And thus was the '90s Batman franchise declared dead and buried with a headstone six feet above it. It's safe to say that "Batman & Robin" has become a byword over the intervening 20 years or so for how to get a big money superhero movie about as wrong as you can possibly get it. With Tim Burton now off the project after being marginalised during "Batman Forever", Joel Schumacher was given full rein to do as he wanted and the net result was an overly-cartoonish film which was aiming for the endearing silliness of the Adam West era version of the Caped Crusader but missed by a mile. The saddest thing is, it should never really have come to this - although Val Kilmer had bailed on the franchise after one film, the addition of George Clooney (then hot property on the back of "ER") as the new Batman seemed on the surface to be a decent move and the addition of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Uma Thurman as the two villains, Mr Freeze and Poison Ivy respectively, actually had potential on the surface, likewise the addition of Alicia Silverstone hot off the box office success of "Clueless" as Batgirl. But even at the time, the general consensus was that this film stunk like a dead skunk in a heatwave and it effectively sunk the whole Batman franchise for close to a decade. I mean for Christ's sake, even the title doesn't make sense given that Robin had already made his debut in "Batman Forever" two years previously! And now, thanks to the stupid promise I made that I was gonna revisit every Marvel and DC film for this blog, I have to watch it again twenty years later. Gulp...
The film starts with Batman and Robin being called to a robbery at the Gotham Art Gallery by new supervillain Mr Freeze who's trying to nick a diamond to power his freeze suit. We find out that Freeze was a brilliant cryogenics scientist who fell into a vat of liquid nitrogen following a lab accident while trying to find a cure for his terminally ill wife which turned him into the maniac he is now. Due to being unable to live at normal temperatures, he uses his freeze suit to power him wherever he goes.
Even at this early stage of the film, Arnie is chucking out ridiculous snow/frost-based puns ("The Iceman cometh!", "You're not sending me to the cooler!") and the sequence ends with Batman and Robin taking on his goons in a game of hockey to recover the gem. Yeah, even at this stage, this film isn't looking promising...
Batman manages to tail Freeze to his rocket only to be frozen to the thing as Freeze fires it into the sky with the aim of going up so high that it freezes Batman's brain then sending it plummeting to earth on top of Gotham. Robin sneaks on board and frees Batman with the two of them using two of the rocket panels as surfboards to sky-surf back to earth and chase Freeze (cue some more unbelievably clunky dialogue including Robin shouting "Cowabunga!"). However, Freeze zaps Robin with his ice ray and makes off with the diamond as Batman has to stop to defrost his partner.
Meanwhile, at a Wayne Enterprises Lab in Brazil, the chief scientist Dr Woodrue has gone rogue and appropriated his deputy Pamela Eisley's plant regeneration medicine to use on humans, transforming a skinny mass murderer Antonio Diego into a big hulking superhuman called Bane (former WCW wrestler Jeep Swenson). He aims to create a whole legion of these supersoldiers to sell to the highest bidder. Eisley realises what's going on and confronts him but he kills her by pushing her into a table full of chemicals and then upending another table full of chemicals and plants on top of her.
However, she survives this and is resurrected as femme fatale Poison Ivy with aloe for blood and chlorophyll for skin. Killing Woodrue by using her poison kiss on him, she sets fire to the lab before leaving and taking Bane with her as her henchman, vowing to reclaim the planet for plants by wiping out all mammals.
Back in Gotham, Alfred's niece Barbara Wilson suddenly arrives to stay with her uncle and Robin instantly becomes smitten with her. During conversations between her and Alfred, we find out that Alfred is currently trying to locate his family because he's learned he is ill with the same terminal condition that affected Mr Freeze's wife.
Hoping to bring Freeze out into the open, Bruce Wayne organises a charity bash at the Gotham Observatory which Wayne Enterprises have just donated the money to build a new high-power telescope which will be linked to satellites all around the world allowing people to see any point in space that they want. At the auction, Bruce announces he will be auctioning off some of his family's treasured diamonds for charity, reasoning (correctly) that this will bring Freeze (who we see watching the news in his dressing gown and slippers...erm, right) out into the open. We're also introduced to Bruce's new girlfriend Julie Madison, played by Elle McPherson, here.
However, the ball is hijacked by Poison Ivy showing up and she uses her love potion dust on both Batman and Robin who both become infatuated with her. Just as they're both arguing, Freeze crashes the place and steals the diamonds but Batman gives chase in the Batmobile and apprehends him. Freeze is thrown in Arkham Asylum (with one of his guards being played by former wrestler and governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura!) with a cold ray pinning him in place in his cell. However, he's busted out by Poison Ivy and Bane who take him back to his lab with the aim of rescuing his wife. While Freeze is repowering his suit though, Ivy goes to rescue Mrs Freeze but unplugs her life support, saying that she "doesn't play well with others".
Back at the lair, Ivy tells Freeze that Batman, who she fought at the lab, was the one who killed his wife and, incensed, he comes up with a plan to use the telescope at the observatory to conjure up a giant ice ray to freeze first Gotham and then the planet with him and Ivy being in charge of a new civilisation with themselves and Bane as the only survivors. Aye, good old mad science plots eh?...
Meanwhile, Robin discovers that Barbara has been sneaking out of the mansion at night to go and participate in dirt bike races on the rough side of Gotham. He follows her using his Robin bike helmet for camouflage and the pair participate in a race but both lose. On the way home, Barbara explains that she was kicked out of her school in England and has returned to Gotham to raise some money for Alfred's medical treatment which comes as a shock to both Bruce and Grayson, neither of whom were aware he was even ill. Later, Barbara finds her way into the Batcave with a CD given to her by Alfred which gives her access to the costume allowing her to become Batgirl.
While all this is going on, Batman and Robin are still squabbling over Poison Ivy who sabotages the Bat Signal after using her love dust on Commissioner Gordon and moves it outside the converted Turkish baths where her and Bane have taken up residence. Changing it to Robin's logo, she summons him with the aim of using her poison kiss on him only to realise that Robin has shaken off his infatuation with her and tricked her using a pair of latex lips.
Furious, Ivy pushes Robin into the pond which has a load of man-eating water weeds in it. Batman shows up but is quickly hung upside down from some of Ivy's vines. However, the arrival of Barbara as Batgirl sees Ivy defeated by being knocked into a giant Venus Fly Trap!
The trio head to the Observatory to stop Mr Freeze who sends Bane down after Robin and Batgirl who eventually defeat him by pulling the venom supply tube from his head which turns him back into the skinny Diego. Meanwhile, Batman and Freeze engage in a climactic battle in the observatory which Batman eventually wins and, with some help from Robin and Batgirl, he turns the ice ray into a heat ray to defrost Gotham.
As he apprehends Freeze, Batman explains that it was Poison Ivy who killed his wife (playing him a tape of her speaking to Batgirl earlier) but that, with some help from the Gotham Hospital, they managed to plug her machine back in before she died and she's now been moved to Arkham Asylum labs so that Freeze can continue to search for a cure for her. Batman also asks Freeze if he'll help him find a cure for Alfred's condition which the Iceman agrees to do. At the end of the film, Alfred is well again and Batgirl joins the crimefighting team as a full time third member.
There is, unfortunately, a very good reason why "Batman and Robin" is regularly mentioned when people talk about the worst superhero films ever - it's just a complete and total clusterf**k. While Val Kilmer, even though he was obviously struggling, at least looked like he was giving the whole Batman role a valiant shot in "Batman Forever", George Clooney just looks hopelessly lost here, only being outdone by Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl who somehow manages to look even more out of place. Add to that Arnie's monosyllabic turn as Mr Freeze and it's left to poor Uma Thurman (who at least looks as if she's trying to do a passable femme fatale turn as Poison Ivy) and Chris O'Donnell (who at least tries his best with the awful script he's been given as Robin) to try and carry this thing on their own. Which, unfortunately, they very much can't. Add to that the migraine-inducing cartoony neon visuals and the nonsensical title and you really have got a total turkey here. It would pretty much turn out to be a one-way ticket to the career graveyard for both Silverstone whose previous reputation as a promising young actress never really recovered from this and O'Donnell who didn't even make another film for 3-4 years afterwards before belatedly resurfacing in "CSI" in the mid-noughties.
There were actually plans for a fifth Batman film, "Batman Unchained" which would again have seen Schumacher directing and Clooney, O'Donnell and Silverstone all returning with the bad guys being slated as Scarecrow and Harley Quinn but after the vicious critical mauling "Batman & Robin" received, the series ended up (appropriately enough given Arnie's turn in the film) being put on ice for nearly a decade with Christopher Nolan finally stepping in to revive and reboot it in 2005 for "Batman Begins". We'll deal with that when we come to it in a couple of months but as for this one, while (shock horror!) I'll admit I have actually seen worse during this blog in that at least at times it crosses over into being so bad it's actually hilarious which is more than can be said for the three films below it in the table, it's still very much down among the dead men and my advice would still be avoid like the plague...
FINAL RATING: 🦇🦇 (2/10)
CURRENT DC FILM TABLE
1. Batman Returns (1992) (9/10)
2. Batman (1989) (8/10)
3. Superman (1978) (8/10)
4. Superman 2 (1980) (8/10)
5. Batman (1966) (8/10)
6. Batman Forever (1995) (6/10)
7. Superman 3 (1983) (5/10)
8. Swamp Thing (1982) (5/10)
9. The New Wonder Woman (1975) (5/10)
10. Superman and the Mole Men (1951) (5/10)
11. The Flash 2 - Revenge Of The Trickster (1991) (4/10)
12. The Flash 3 - Deadly Nightshade (1991) (4/10)
13. Wonder Woman Returns (1977) (4/10)
14. The Flash (1990) (4/10)
15. Wonder Woman (1974) (3/10)
16. Batman & Robin (1997) (2/10)
17. The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) (2/10)
18. Superman 4 - The Quest For Peace (1987) (2/10)
19. Supergirl (1984) (2/10)
NEXT WEEK: I know, said someone once, let's make a version of Friends only with DC superheroes! Yes, this really did happen and yes, it probably is as bad as you think...
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