Holy shit, Batman! Chris O'Donnell turned down Men in Black to star in this?! Batman on Ice aka Batman: The Death of a Franchise aka Batman & Robin aka Pure Dog Shit opens with Batman (George Clooney) and his sidekick Robin (Chris O'Donnell) once again throwing out one-liners with Robin bitching like a girl about how he wants a car like Batman 'cause chicks dig the car. Batman then bitches back, "This is why Superman works alone." (Hey, let's kill off another DC Comics franchise. Why not?) Meanwhile, Alfred mutters something about cancelling the pizzas. I'm not sure. I don't really care. Yes, it only took that short of a time for me to realize this film getting the green light is proof that life isn't fair. Batman and Robin then run off to fight Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) on skates. Mr. Freeze is apparently collecting a bunch of diamonds which powers his suit, and he's gonna freeze Gotham, holding it for a billion dollar ransom to fund a cure for his wife. All this, despite the fact he probably has a billion dollars worth of diamonds stashed away in his collection anyway. Then Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman) shows up with Nacho Libre on steroids, better known as Bane. Both Batman and Robin get a hard-on for her due to some pheromone dust she blows at them. Alfred's dying (or, judging from this film, at least wishes he could), and hey, Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone) shows up! "Suit me up, Uncle Alfred!" I'm thinking the filmmakers thought, hey, we've already killed Batman. Let's have the girl from Clueless show up and keep on kicking him while he's down... and dead.
After watching this and Batman Forever, I am convinced that Warner Bros. needs to issue a restraining order on Joel Schumacher requiring him to be at least 500 yards away from any Batman related screenplay. You don't even need to drop acid to make yourself question if you have a drug habit after witnessing the over-bloated production design throughout this mess. It's like everyone involved consumed a bag of shrooms and then went, "... Okay, now we're ready to film." Batman Forever wasn't good; in fact, it was pretty bad. However, it was more on par with a train wreck that critically injures a majority of the passengers. Batman & Robin, on the other hand, is like a train wreck that kills every possible living organism on board. Where to begin? How 'bout the casting? I've given credit to casting directors before in my reviews. I think they have just as difficult a job in the filmmaking process as anyone else, considering one or two or more miscasting jobs can either take away from a movie's potential to be great, if not flat out derail the film. That being said, if you give them credit for the good, you also have to hold them accountable for the bad. At what point did casting director Mali Finn ever think George Clooney would make a believable Batman? Don't get me wrong. Clooney's a fantastic actor. I can at least think of five movies of his instantly off the top of my head that I own. Let's be real here though. George Clooney as Batman doesn't even look good on paper. How 'bout the villains next? They're essential to any comic book film adaptation's greatness (or lack thereof). "Batman" is known for a number of diverse, well written and complex villains - Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Two-Face, Scarecrow, Ra's al Ghul, Mad Hatter, Bane, and one of my personal favorites as a kid, Harley Quinn. Two-Face and Riddler were horribly portrayed in Batman Forever, but at least when done right (2008's The Dark Knight, for example) they are great villains with a great story and personality to them. Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy, who are we kidding? They're two of the shittiest villains in the series, be it the comic book series, the animated series, or the film series. Jack Nicholson's Joker in Tim Burton's Batman was overall entertaining, but still frightening, particularly during his "In order to make an omelet, you gotta crack a few eggs!" speech. Heath Ledger's Joker had me right from the first teaser trailer with his "Starting tonight... people will die" voice-over moment. Tom Hardy's Bane was eloquent and menacing all rolled into one. What do we get here? The Terminator unleashing an arsenal of "freeze" and "ice" one-liners (To be fair, we do get some educational pointers, such as finding out it was the Ice Age that killed the dinosaurs) and Uma Thurman going on about bat nipples. Thank you, Mr. Schumacher, and more importantly, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman. Yeah, you're not getting off the hook either. The both of you together did more damage to Batman than Bane could've ever dreamed of doing. Schwarzenegger was actually paid $25 million for this film. That's $25 million... $25 million... $25 MILLION!!!! Just imagine all the more substantial things the studio heads could've done with that money: finding a cure for cancer, or wiping their ass with it and flushing it down a toilet, or just setting it on fire. Little known fact - if you listen closely half-way through the film, somewhere in a galaxy far, far away you can hear Princess Leia go, "Help us, Christopher Nolan, you're our only hope."
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