"I want a Robin signal in the sky, all right?" he complains Patient butler, whose presence this time is milked to create a semblance of emotion.Īnd Chris O'Donnell's Robin really deserves to have his name in the title, giving a much better performance as his much-improved Robin slyly comes into his own. Michael Gough harrumphs heartwarmingly through the role of Alfred the incredibly Thommessen supply window dressing in small roles, while John Glover flames amusingly as the mad scientist who gives Ivy her start. While the film veers recklessly from neo-"Triumph of the Will" to Hong Kong action to anything else the traffic will bear - and that's just in the opening hockey match - it trots out a lively supporting cast. Actually, you can't really blame him for that.
Suave, level-headed grown man might actually be Batman. The performance works well enough for the role's limited demands, but Clooney doesn't seem to believe that a Ideal in the Batman outfit, is often seen listening thoughtfully, grinning ruefully and not knowing what to do next. After all the irony on display in "Clueless," Alicia Silverstone plays Batgirl dully straight. On the other hand, several of the film's characters conspicuously fail to find the fun in their roles.
("Militant arm of the warm-blooded oppressors! Animal protectors of the status quo!") Threatens, while also denouncing Batman and Robin. "The time has come for plants to take back the world so rightfully ours!" she Thurman is teasing as she plays a mousy botanist who becomes a glorious Venus flytrap and green-rights advocate. But the "Batman"įormula now works best when the characters, like the filmmakers, can be tongue-in-cheek.Ĭertainly the brilliantly costumed Ms. Freeze is introduced as a former two-time Nobel Prize winner in molecular biology, which is surely the funniest thing in the movie. Schwarzenegger wears his armor manfully and delivers such lines with suitable smirks. Like: "I'm afraid my condition has left me cold to your pleas!" And: "You are not sending me to the cooler!" Freeze, whose deadliest weapon in the film is an arsenal of har-har puns. In other words they're a lot smarter than, say, Like "Batman" characters, these two lead double lives: theyĪlso collaborated on two John Grisham adaptations, "The Client" and "A Time to Kill," which concern real people experiencing life without benefit of special effects. Like "Batman Forever," the new film was directed fancifully by Schumacher and written by Akiva Goldsman (one of several "Batman" writers last time). Since "Batman and Robin" does its best to throw in something for everyone, there's even a dinosaur in one of these frosty scenes. Of thousand tiny blue lights, is the occasion for crazy experiments in icy decor.
Freeze, the lumbering villain played by Arnold Schwarzenegger plus a 45-pound suit equipped with a couple Gotham throws a Save the Rainforest costume ball, complete with extras doing a Polynesian dance number. The architecture of Gotham City now incorporates huge, hunky male statuary, and the local punks suggest "A Clockwork Orange"Īnd heavy metal bands. What "Batman and Robin" does deliver is outlandish visual mischief, and the more the merrier. Melancholy Batman of Tim Burton's first two films looks like the brooding Prince of Denmark next to this. There's not much more to Batman, now played affably but blandly by George Clooney and given only second billing, than a heroic jaw line, understanding gaze and anatomically correct rubber suit. In the interests of this, it is more than happy to steamroller over questions
The movie begins with BatmanĪnd Robin caught up in a crazed hockey match, taking off on a rocket and then surfing through space.Īiming for comic book fans with a taste for heavy sarcasm and double-entendres, the lavish "Batman and Robin" cares only about delivering nonstop glitter. In this context, it's not surprising that even the opening credit sequence is at fever pitch.
Piles on the flashy showmanship and keeps the film as big, bold, noisy and mindlessly overwhelming as possible. Joel Schumacher, director and ringmaster, Poison Ivy captures the essence of "Batman and Robin," a wild, campy costume party of a movie and the first "Batman" to suggest that somewhere in Gotham City there might be a Studio 54. Like Mae West, she mixes true femininity with the winking womanliness of a drag queen.
As played by Uma Thurman, Poison Ivy is perfect, flaunting great looks,Ī mocking attitude and madly flamboyant disguises. And out comes the most show-stopping character in "Batman and Robin," the fourth and most frenetically gaudy feature in the series. Then she peels this off slowly as theīand plays her theme song. T a gala in Gotham City, the fabulous Poison Ivy makes her entrance in a fluffy magenta gorilla suit made from 450 Santa Claus wigs.