This is the one movie I went to see in the theatre, that I came very close to walking out on. It dishonors so much of the work before it, that I wish I had not paid a cent for it. Clooney's smirky Batman is ridiculous, O'Donnell's Robin inane and the confluence of exaggerated performances belonged in '66 not '97.
Tym says
A crime against humanity. Even faded memories are painful.
Ciaran says
The only reason this movie isn't rated a 1 is because Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze brings some amusement to the movie.
This film is so messed up that people blot it out of their memory like a trauma.
Seriously.
It was hard to set the bar any lower than recent studio dreck like Steel and the unreleasable Corman Fantastic Four debacle. But then this.
Schumacher was so on fire to make his sequel that it arrived a year early and not late enough. It explodes open like a camp-tastrophe on steroids and blasts headlong to hell as fast as it can drag you down with it. It is a strobe of stupid that may permanently scar some part of you. Escaping this film feels like ducking a death sentence.
How could it all go so wrong? Because enthusiasm overcame experience. None of the army of unnecessary characters are faithful to the real material. So, for the sake of sanity, let's speak to how they were done right in the real comics.
Read Alan Moore's "Swamp Thing," which revolutionized '80s comics, to understand how Jason Woodrue/The Floronic Man became a hinge to that crucial transformation (The Saga of the Swamp Thing, Vol.1). Read Neil Gaiman's "Black Orchid" to appreciate how Woodrue and like-minded botanists like Pamela Isley/Poison Ivey first met. Watch The Dark Knight Rises (2012) to see the character of Bane taken to his highest level. Watch Bruce Timm's Batman animated series for the rending and Emmy-winning backstory of Mr. Freeze (S01, E14). For big fun and zany antics, look to the 1940s Batman stories drawn by Dick Sprang, or to the slyly referential pop-art fun of the "Brave and the Bold" team-up cartoons (2008–2011). These will soothe your mind and reassure you that quality is still possible in the world. It'll be okay. There now. There there. It's okay…
