B&R was really the first movie I saw in the theater that I walked out and said "that sucked." God it was soo bad that I kinda feel bad when Forever is lumped together with it. I don't know, I can watch the 3rd one without winching too much, but B&R is ridiculoso. Methinks the real problem with this is that though its based on a lighter interpretation of our caped friend, it takes place in a series that has set a serious precedent. I think it would work better stand alone but put it in the same universe where the joker likes war photography and the penguin bites folks noses is kinda weird (unless the explanation is that Bats cleaned up the town so good that there are only dumb crazy villains left.)
BTW one thing that I was shocked about was how huge Hancock really was:
Budget: 150m
Domestic take: 227m
Total take: 624 Million dollars
not a flop by any standard. Will Smith is worth 20m if he can do for your
film what he has for his last few films (that is make them horrible but profitable)
That doesn't totally invalidate his point though, he still has 3 examples of the bad being punished. (though it does throw the whole worldview into question because if Hancock wasn't punished then it was good.) I'm trying to make the point that a lot of times you will go to Boxofficemojo and be shocked at how good a movie that you hated did, also that those numbers mean nothing but the fact that there are dumb people everywhere.
Also I know its old as hell but if you haven't seen it look for the youtube video with all of the ice puns. It makes me laugh like a madman to this day.
"Allow me to break the ice"
Last point: I liked the spirit more than B&R. I think it was all about expectations.
I know that I said that was the last but I would be remiss if I didn't say that one of the worst parts of that film was that folks (Alan Moore and Paul Dini) had worked hard to make 2 of the characters in that movie (who were worthless before them) into characters that actually made sense and worked and what did the film do with them? returned them to their worthless roots.