Overall Rating
  Awesome: 0.27%
Worth A Look: 1.65%
Average: 5.77%
Pretty Bad: 12.09%
Total Crap: 80.22%
9 reviews, 310 user ratings
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| Batman & Robin |
by Chris Parry
"Simply, one of the two worst films of the last ten years."

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Oh, I'm gonna enjoy this. The feeling of annoyance at having spent money to see this abhorrent waste of celluloid was what inspired us to create Hollywood Bitchslap in the first place.Okay, Speed 2 was a contributing factor, but Batman And Robin started the ball rolling.
Why?
Because it's the most perfect case of Hollywood treating the masses like unthinking cattle that I've ever been privy to.
Check it out.
You have the world's most phallic Batmobile ever, it's a penis, no question. By Schumacher's own admission, "it just speaks cock".
You have extreme close-ups of stunt butts in the leather Batman suit in the opening two seconds of the film, mostly George Clooney's and Chris O'Donnell's, but occasionally Alicia's butt double too. That's not anything I need to see in the opening of a film. George Clooney's tight leather clad butt in Cinemascope?? Good God, I nearly spat my popcorn.
You have such unsubtle gay sexual imagery as a huge statue of a muscled-up boy holding two balls, which serves as a streetlight. Uh, that's not gothic, that's man-to-man-love.
You have Batman and Robin having a jealousy fight because Robin's in love with a "girl", poor old bear-daddy George doesn't feel Chris should be falling for that "viper". Pleeeeease.
You have Schwarzenegger in a role that didn't allow him to A: move, B: act, C: do anything else. Why was he there? Oh yeah. He got star-billing, so he was the consumer lure. Gotcha. "Enroll Arnold, fork out $20m and we don't even need to make him do anything!" must have been the studio mantra.
You have bad guys on ice in hockey outfits, shooting explosive pucks n'shit. Now, this must have been a Jon Peters idea, because it's the dumbest ass shit since.. well the opening of the film, not to mention a Running Man rip-off. In fact, this scene (crooks on ice) was so bad that when they tested the film, people were laughing at it. Reshoots were arranged (though the studio denied it) and did they cut the scene? NO! They just reshot it! Oh, the humanity...
Then there's a skysurfing scene. B&R get stuck in a rocket, hurtling into space. So what do they do? They kick out a door each, throw themselves out the rocket, land on the falling doors and skysurf them to the ground. Safely. I mean, if it sounds like the lamest idea since the Arnold-scapades, that's because it is. Suspension of disbeleif doesn't even come into it. This is total shit from clay.
Then we have Uma. She falls into a hole in the ground filled with poison, then three days later comes up in a green suit saying "my veins are filled with poison and my kiss is deadly" or some such shit. Basically, being underground in poison for three days aparently supplies you with a latex suit, complete biological information, and a new hairstyle. And it let's you control all plantlife. Gotcha.
Then there's Alicia. Not to be rude or anything, but, hang on scratch that. This is to be rude. SHE'S A PORKER! But that's okay. I mean, Excess Baggage or not, that shouldn't mean she can't act, right? Well, she can't. Or at least she doesn't.
AND! AND! In the action scenes you get this situation where they cut from a skinny, flipping, kicking stunt double to close-ups of el-porko bulging out of her suit.
There's more. There's gags like, oh how I laughed at this one, Batman giving someone a... HAHAHAHAH... get this.. giving someone a credit card with "Batman" on it...HAHHAHAHA... and then he says "I never leave the cave without it". BWAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHHAHAHAA!
One person in the cinema laughed at that joke, I swear. Lots of others turned and looked at him saying "you found that funny?" This is clearly the same guy who laughs every time Murtagh and Riggs say "I'm getting too old for this shit".
Put simply, this was gay fantasia, which in itself I have no problem with at all. But I didn't pay to see Love! Valour! Compassion! or Priscilla, I paid to see Batman And Robin. And I, like everyone else there that day, got well and truly ripped off. Instead we got a Joel Schumacher home-made porno.And it all comes down to John Peters and Joel Schumacher having a complete lack of respect for the viewing public. For that they deserve to be strapped in a chair and have B&R and Speed 2 played for them on a loop for eternity.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=88&reviewer=1 originally posted: 08/26/98 15:24:46
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USA 20-Jul-1997 (PG-13) DVD: 18-Oct-2005
UK N/A
Australia 29-Jun-1995 (PG)
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