Son of the Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese: Day 28 - Batman and Robin

Oh god what a horrible film.

Just amazing – watching it was like watching an attic full of junk break though the floor and fall to the ground in front of you. No rhyme no reason just the chaos of randomly falling objects making a lot of noise. It’s a very loud film.

On every level it fails.

Fails big time.

It all fails, the costumes the sets, the fights the stupid jokes Mr. Freeze makes all fail miserably

This 1997 film was an utter disaster at the box office and finished the franchise.

And it didn’t sell a lot of toys either.

Honestly I don’t know what the hell anybody on this film was trying to do – or why.

There are a lot of whys in this film.

Why put nipples on the batsuits? I mean what the hell was the point of that. If this is intended or was intended more for younger audiences – as the loud neon colors and having things like Robin Say cowabunga! He says this at one point as he surfs down the side of a building using the hatch from a rocket ship. Don’t ask please don’t ask, I’d have to explain it and  I think that would probably be enough to depresses me for weeks on end.

Anyway why nipples on the batsuits if this is supposed to be oriented towards kids?  Family friendly? Only if the whole family was on meth I guess.

I noticed that the Batgirl costume did not have nipples – keeping that pg rating I guess.

I’m almost speechless at the sheer scale of the failure here. The main plot point that Freeze is going to modify the Gotham observatory’s telescope to freeze all of Gotham makes very little sense – mostly because you don’t put observatories in the middle of cities – if you want to look at the stars you need to get away from cites which – for astronomers – just sources of light pollution. Growing up on long island as I did I never really got to see the milky way until I was out in the Poconos well away from the city lights. Anybody putting up a telescope in the middle of a major city is crazy or stupid.

Arnold Schwarzenegger over acts (of course) in the role of Mr. Freeze – someone apparently counted the times he said things like “chill out” or “Freeze” or “winter here” making some sort of stupid pun on Freezing. I guess it was to keep from breaking something – he just won’t shut up with the lame cold puns .

The story – if you want to call it that involves the various plans of Mr. freeze to do something and Poison Ivy played by Uma Thurman (and up until this point I thought her Emma Peel was the worst thing I saw her do) who can control men’s minds with her powders and kiss of death and a habit of talking like Mae West to do things to.

Rounding out the bad guys is Bane – who well just howls a lot and flexes and then has is pipes ripped out and ends up shrinking – no don’t ask please, I’ll have to explain and it’ll hurt.

Whatever.

The story also has to deal with Batman and Robin learning to trust each other to act like a team and this is handled with all the deft and skill of an after school special directed by Ed Wood.

I understand the director has apologized for this film (as well he should).

There is a further sub plot introducing bat girl – Alfred’s niece in the film – the comic she’s always been commissioner Gordon’s daughter but the thought the guy was to old – how about the commissioners’ niece?  Well I guess they couldn’t have the stupid Alfred is dying of a movie disease that Mr. Freeze just happens to know how to cure sub plot. Gag me please. Christ Godzilla never got this silly. Okay when he flew using the fire breath but that’s about it.

The opening fight sequence alone – with the hockey sticks and the large diamond on ice was pretty it much for me – I stopped taking notes fairly early on – as well why? What’s the point. It was like taking notes during the Hindenburg disaster – other than saying the whole damn thing is on fire what’s the point? How many times can you write down this is stupid without feeling utterly defeated.

Why the motorcycle race? Really why?

Why the Max Headroom version of Alfred when the bat girl to be breaks into the bat cave?

What one earth were these people thinking watching the dailies? Okay we need more fake ice here – and oh Uma love the mae west stuff. Arnold – where do you get all those ice quips.

I suppose the only really good thing about this film was it stopped the franchise dead and laid the ground work for the far superior Batman Begins which at least treated the material with some respect.

Enjoy with a salad and Frozen Fruit ices. But you won’t.