Marg: Batman & Robin (Naturally!)

Based on the absolute thrill of seeing Batman Forever for the first time, I could not delay in seeing the epic Batman & Robin. It did not disappoint - you know, except as a film.

So... it really is as bad as everyone always said it was. Did you watch the trailer? The movie is just... more of that! The terrible acting? Bingo! The bizarre sets? You betcha! The horrible even for 1997 special effects? Yes sir! The crotch shots? You just wait! 

It doesn't even have as good a poster has Batman Forever.

Joel Schumacher pointedly, directly, obviously intended for there to be an undercurrent of sexual tension between Robin and Batman - or rather, not even sexual tension as in the first of his films in the franchise, but actually a realized relationship between the pair who bicker like a married couple throughout the movie, but who love each other still. This is not a criticism, I wish that it could have been more than implication - if Batman has a Robin, and that Robin is a young attractive guy who lives with him, and they like to share secrets and wear matching outfits and serve their community - well, it isn't wrong to want to see them as being in a more-than-friends relationship. They sound like a couple to me, and it's pretty naive to assume that they aren't. But Schumacher, even though he clearly interpreted that relationship the same way I do, he wasn't allowed to say Batman and Robin have been dating since about 3 days after the last movie ended. So instead, he acted out by putting in even more crotch, nipple, and butt shots than last time! 

This video repeats pointlessly, but the first two shots are legit.

George Clooney took over from doughy Val Kilmer, finally giving Batman the jawline he deserves. But whoa, what a terrible job he does in the movie! This is a future Oscar winner, but he doesn't even change his voice to sound more Batmanish! Listen, he's third here in the "I'm Batman" supercut - He's not even trying!

   

Clooney seemed to adopt some of Kilmer's wardrobe from the previous film, even sporting an oversized turtleneck as Bruce Wayne.

Just going for a stroll with Val's turleneck.

Chris O'Donnell returns as Robin, and he's still young and cool... But you know, he was 27 when this thing came out. I'm not 27 yet and I am certainly no longer young and cool. I wouldn't be even if I did say things like cowabunga!

There is someone undoubtedly younger AND cooler on the scene in Batman and Robin though - it's Alicia Silverstone in the movie that demolished her career! She plays Alfred's niece, who according to the deleted scene "Alfred's Lost Love" isn't his niece at all, but his ex-girlfriend's daughter. His ex-girlfriend shown as a photo of the old lady from Titanic, so somehow Cher Horowitz's mother is a 90 year old woman. Alfred's "niece" is also Batgirl, for some reason? And as I said she is younger (but who knows how young, because she goes to "Oxbridge" but dresses like a schoolgirl) and also cooler, because in one too-long scene she street races, as you do.

Also, her "uncle" made her this costume.

It is also crucial to note, that because Batgirl is a teenager(?) in 1997, she is a master hacker. That's why when she had to hack into a password protected laser disc (1997!) of Alfred's, her first password choice is "Alfred". Later, she and Robin have a hacking race to reroute some satellites - it's all very Angelina Jolie and Sick Boy.

The villains in Batman & Robin are some of the worst I have ever seen committed to film. Uma Thurman in particular just shines at bad acting as the chemically seductive Poison Ivy. Before she is attacked with her own plant-and-animal based experiments which transform her into a poisonous evil-doer, she was a nerdy dishevelled scientist - just like The Riddler was... they might be the same person now that I think of it - both get transformed into green suit wearing red heads. Anyway! Uma's version of nerdy was just pointing her finger sharply and repeatedly. It was very distracting. Her version of the slinky and dangerous Poison Ivy was wildly inconsistent - she seemed unable or unwilling to hold the same inflection of speech scene by scene. An amateur move by an actress who should've done better.

Those gloves look like green dog boners.

As I noted in my The Dark Knight Rises review, the character of Bane, whom I had never even heard of before, made a great impact on me ("What a lovely, lovely voice") - I had to be warned going into Batman & Robin that this simply wasn't the Bane that I knew and loved. Nothing could have prepared me for what in the blue hell this was:

No.

The worst bit is that apparently Bane is supposed to be one of Batman's more brilliant matches, but instead, there was that guy, doofin' up the joint. 

I think that the Mr. Freeze character, played by the terrifically terrible Arnold Schwarzenegger was probably the most entertaining role to write - almost all of his dialogue is inane one liners all vaguely cold-themed. Someone clearly just wrote down all that they could think of, and used them in the script even when they didn't make any sort of sense to the plot. Or even if they didn't make any sort of sense for anything ever, like "What killed the dinosaurs? The Ice Age!!!" - no, Mr. Freeze, not even true. 

If you had four minutes and you watched that (you should, it's great), you'll see Vivica A. Fox's one and only scene in the whole movie, playing a bimbo who for some reason wants to bone Mr. Freeze. Poison Ivy also wants to bone him. And he has a hot deadish wife. I wonder if that was all part of Schwarzenegger's contract?

For a guy who has a cyro-frozen wife and strong criminal desires, Mr. Freeze is having the time of his life. In spite of his situation (he really loves that wife), he constantly cracks wise throughout the movie, and enjoys a hearty chuckle. In one bizarre scene, he even attempts to lead is chilly minions in a sing along while wearing fuzzy slippers.

Mr. Freeze, by the way, is a doctor. I don't know why he isn't called Dr. Freeze. I feel like they really missed out there. He needs diamonds to stay cold because of this time he fell in a cold pond. Why diamonds, you say? Well diamonds are really cold, didn't you know that? Yeah, way cold, super cold. That's science. 

Wait a second, how are you going to light that cigar?

Obviously he wants to steal some diamond (a cold, cold diamond) and Batman needs to stop him, and Poison Ivy is around using poison-pheromones to convince Batman and Robin that they want to have sex with a woman, and Robin wears some rubber lips, and Batgirl tries to be cute and it doesn't work, and Alfred gets sick and scares me by taking off his glasses, and gets better, and Poison Ivy jealously kills Freeze's deadish wife, and Batman saves the day, and that's the plot of Batman & Robin in no particular order. At the end, Mr. Freeze is allowed to share a cell with Poison Ivy even though that is clearly a disgusting violation of every code of ethics because he is obviously going to destroy her. It's pretty gross.

It's a genuinely terrible film. At one point Batman & Robin surf though the sky on bits of rocket. And for the climax, the team changes into ice themed suits even though they didn't have time for that. And then Robin changes back. At one point Poison Ivy says "Come join me. My garden needs tending" and surely she is talking about her pubes.

It's a nuanced film.

Much like on the DVD of Batman Forever, there is a selection of excellent music videos included with Batman & Robin. The first:

This is R. Kelly with Gotham City. It is painfully clear that R. Kelly has never seen or read or heard of anything Batman related in his entire life. The lyrics indicate the opposite of anything that Gotham City has ever been described as. Also, nice hat. ALSO, I don't recall ever hearing this during the movie.

And the second, exactly as I am showing you here:

Yes, Jewel's Foolish Games. This video and song have even less to do with the movie. I didn't hear it in any scene or at least the first part of the credits. The music video contains no clips from Batman & Robin. She does look a little cold. I think Joel Schumacher just likes this song.

-Marg

@acuteinsomnia 

Marg: Batman Forever (of all things!)

I have such a lady-boner for The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers that I wanted you to know with confidence that I am not a tramp for just any ol' superhero movie suddenly. In earlier reviews, I touched on the fact that I had seen very few comic book films before - but I had seen Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns. I had not seen Batman Forever... that is until last night.

I like Robin in this.

For some, this film is nostalgic, but it was brand new for me. And more ridiculous than I ever suspected. I am not entirely sure what anyone was thinking in 1995 when the Batman franchise was spiced up with a new director, new lead actor, and an even firmer commitment to wackiness - apparently it had something to do with Burton's Batmans not being family orientated enough. Regardless, what occurred was something super campy - seemingly to the screaming delight of everyone involved.

Joel Schumacher took over the franchise with some wild changes to the gothy aesthetic of previous two films - it would be like if Adam Shankman took over from Christopher Nolan, now. That isn't to say that 1989 and 1992 editions weren't campy... after all, they included a human penguin and this version of the Joker:

Why so ser... oh wait.

But compared to Schumacher's version of the Gotham universe, Burton's is down right gritty. Collectively it was as if everyone on the set simply forgot the definition of subtlety, from the writers to the actors to the costume designer. It is so baffling as to be entertaining, for the most part. Not good, mind, but entertaining.

Val Kilmer took over from Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Keaton was an interesting choice in the first place, because he is Mr. Mom.

"Jack's going to have to start from the bottom up"

 But I guess Kilmer seemed like a nice choice in 1995. I mean, he was in Willow, after all. And had a sweet moustache in Tombstone. If the ability to grow facial hair and saving babies with a dwarf doesn't qualify you to play the Dark Knight of Gotham, than what will?

In this, Batman looks like an angry girl.

Even in the mid-nineties, though not as shockingly bloated as he is today, good ol' Val was in the early stages of Fat Head syndrome, and his marshmallow-soft face was, while just sweet in a turtleneck, decidedly un-Batman-like.

Clenching your jaw doesn't make it more manly, Turtles.

The usually reserved Tommy Lee Jones did his best Jack Nicholson as the Joker impression while playing one of the main villains of Batman Forever, Harvey Two-Face Dent... or rather, Harvey Two-Face as they kept calling him in the movie, as if Two-Face were his surname. It cannot be denied that Jones obviously had an absolute ball while not giving one solitary fuck about the quality of film he was participating in. No, not one fuck! And he's gleeful about it.

Acid dyed my hair pink!

Jim Carrey was at the height of his wacky-comedies career, and brings everything you'd expect to the table. I remember when I was a kid, my mother saying that she couldn't stand Carrey's Fire Marshall Bill character... this might have been why we never watched Batman Forever... he uses the same inflections repeatedly. But to be fair, his Riddler character is just a mash up of all his other characters, different scene by scene.

Nicole Kidman plays Dr. Dogname Meridian, an extremely horny criminal psychologist who wants to bone Batman... so... bad. It is a wonderfully wooden performance by Kidman, who tries to just breath all of her lines, and who is clearly having trouble feigning attraction for Val Kilmer - their lack of chemistry is the cherry on top of some awkward scenes where Bruce Wayne decides it must be love. 

We're very uncomfortable.

Someone not having any sort of difficulty with their Batman related chemistry is Chris O'Donnell's Robin aka Dick Grayson because the world is cruel. Oh they are so into each other it is the best! Twenty-five year old O'Donnell assumes the role originally created for a minor, but instead of trying to explain that away, Batman Forever just convolutes the whole situation. He's constantly referred to as "young" with no specific age given, he's told that he should go to college, but for some reason after his family dies he is brought by Commissioner Gordon (who in this film only has two jobs - delivering orphans and manning the bat signal insufficiently) to be taken care of by Bruce Wayne, "once social services is done with him". Very little of that matters, I suppose. All you really need to know is that Dick is cool (he wears an earring), and wild (he rides a motorcycle), and he and Bruce Wayne become very committed to each other.

Even before I saw the film, I remember that just historically, the costumes in the Schumacher Batmans were supposed to be quite kinky. I wasn't disappointed:

Mercy!

 I decided that while I could go into the plot line of Batman Forever, literally everything that happens in the movie can be found in its theatrical trailer:

And no, not jut the best parts... everything! 

Actually, the best parts of my Batman Forever watching experience were found on the DVD extras. Two things spring to mind, specifically the scene starting at around 2:55, after Bruce Wayne discovers in a cave that he need not blame himself for the death of his parents:

What the... they paid money for that thing!

And of course the next best thing on the DVD extras is this:

Word on the street is that Batman and Robin was somehow an even worse movie than Batman Forever. Suddenly, I can't even wait. 

-Marg

@acuteinsomnia

Marg: The Dark Knight Rises

I have been struggling with how to begin this review since Tuesday night. A very real act of horror will always be associated with the Dark Knight Rises, and it would be insensitive not to touch on that. I will only do so briefly, just to say that it's all incredibly sad. I want to address the film on it's own merits separate from that unpredictable tragedy.

The Dark Knight Rises is also difficult to write about because of the risk of spoilers and also because it is so hard to articulate all my feelings about it - and I have so many feelings! But, for instance, when asked my feelings directly after the movie I said "I... eihj.. um...."

This review might be unjustly sparse. 

The simple fact is, The Dark Knight Rises is a brilliant film. 

I wasn't expecting it. I am not a big fan of Batman Begins, and while Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight was absolutely spectacular, the rest of the film was good but not great. So I was expecting something entertaining, but not overwhelming. But it just was so good. Overwhelmingly satisfying and entertaining and excellent. 

Whereas in the previous films of the trilogy, some casting choices fell flat *cough*katieholmes*cough* - DKR boasts one hell of a cast. I am a big Christian Bale fan, who looks a bit more The Fighter than Batman here - he seemed to put more into his performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman than he did in the last film, and the payoff is great. Other returning cast members continue to shine. Gary Oldman slips occasionally in his American accent, but is able to give more depth to Commissioner Gordon. And of course, Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth (ha, Pennyworth) is touching and at times heart-wrenching. A surprise appearance by another returning performer is also a delight.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (my heart of hearts) joins the cast as an earnest young police officer named Blake, able to see the truth where others can't. I'd watch that guy eat a bowl of soup and be a happy girl, but he really is suitably cast for this role. 

Anne Hatheway is a god damned revelation as Selina Kyle. Nolan's characterization of Catwoman is so much more human than previous incarnations - less camp, more intelligence, less crazy-bitch-trope, more realistic will for survival. Her point of view is one to be taken seriously, Hathway's performance utterly empathic, yet still devious. When I first saw images of the Catwoman costume, it turns out I didn't know what I was looking at. It's actually a costume that makes total sense. 

Turns out Tom Hardy is a beast. Who knew? 

Bane voiced my inner-monolog for literally days after watching the film. 

Lest you think that I could ever believe any film is entirely perfect, of course there are some quite minor issues - some discord between the ages of certain actors and their character's ages, a question as to why no one thought about spreading out their body weight, and where on earth Alfred could have gotten his eternal non-youth (he never ages!). And on the subject of Alfred, I think any movie that allows Micheal Caine to seem sad is just a cruel one! Cruel, I say!

I bet he'd scream if that suit moved by itself.

There are some things to say about the politics of the film itself - again, without going into spoilery details, Gotham is a city with a wide gap between their Bruce-Wayne level elite, and their disenfranchised middle and lower classes. Much like we have seen in the real world, some of those lower classes are trying to stand up against the rule-bending, unfairly rich - the 1%, if you will. Selina Kyle and Blake both represent two sides of the same not-obscenely-rich coin - he believes that hard work and honor are the key, she has a more desperate sense of self-preservation. Neither of them desire the change that Bane brings - but much like the protestor suddenly standing in the middle of a violent riot, there are some things outside of their control. It might seem quite conservative that the silver-spoon-born Bruce Wayne is the key protagonist - but it is key to note that it isn't Bruce Wayne after all. It's Batman.