Batman And Robin

The Batman films are basically action films filmed in the dark, but are also essentially dramas. Film makers shouldn't down play their key characters in dramatic movies!

The makers of the 1960's TV series had the right idea when they turned to high camp to set the tone. It's a mistake to take Batman too seriously, but if you adopt serious sets which rightly demand serious attention, then giving careful focus to leading characters is demanded of the director.

Director Tim Burton started the trend of this modern crop of Bat films, taking the homosexuality out of the Bat, but also almost avoiding Batman altogether! We were presented with a dark, tilted, Gotham City, surmounted by stunning strange statue like appendages to buildings and a sexless, sterile Batman, even with his rubber nipples and mounded cod pieces.

Burton also turned the Bat Eye firmly onto a succession of outlandish villains, with the plastic man and his plastic boy nephew battling it out in the midst of a set design and special effects extravaganza, with the aid of the various Bat gadgets.

The closest we came to caring about the Bat was when Val Kilmer and Nicole Kidman nearly got it off in Batman Forever, but then the inane Joker played by the hyperactive and overwhelming Jim Carrey spoilt that Batfilm.

Val Kilmer added some genuine sex appeal to Batman but was fired (or resigned) from Batman And Robin when he demanded top billing over the wimps Chris O'Donnell who plays Robin, who was resigned for Batman And Robin.

Kilmer wanted a more central role for Batman and I'd say that he was right. So then George Clooney was signed to play the new Batman, but then offered nothing at all to the role.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is his usual classy self as the main villain Mr Freeze in Batman And Robin, but unfortunately the other main baddie is played by Uma Thurman who's absolutely hopeless as Poison Ivy.

Thurman is supposed to be an embittered environmentalist; an ugly woman who hates humanity and men in particular. She mutates into the incredibly seductive Poison Ivy who murders her victims with a poisoned kiss, but unfortunately all Thurman can think to do is a hopelessly stiff Mae West "come up an see me sometime" routine; a performance which is as sexy as a stuffed dog.

Uma Thurman is a classy but cool actress. She's no Mae West!

Alicia Silverstone, fresh from her hit film Clueless, plays Batgirl and manages to add quite a bit of interest to Batman And Robin. That body that now talks more and more in films, Elle McPherson, plays a fairly credible Batman's girlfriend, but all in all Batman And Robin is too long, too loud and too short on ideas. Holy Bat Bore!