Movie Defense Force: Batman & Robin
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
- Start date
Recommended Videos
And here I was thinking you'd defend Batman Forever; which was all the colorful we needed from Batman. Let me put this into context:
I'm just young enough to have not watched the Adam West batman stuff when Batman and Robin came out so I was comparing it to the movies I had watched such as the 1989 Batman, Batman Returns and Batman Forever. Despite your arguments, Jim, compared to THOSE movies, B&R sucked balls. Tommy Lee Jones chewed the scenery and was 6x better at it than Ahnauld. It was the same colorful cartoony style but the set pieces (and one could argue, the story) were better.
In fact, you could say that BF and B&R were done in the EXACT same style and you you chose B&R over BF? Madness, I say, madness!
Edit: Oh, and I think it's worth mentioning that I didn't even being to noticed the bat nipples or crotch stuff when I first saw the movie. It never occured to me to be upset about that... or even recognize the change.
I'm just young enough to have not watched the Adam West batman stuff when Batman and Robin came out so I was comparing it to the movies I had watched such as the 1989 Batman, Batman Returns and Batman Forever. Despite your arguments, Jim, compared to THOSE movies, B&R sucked balls. Tommy Lee Jones chewed the scenery and was 6x better at it than Ahnauld. It was the same colorful cartoony style but the set pieces (and one could argue, the story) were better.
In fact, you could say that BF and B&R were done in the EXACT same style and you you chose B&R over BF? Madness, I say, madness!
Edit: Oh, and I think it's worth mentioning that I didn't even being to noticed the bat nipples or crotch stuff when I first saw the movie. It never occured to me to be upset about that... or even recognize the change.
Arnold is the only saving grace of this movie. When Matel was given creative control. And yes that's the reason that the costumes and vehichles look the way they do Because a Toy company said that they needed to. Well something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Never got the loathing for this at the time. Oh sure, I knew it wasn't very good - keeping Chris O'Donnell, the worst thing about Batman Forever was its biggest crime in my eyes - but it was more an acknowledgement of its failings rather than the all-out revulsion and bile and offence that some people seem to draw from it.
Now? Yeah, it's still bad, but its development of its villains is what rescues it; done in a way that's logical and thematic, with Victor Fries warming up enough to save Alfred and Poison Ivy being perverted by the very nature that she's supposed to exposit. In all, it looks like somebody's applied the James Bond adage - that the films are only ever as good as their villains.
That doesn't make the heroes completey ignorable though, and that's this film's problem. This film shouldn't even be called Batman And Robin, it should be Mr Freeze And Poison Ivy because they're who this film is about. Robin learns to be a douche, Batgirl learns to be a waste of space, and what does Batman gain through this film? Stick-on nipples and a couple of surrogate kids. Batman, a larger than life character who stands astride the entirety of the comics medium, a being whose logo they could stick on a plate full of shit and people would still lap it up, is basically a bystander in his own movie, remembered for credit cards and butt shots.
Great villains and bad Bats average out to a less than good film, and yes it stopped comic book movies being made for about four or five years - and they've never been colourful since, despite The Avengers' best efforts -, but it's not the all-consuming black hole that some people would have you think.
Now? Yeah, it's still bad, but its development of its villains is what rescues it; done in a way that's logical and thematic, with Victor Fries warming up enough to save Alfred and Poison Ivy being perverted by the very nature that she's supposed to exposit. In all, it looks like somebody's applied the James Bond adage - that the films are only ever as good as their villains.
That doesn't make the heroes completey ignorable though, and that's this film's problem. This film shouldn't even be called Batman And Robin, it should be Mr Freeze And Poison Ivy because they're who this film is about. Robin learns to be a douche, Batgirl learns to be a waste of space, and what does Batman gain through this film? Stick-on nipples and a couple of surrogate kids. Batman, a larger than life character who stands astride the entirety of the comics medium, a being whose logo they could stick on a plate full of shit and people would still lap it up, is basically a bystander in his own movie, remembered for credit cards and butt shots.
Great villains and bad Bats average out to a less than good film, and yes it stopped comic book movies being made for about four or five years - and they've never been colourful since, despite The Avengers' best efforts -, but it's not the all-consuming black hole that some people would have you think.
Don't forget Jim Carrey being in Batman Forever. You want hamminess and scenery being chewed? Carrey has a damn good career going doing that. And like MovieBob said in that one Big Picture episode, it has the most character development any version of Batman has ever seen.Pebkio said:
I like how you planted all those pun in the review. It would have been a mistake to leaf them out.
I almost hate myself for admiting it, but yeah, he's right. Batman and Robin is awful. It's horribly acted, over the top camp. and came at a time when others seemed to have perfectly hit that balance point between Batman's darkness and his fetishy campiness (see: Tim Burton). But it is nowhere near as bad as legends say it is. It's kinda fun and goofy in an embarrassing sort of way. If it pops on on a Sunday afternoon you can leave it on in the background without feeling any pain.Soxafloppin said:
Dark Knight Rises just seems to suck the life out of you. If you leave it on in the background the cat becomes suicidal.
And honestly, for all my hate on Shumacher's take on DC Superheroes. I think at the end of the day it is better and healthier than the more recent offering from Zach Snyder. I'll take over the top campiness over gruesomely depressing morally ambiguous disaster porn any day.
Jim, arguing that a movie is good because it's so unbelievably horrible seems like a phone-in. It sounds like you couldn't find any redeeming qualities at all so you had to flip the script because it was the only option left.
But seriously, this movie was just not entertaining. So predictable that I fell asleep when I watched it. I don't even know what the middle is about, but I suppose I can guess based on the rest. Batman and Robin only exists to make Batman Forever, which is a pretty middling movie with a lot of terrible acting look reasonable by comparison.
But seriously, this movie was just not entertaining. So predictable that I fell asleep when I watched it. I don't even know what the middle is about, but I suppose I can guess based on the rest. Batman and Robin only exists to make Batman Forever, which is a pretty middling movie with a lot of terrible acting look reasonable by comparison.
I've softened a lot on this movie over the years. The only thing I find that I still can't overlook is making Bane nothing more than a mindless brute. To me, that's like making The Joker a mime. I know, I know. "It was amusing. It was a bold choice. It was outside the box." I seldom get nit-picky about things. I'm keeping this one, dammit.
I'm not sure the movie that nearly killed DC's presence in the movie market is what we need right now.
Unless...Jim, are you trying to wipe out DC?
Unless...Jim, are you trying to wipe out DC?
One of the things I liked about Batman Forever was how it had a very comic book look to it. Batman and Robin scaled that, along with the cheese, up to 11 and I think it was just...too much. Then again, I actually liked Val Kilmer as Bruce Wayne/Batman. So maybe I'm just a freak.Steve2911 said:
Whereas the Joker would be inside the box. And that's where he'll stay. At least until the wind picks up.TheBlueRabbit said:
The last time I watched this, I started an ice pun counter: 23. 23 ice puns. It malfunctioned on me.
I for one am grateful this movie exists, for without it, we would not have the absolutely ****ing hilarious Nostalgia Critic review of the movie. "A bat credit card. A BAT CREDIT CARD!! You had the gall to give one of the greatest superheroes ever a bat credit card!! (loud yelling, waving around and firing a gun randomly (how did he get a gun in the building?)) Security has to restrain him. Then he starts ranting all over again.
I for one am grateful this movie exists, for without it, we would not have the absolutely ****ing hilarious Nostalgia Critic review of the movie. "A bat credit card. A BAT CREDIT CARD!! You had the gall to give one of the greatest superheroes ever a bat credit card!! (loud yelling, waving around and firing a gun randomly (how did he get a gun in the building?)) Security has to restrain him. Then he starts ranting all over again.
I don't feel that this movie was all that great even taken in the context that Jim suggested. Batman Forever pulled that off. If anything, this was a second bucket of ice water splashed in the faces of fans and comic-book makers alike, telling them to pack that brooding, violent, rage-fueled shit up and toss it in the attic. Now that we've all gotten a close look at Frank Miller, we've all started to slowly come around to the reality that the grimdark attitudes of the 80's and 90's did not "save" comic books, they didn't improve them in any tangible way. The Dark Knight Returns did NOT save comic books or Batman in particular. It just created a trend. One where juvenile fits of bloody violence were gobbled up by 80's kids who had grown up on finer things like G.I. Joe and Transformers, and now were trying to create some kind of balance between the relative confidence and entertainment they enjoyed as kids, and the hormonal awkwardness of puberty they were going through.
The dark, angry comics of the 90's were basically a metaphor for a swath of pop-culture-hungry teens unsure of what to with their own inadvertent erections, and getting angrier by the minute. Like Louis CK has pointed out young men are basically just giant erections thrusting blindly at everything in sight, and that's a crude if apt metaphor for the transition comics were going through at the time. Teen boys wanted violence, wanted guns, wanted women in with gigantic balloon-shaped racks in compromised, objectified positions. And the comic book industry, so gleeful to have a market again, not to mention an excuse to make bloody, sexualized comics under the misleading blanket term "mature" were only too happy to provide it.
And that's why these zany Batman films were necessary. When these movies came out there was a huge fan uproar about how they had "ruined" Batman, but as so many sharp-eyed critics and readers have pointed out, nothing could be further from the truth. It was a reminder that comic books are meant to be about fantastic stories about super heroes and super villains. Big epic struggles between good and evil, bizarre aliens and god-like creatures, and ordinary men doing extraordinary things in the name of justice and all that's good. It's about a man becoming a ninja in a bat-costume to scare criminals and stop them from committing crimes. It's not about a borderline psychotic with ocean-deep mental issues talking to the imaginary forces that push him to be Batman, nor is it about a mopey and unmotivated "forever alone" bachelor with the world's saddest depression beard staring into empty space and doing everything in his power to NOT BE BATMAN, because apparently Nolan has it in his head that Batman has to exist in a hyper-realistic setting where such people are insane or desperate, not that he's dealing with a fantasy setting where men dress like bats and fight men in refrigerated suits that fire ice beams, or a man with a disease that turns him into a giant half-man, half-croc monster. Nolan is the man so obsessed with reality that he forced Superman to kill just to smack us in the face with it and say "there are no Paladins in the real world!"
But we're not talking about the "real world" are we? We're talking about superheroes in a comic book setting. And paladins DO exist there. Whether they wear the black cowl of the Batman or the bright red shield of Superman, Paladins DO exist and they DO go through their many heroic battles refusing to stoop to the level of the villains, even when things are at their worst. That's what MAKES them heroes.
This uncomfortable response to the gritty and "real" depiction of superheroes has been slow to take shape but it has been growing. We didn't have the words for it then, didn't know how to say it without being ostracized, but now we're grown up, we are truly mature, and we can say without irony or fear that we love True. Campy. Fantastic. Comics. We love Superman being the boyscout. We love Batman taking in a boy sidekick. We love Iron Man going through the drive-thru. We We love it when the deadpan Agent Coulson has his fanboy moment with his childhood hero, Captain America.
Marvel seems to have realized this sooner than DC did, maybe because DC got lucky with The Dark Knight. I for one feel they did. I loved the movie when I saw it but the more I think about it these days the more I realize the movie is actually pretty confusing, depressing, and poorly put together. But we weren't even paying attention to it at the time, we just wanted Joker scenes. If you cut out the Joker from the movie, there's actually very little that feels exciting or fun about the film.
But that's beside the point. The point is someone in Marvel--or at least Marvel Films--realized that if you're going to make a superhero movie, then cut loose and go all out. Alien Viking Gods. Mystical artifacts. Heroes wearing the American Flag. An archer that shoots arrows that shoot bullets. Don't apologize for it, just make it FUN. So now we have Marvel Films picking up steam with each step. Its movies are fun, it's got all kinds of projects lined up, even Agents of SHIELD, despite an uneasy start, is building momentum.
DC's effort to keep up has been almost painful to watch, and it fumbled its most latest attempt. Superman KILLS Zod. What the actual fuck?
And it says something, right from our little fanboy souls, when we watch Superman snap Zod's neck and recoil, yet Captain America, a superhero who has killed dozens of badguys, is still considered the untarnished superhero. That's how powerful the symbol of Superman being unflappable is, that him killing Zod to save a family is worse than Captain America gunning down Nazis and Chitauri. He STILL has the moral high ground even after he starts killing people! That's how WRONG it is for Superman to kill someone! Captain America killing badguys is still morally acceptable to use than Superman killing them.
I've raved long enough. Batman and Robin didn't destroy Batman, and while it wasn't the best movie, it was a necessary wake-up call that comic books can't abandon their roots. DC needs to stop trying to shove "dark and gritty" down our throats like it's the 19-goddamn-90's. It needs to dig deep and remember the time when comics were fun, or it will never catch up to Marvel.
And I've got a great idea for a Robin movie, so call me.
The dark, angry comics of the 90's were basically a metaphor for a swath of pop-culture-hungry teens unsure of what to with their own inadvertent erections, and getting angrier by the minute. Like Louis CK has pointed out young men are basically just giant erections thrusting blindly at everything in sight, and that's a crude if apt metaphor for the transition comics were going through at the time. Teen boys wanted violence, wanted guns, wanted women in with gigantic balloon-shaped racks in compromised, objectified positions. And the comic book industry, so gleeful to have a market again, not to mention an excuse to make bloody, sexualized comics under the misleading blanket term "mature" were only too happy to provide it.
And that's why these zany Batman films were necessary. When these movies came out there was a huge fan uproar about how they had "ruined" Batman, but as so many sharp-eyed critics and readers have pointed out, nothing could be further from the truth. It was a reminder that comic books are meant to be about fantastic stories about super heroes and super villains. Big epic struggles between good and evil, bizarre aliens and god-like creatures, and ordinary men doing extraordinary things in the name of justice and all that's good. It's about a man becoming a ninja in a bat-costume to scare criminals and stop them from committing crimes. It's not about a borderline psychotic with ocean-deep mental issues talking to the imaginary forces that push him to be Batman, nor is it about a mopey and unmotivated "forever alone" bachelor with the world's saddest depression beard staring into empty space and doing everything in his power to NOT BE BATMAN, because apparently Nolan has it in his head that Batman has to exist in a hyper-realistic setting where such people are insane or desperate, not that he's dealing with a fantasy setting where men dress like bats and fight men in refrigerated suits that fire ice beams, or a man with a disease that turns him into a giant half-man, half-croc monster. Nolan is the man so obsessed with reality that he forced Superman to kill just to smack us in the face with it and say "there are no Paladins in the real world!"
But we're not talking about the "real world" are we? We're talking about superheroes in a comic book setting. And paladins DO exist there. Whether they wear the black cowl of the Batman or the bright red shield of Superman, Paladins DO exist and they DO go through their many heroic battles refusing to stoop to the level of the villains, even when things are at their worst. That's what MAKES them heroes.
This uncomfortable response to the gritty and "real" depiction of superheroes has been slow to take shape but it has been growing. We didn't have the words for it then, didn't know how to say it without being ostracized, but now we're grown up, we are truly mature, and we can say without irony or fear that we love True. Campy. Fantastic. Comics. We love Superman being the boyscout. We love Batman taking in a boy sidekick. We love Iron Man going through the drive-thru. We We love it when the deadpan Agent Coulson has his fanboy moment with his childhood hero, Captain America.
Marvel seems to have realized this sooner than DC did, maybe because DC got lucky with The Dark Knight. I for one feel they did. I loved the movie when I saw it but the more I think about it these days the more I realize the movie is actually pretty confusing, depressing, and poorly put together. But we weren't even paying attention to it at the time, we just wanted Joker scenes. If you cut out the Joker from the movie, there's actually very little that feels exciting or fun about the film.
But that's beside the point. The point is someone in Marvel--or at least Marvel Films--realized that if you're going to make a superhero movie, then cut loose and go all out. Alien Viking Gods. Mystical artifacts. Heroes wearing the American Flag. An archer that shoots arrows that shoot bullets. Don't apologize for it, just make it FUN. So now we have Marvel Films picking up steam with each step. Its movies are fun, it's got all kinds of projects lined up, even Agents of SHIELD, despite an uneasy start, is building momentum.
DC's effort to keep up has been almost painful to watch, and it fumbled its most latest attempt. Superman KILLS Zod. What the actual fuck?
And it says something, right from our little fanboy souls, when we watch Superman snap Zod's neck and recoil, yet Captain America, a superhero who has killed dozens of badguys, is still considered the untarnished superhero. That's how powerful the symbol of Superman being unflappable is, that him killing Zod to save a family is worse than Captain America gunning down Nazis and Chitauri. He STILL has the moral high ground even after he starts killing people! That's how WRONG it is for Superman to kill someone! Captain America killing badguys is still morally acceptable to use than Superman killing them.
I've raved long enough. Batman and Robin didn't destroy Batman, and while it wasn't the best movie, it was a necessary wake-up call that comic books can't abandon their roots. DC needs to stop trying to shove "dark and gritty" down our throats like it's the 19-goddamn-90's. It needs to dig deep and remember the time when comics were fun, or it will never catch up to Marvel.
And I've got a great idea for a Robin movie, so call me.
This movie was horrendous and nothing like the insanely entertaining Batman: The Movie. The reason being the Adam West Batman WAS the Batman of that era. It just worked. The show was epic and very influential at the time.
Same goes for Burton's Batman. Still had a bit of campyness to it (costumed villains in the 90's were going to be campy no matter what) but that film really defined Batman for the coming generations and influenced one of the greatest animated...no...greatest shows ever.
Even the horribly overrated Nolan Batman films (seriously, 1 good film out of 3 and Nolan is a genius???)got some of it right.
This movie was pure shit which butchered just about everything with the only good being Arnold and his one liners. This movie is indefensible. While the previous film was incredibly bad, it at least had Jim Carrey hamming it up and we were able to witness Tommy Lee Jones losing his mind on the big screen right before our very eyes. It even borrowed a bit from the comics with Robin's weird thing he had with Two-Face at the time. The only shit part was that Robin is like 30 in this film and Chris O was too damn old for the film. They also boned up Batgirl but whatever. Batman and Robin on the other hand featured the worse Batman actor to date, a not sexy at all Poison Ivy, Bane is basically a bagman, and a Mr. Freeze that's more golden age goofy than the Victor Fries we all grew up with.
Same goes for Burton's Batman. Still had a bit of campyness to it (costumed villains in the 90's were going to be campy no matter what) but that film really defined Batman for the coming generations and influenced one of the greatest animated...no...greatest shows ever.
Even the horribly overrated Nolan Batman films (seriously, 1 good film out of 3 and Nolan is a genius???)got some of it right.
This movie was pure shit which butchered just about everything with the only good being Arnold and his one liners. This movie is indefensible. While the previous film was incredibly bad, it at least had Jim Carrey hamming it up and we were able to witness Tommy Lee Jones losing his mind on the big screen right before our very eyes. It even borrowed a bit from the comics with Robin's weird thing he had with Two-Face at the time. The only shit part was that Robin is like 30 in this film and Chris O was too damn old for the film. They also boned up Batgirl but whatever. Batman and Robin on the other hand featured the worse Batman actor to date, a not sexy at all Poison Ivy, Bane is basically a bagman, and a Mr. Freeze that's more golden age goofy than the Victor Fries we all grew up with.
Ah Jim...I seriously beleive you were taking the piss on this one, haha.
I can understand the Adam West defense, but poor acting is worse than hammy acting. At least the Zap Branigan school of acting is amusing, the Shatner school...is just painful.
Not saying that comic movies must always be serious. The Timmverse had plenty of kooky fun, but they also always had just enough heart as well. Hell, I can even get behind supporting Daredevil (the Director's Cut); but B&R was just a confused mess.
I can understand the Adam West defense, but poor acting is worse than hammy acting. At least the Zap Branigan school of acting is amusing, the Shatner school...is just painful.
Not saying that comic movies must always be serious. The Timmverse had plenty of kooky fun, but they also always had just enough heart as well. Hell, I can even get behind supporting Daredevil (the Director's Cut); but B&R was just a confused mess.