Cliche after cliche, terrible action sequence upon terrible action sequence and pun after pun after pun after pun, "Batman & Robin" elicited cries of distress from its audience and requests for refunds.
The movie starts with Batman and Robin suiting up for action and covering their hindparts with form-fitting rubber cheeks. One cannot tell whether director Joel Schumacher is making a joke or a visual metaphor for the quality of the film.
"Batman & Robin" opens while Mr. Freeze, a tall, muscular, bald freak of nature (not to be confused with the Penguin, a short, fat, balding freak of nature) is trying to steal diamonds from a museum.
Batman and Robin try to stop him in a bewildering battle sequence which combines the mind numbing violence of ice hockey with the clumsy choreography of the Spice Girls. It is only the first of many incoherent and blatantly unrealistic action scenes.
The cast is largely irrelevant since they're buried beneath pounds of make-up, rubber and plastic. George Clooney is rather unheroic as Batman, Chris O'Donnell is quite annoying as Robin and Alicia Silverstone delivers a Keanu Reeves-esque portrayal of Batgirl.
Arnold Schwarzenegger at least looks impressive as Mr. Freeze, thanks to a bald head and glittering skin make-up. Because of a laboratory accident, he must keep his body temperature below freezing, and so he needs diamonds to power a special suit which uses lasers to keep him cold (?).
The majority of the plot revolves around Mr. Freeze trying to freeze all of Gotham city, either to blackmail the world into funding his attempts to save his cyrogenically frozen ill wife or to punish everyone for his lot in life.
Along the way, he teams up with Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman), a frumpy scientist who turned into a seductive super villain when a deranged man pushed her into a table full of chemicals (not to be confused with Catwoman, a frumpy secretary who turned into a seductive super villain when a deranged man pushed her out a window). Thurman manages to look respectable throughout the film, despite the fact that she's in it.
Adding a rather comical touch to the movie, Ivy's sidekick named Bane (as in, of humanity) grunted, groaned and uttered monosyllabic words with a surprising amount of humor. Unfortunately he got cheated by the costume department and looks like a second-rate professional wrestler.
On top of the three ne'er-do-wells, Batman and Robin start bickering like characters on MTV's "The Real World." "I want a car," Robin says. "I want my own signal."
Then Batman's butler, Alfred, gets sick and Alfred's niece (Silverstone) decides to visit and become Batgirl. Of course, Batman and Robin can't recognize her, what with those leather goggles she's wearing and all.
Finally, the good guys fight all the bad guys.
The dialogue in Akiva Goldsmith's script is both predictable and trite. Mr. Freeze uses every single cold pun ("Cool" "Chill" "When hell freezes over") many times over. At a Friday showing, when he said witty repartee such as, "Take two of these and call me in the morning," he left the audience gasping in horror at its lack of originality.
While Schumacher wasted millions of dollars on scenery and art design, the film's climax takes place in a setting that bears a remarkable resemblance to the Riddler's lair in "Batman Forever."
But the pain and suffering of "Batman & Robin" doesn't even end with Mr. Freeze's defeat. The audience then has to sit through two overwrought sappy speeches by Batman that are enough to make Hallmark cards sound heartwarmingly honest
In an effort to save Alfred's life, Batman turns missionary to try to convince Mr. Freeze to hand over an antidote because he was sure there was still a good man "buried beneath the snow." (Yes, Mr. Freeze conveniently carries around two vials of an antidote on his forearm.)
Then Batman gives a speech about how good families are or something. It was hard to hear over the loud moans of the audience.
Of the many horrible moments in "Batman & Robin," one in particular stands out -- Alfred's niece opens a CD-ROM he gave her and discovers it is filled with schematics for all of Batman's weapons and machinery, which Alfred apparently designed himself, in the spare time between his butler's duties.
As the niece watches in amazement, the blueprints and information encoded on the disk flash across the monitor, then are followed inexplicably by a graphics sequence from the film's opening credits.
The audience is left to believe that Alfred, who thought he was on his deathbed, took the time to develop this eye-catching computer graphic for the 'Batman & Robin' logo. If only he could have just gone to his grave and taken the Batman franchise with him.
Even though the villains in Batman movies usually have the juiciest part, Schwarzenegger hasn't had such a miserable part since "Last Action Hero."
Speaking of weak Arnold Schwarzenegger films, when it comes out on video, "Batman & Robin" should join "Jingle All the Way" on the comedy shelf. It is, unintentionally, one of the funniest films of the year. If only the audience could laugh with it instead of at it.
