin feels inferior. He feels like Batman treats him like a baby. He’s all “when am I gonna get my own motherfuckin’ symbol in the motherfuckin’ sky, huh?....HUH!?” I mean...dude...you’re a total Garfunkel. Pipe down and be happy you get to live in a bomb mansion rent free, Fredo. Alicia Silverstone resurfaces, having taken the middle part of the movie off, and steals a motorcycle and heads out into the city. The streets of Gotham, which we really haven’t gotten a good peep at yet, look like some sort of Terry Gilliam hellscape that he created after ingesting bad Molly. There’s people in Skeletor masks and Clockwork Orange cosplayers and the entire cast of Warriors and COOLIO! Actual Coolio! Alicia Silverstone is competing in some sort of motorcycle race so she can win money to buy Alfred out of servitude and bring him home to England to die. He apparently has the Ewen MacGregor too (symptoms include incredible mastery of accents and frequently showing your penis in movies). Alfred says he’s cool to stay there and buttle so...there’s that.
Are y’all having a hard time handling all of this non-existent suspense? I know I am! So Poison Ivy breaks Freeze out of the Asylum but then someone tells Freeze that Batman killed his wife and dude starts to melt and also meltdown. He says that if he has to suffer he will freeze the world and everyone will suffer. Dude, wasn’t that your plan all along though? Says he’s gonna rip out Batman’s heart and watch it freeze in his hand. Frozen bat heart? That’s how we got this goddamn Coronavirus!! Poison Ivy tries to seduce Robin. Tells her that she’s slippery when wet...which is the name of an album that a lot of people like...but that I do not. She gives him the poison kiss but OPE! Robin had the good sense to put rubber lips on! Her kiss is NOT on his list! Back in the Batcave Alicia Silverstone finds some superhero-making app on the computer and turns herself into Batgirl with like 5 minutes left in the goddamn movie (close up: ass...boobs...butt...check).
Batman and Robin race to kill Freeze and Ivy. Batman says “I want to kill Ivy and Freeze so bad I can taste it” with the conviction of a TV repairman in a porno flick. So...I don’t know...Freeze freezes the city but Batman uses his laser to unfreeze it. There’s a completely incomprehensible chase/battle sequence and all I can think about is what a massive missed opportunity the fact that they didn’t use Madonna’s “Frozen” in this movie is. I mean...Ray of Light came out in 1997 too! So Batman, Robin, and Batgirl save the day. They tell Freeze that his wife isn’t dead and that he can continue his research from the insane asylum, where he will have to bunk with Uma Thurman. There are worse fates. Back at the bat hacienda the crew arrives home to find Alfred has kicked MacGregor and is back to washing tights. Batgirl asks the fellas if she can join their non-dynamic, charmless chess club and they say that she can. Alfred says “we’re gonna need a bigger cave” which is, of course, a reference to Jaws...which cost $151 million less than Batman & Robin and is about 10 zillion times as entertaining. Oooof...finally...the credits roll! Wait...how did I miss Nicky Katt in this?? The “I’m the one smoking marijuana motherfucker” guy from Dazed & Confused!? I love that guy! Oh well.