Old Stuff
Batman and Robin (1997)
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Rubbermaid, Joel Schumacher, strikes again in the fourth installment of this wretched series of "Batman" films with a giant fiasco titled "Batman and Robin". The movie is filled with wall-to-wall action and yet achieves a sense of going absolutely nowhere. The actors are left floundering around giant sets and competing with enormous explosions. The scope is huge but there's no sense of space in this neon and noir Gotham.
Cringing at each other while encased in rubber (with perky nipples), capes and giant codpieces, George Clooney and Chris O'Donnel come off like a couple of simpering gimps who escaped from the dungeon scene in "Pulp Fiction". Alicia Silverstone, whose success as an ingenue made her a star, is sexless here. Uma Thurman suffers a worse fate as she is made to prance and pose like a drag queen. Meanwhile, a wasted looking Arnold Schwarzenegger, as Mr. Freeze, barks monosyllabic wisecracks that are so mind-numbingly dumb that they will have you begging for mercy. "Chill!"
Once again this bloated series of fims makes the mistake of creating too many villains, each with his or her own origin sub-plot. The result is an unfocused wreck. The whole thing is a bore. The most damning criticism is that a friend who is a huge "Dark Knight" fan, and has attended the premiere of each installment, walked out in the middle of this pig-fucker to check his beeper. -- Rating: $0.25
Tom Graney -- copyright 1997 Hollywood Outsider