The Official Batman & Robin Thread

[The Guard]

It's fun under the right circumstances. It is what it is. It's not what a lot of people wanted, but it's a valid take on the characters, and it's very of its time, cinematically and comic bookwise.

 

[DigificWriter]

I started thinking about why Batman and Robin is as poor as it is, and identified 3 things:
1) The dramatic and drastic shift in tone between it and the previous films
2) Arnold's over-acting
3) Clooney being totally ill-suited both for following on from Keaton and Kilmer (because he's an entirely different type of actor than them) and for the tone of the script

This in turn led me to start thinking about what could've been done to avoid or mitigate these issues, and I came up with the following ideas:
1) Revise the script so that it retained more of the gothic/noir tone present in B89, BR, and BF
2) Drop Freeze's puns
3) Cast David Duchovny as Bruce/Batman; he is very much the same type of actor as Keaton and Kilmer, and would've felt like he was playing the same character

Everything else about the movie could have worked and worked well.

 

[Kane52630]

Nah.

 

[DigificWriter]

^ If you're going to disagree with me, I would appreciate it if you explained why you disagree with me.

 

[Brain Damage]

Kane just loves his Freeze puns too much

It makes him come off kind of cold sometimes.

 

[Kane52630]

Just to put it simply, B&R knew exactly what it wanted to be...which I can't say the same for BF (although I still love it).

 

[DigificWriter]

I initially liked Batman and Robin after seeing it in theaters, but it is the worst of the live-action films and does suffer from the decisions that were made concerning it, especially in relation to the films that preceded it.

To its credit, the film does have elements in it that are remnants of the tone from the 3 preceding films - manifested primarily in the characterization of Poison Ivy (who reminds me very much of The Joker, The Penguin, Catwoman, Two-Face, and The Riddler) - but those elements get completely overshadowed by how dramattcally and drastically different the rest of the film's tone is.

BTW, the only reason I suggested going with Duchovney, the original choice to replace Kilmer, is because he is the same type of actor as Keaton and Kilmer, but Clooney could have been okay in the role if the script's tone had been different. It would have still have been jarring to go from Keaton and Kilmer to him (Clooney), but it wouldn't have been AS jarring.

 

[Cain]

Just to put it simply, B&R knew exactly what it wanted to be...which I can't say the same for BF (although I still love it).

Good point. BF is tonally all over the place while B&R despite feeling like a hard punch to the gut when I saw it at the cinema at least was consistent.

 

[Cain]

I initially liked Batman and Robin after seeing it in theaters, but it is the worst of the live-action films and does suffer from the decisions that were made concerning it, especially in relation to the films that preceded it.

To its credit, the film does have elements in it that are remnants of the tone from the 3 preceding films - manifested primarily in the characterization of Poison Ivy (who reminds me very much of The Joker, The Penguin, Catwoman, Two-Face, and The Riddler) - but those elements get completely overshadowed by how dramattcally and drastically different the rest of the film's tone is.

BTW, the only reason I suggested going with Duchovney, the original choice to replace Kilmer, is because he is the same type of actor as Keaton and Kilmer, but Clooney could have been okay in the role if the script's tone had been different. It would have still have been jarring to go from Keaton and Kilmer to him (Clooney), but it wouldn't have been AS jarring.

I don't know about the Poison Ivy praise. I absolutely hated Uma's performance in this. Such terrible overacting. I think Arnie's Freeze on the other hand is kinda underrated.

 

[DigificWriter]

I don't know about the Poison Ivy praise. I absolutely hated Uma's performance in this. Such terrible overacting. I think Arnie's Freeze on the other hand is kinda underrated.

I don't think Thurman over-acts the role at all. Her intro scene does stray a little bit into overly cheesy territory, but I think that has to do more with the dialogue and the way the scene is lit than it does with her actual performance.

To each their own, though.

She does very much fit into the same mold as Burton's villains and Two-Face and Riddler, and, despite the cheesy aspects of it, her introductory scene does remind me, functionally, of the scene in Batman Returns where Selina confronts Max Schreck.

 

[AnneFan]

I hope La La Land can acquire the rights to officially release Goldenthal's score.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

I hope La La Land can acquire the rights to officially release Goldenthal's score.

Hopefully... and surely it can't be that tricky. WB have pretty much handed them the DC licence anyway.

I know it's a lot of regurgitated material from Forever, but I always thought his new cues were really good.

 

[titansupes]

At the time of release/first images, what was everybody's thoughts on Clooney's Bat emblem? The design and colour, I mean?

I still want to know the answer to this.

 

[SHADOWBAT69]

I still want to know the answer to this.

I hated it. Not so much the bat design, but the lack of the yellow color in it.

 

[Senator Pleasury]

What was everybody's thoughts on Clooney's Bat emblem? The design and colour, I mean?

And thanks for that, Proximo.

I think the all-black bat-sign was the only thing I liked about the bat-suit.



*********************************

I don't think Thurman over-acts the role at all. Her intro scene does stray a little bit into overly cheesy territory, but I think that has to do more with the dialogue and the way the scene is lit than it does with her actual performance.

To each their own, though.

She does very much fit into the same mold as Burton's villains and Two-Face and Riddler, and, despite the cheesy aspects of it, her introductory scene does remind me, functionally, of the scene in Batman Returns where Selina confronts Max Schreck.

Oh, there's a difference between being a bombastic character and just overacting the hell out of everything. Both Thurman and Schwarzenegger did the latter, with the value added of being unbelievably annoying. Over-acting in this case is an understatement.

 

[TheDarkKnight08]

Never thought I'd do B&R fanrt, but here ya go.

Clooney does look good in that cowl, though.

Spoiler

 

[fimble]

For me the whole film can be summed up by Arnies line "You know what killed the dinosaurs? The ice age!"

Like, what is that? Its not a pun, its not a joke, and it isn't a fact, seeing as the dinosaurs are widely accepted to have been wiped out by an asteroid impact. It isn't relevant to anything in the scene it is in, apart from it includes the words 'kill' and 'ice'.

I love the film. Every shot, every line, every plotpoint is the worst artistic decision they could possibly have gone for. Batman forever is just a mediocre kind of bad: B and R is so relentlessly terrible it becomes funny again.

Do you take Bat credit card?

 

[Green Goblin]

This may be a bad movie but it's not pure awful. It's not even the worst DC film. That goes to Green Lantern.

 

[Rorschach2012]

I'll always love this movie. It was what got me into Batman. I was 4 when it came out, and it was seriously the perfect movie for a kid my age.

And I agree, GL is so much worse than Batman and Robin. B&R gets a (rightfully so) bad rep, but I love it for what it meant to me when I was a kid.

 

[Joshua_B]

Here's my basic breakdown of the film's elements...

The Good

1) Getting Chris O'Donnell, Michael Gough, Pat Hingle, and Joel Schumacher all back.
2) Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze.
3) Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl (great chemistry with Chris)
4) The core story being loosely adapted from "Heart of Ice".

The Bad

1) The film's ultra-campy tone (I mostly blame WB for this)
2) George Clooney as Batman (he made a good Bruce, but the rest...no.)
3) Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy (completely miscast)
4) Bane being completely useless

The Ugly

1) No Val Kilmer
2) Way too damn much neon
3) No mention of Chase at all
4) Piranha plants...really?!
5) The "credit card" scene

 

[Senator Pleasury]

You can get what kind of movie B&R is when the "good" list are not good things.

 

[Naked Shia]

The batcredit card scene is nothing short of brilliant.

 

[Joshua_B]

It was ridiculous in every sense of the word, as was everything about Poison Ivy in that film.

 

[Naked Shia]

you have no soul.

 

[StarLord]

If that were true then he really should have enjoyed this movie.