Batman & Robin

Review by Jason Donner

And, with this, the live action Batman franchise goes straight to hell.

It's almost impossible to find a place to even start explaining what is wrong with Batman & Robin and why it should be consigned to the vat of toxic acids that turned Jack Napier into the Joker.  I could just save time by saying what is right about it.  Here goes: Uh... it does end.

Let's just start with the plot.

Victor Fries is a brilliant scientist trying to figure out a way to bring his wife out of suspended cold animation until one day he spills a coke on a computer and is blasted backwards into a vat of liquid nitrogen and stuff and is turned into the cold heartless criminal, Mr. Freeze who must stay in a cold suit to survive.

Next, in the middle of a South African rain forest, Doctor Pamela Isley is thrown into a vat of chemicals by her arms dealing employer and is transformed into the evil Poison Ivy who has complete and total control over all plants.

You'd think that someone would eventually cover up all of these open chemical vats in these movies.  Those things are dangerous!

Poison Ivy comes to Gotham to take over the world and with her she brings Bane, a chemically produced killing machine of a man with the brain of a hamster.

Meanwhile, in Gotham, the niece of Alfred, Bruce Wayne's humble servant, comes to town and eventually becomes Batgirl to aid Batman and Robin in their fight against evil.

Oh, and Alfred is dying, Bruce Wayne has a new girlfriend, and... you know what, let's just stop right there.

As you can well imagine, Batman & Robin is a horrible, horrible movie with too much gusto, too little style, and no heart and soul whatsoever. Characters are reduced to spouting bad one liners as they leap through the air on cables doing stunts that would make Charlie's Angels scratch their heads in confusion.

Director Joel Schumacher bungled this movie so badly that he even ignored the advice of Batman creator Bob Kane when it came to how the characters should behave. Schumacher had the egomaniacal audacity to mention in an interview that Bob Kane, "just didn't get it."

But it's more than obvious who didn't "get it" when one watches this farce of a movie as badly placed and awkward homosexual undertones, camp, bad humor, horrible action, overpowering special effects, and one of the worst scripts in Hollywood history does what the Joker, Catwoman, Penguin, Riddler, and Two-Face never could. It kills Batman!

If you look up "cinematic turd" in the dictionary, this movie will be listed.