i think maybe it 's time for the batman series to be put to rest .
not only has the first two films ' unsettling insight into what it would really take for someone to make himself into a " superhero " been abandoned , but this one throws any lingering realism out the window and goes for all - out camp with few traces of the self - mocking restraint of the relatively light - hearted third installment .
let me give you an example : in the first scene of the movie , batman ( george clooney ) and robin ( chris o'donnell ) are summoned to a museum that has been literally turned to ice by mr .
freeze ( arnold schwarzenegger ) in an attempt to steal a diamond .
mr .
freeze 's thugs are armed with none other than hockey sticks , but this is no problem for our heroes : automatic skates shoot out of their shoes , at which point robin manages to get hold of a hockey stick , grabs the diamond , and stick - handles it through the museum .
i might have expected this from an airplane - style farce , but i do n't think that 's what this movie is supposed to be . after all , the previous three batman movies were actually fairly realistic by the standards of the superhero / action genre and kept the corny death - defying stunts to a minimum , while playing the obligatory cheesiness with at least some amount of irony .
not any more ; the list goes on and on in this one .
robin holds onto the outside of a flying rocket ship 30 , 000 feet high in the atmosphere , climbing in the door to save batman .
mr . freeze and poison ivy ( uma thurman ) leap from a skyscraper and survive by landing in a small pond .
a world dominating mad scientist lives in a fortress that seems to have been stolen from the old he - man cartoons .
my very favorite example is the scene in which batgirl ( alicia silverstone ) gets in a race with motorcycle thugs , during which they come up with the clever notion of dousing the road with gasoline and setting it on fire to distract her .
not bad , but would n't the police ( or maybe batman ? )
notice if the road was on fire ?
i knew gotham city was this crazy anarchic place ,
but . . . . it also seems that the creators of the batman movies are obeying some unwritten rule that there have to be more main characters and plot lines in each successive installment .
as if three protagonists and two villains were n't enough , batman and robin
further weighs itself down with an underdeveloped side story of the failing health of bruce wayne 's butler alfred ( michael gough ) , which might have seemed poignant if it was n't surrounded by so much silliness , as well as several scenes with elle macpherson as bruce 's girlfriend which serve no purpose other than to remind us that she is in the movie .
all this might be semi - excusable if the story were interesting and entertaining , but it is n't . in fact ,
it 's kind of boring
.
mr . freeze and poison ivy pale in comparison as villains to past baddies such as jack nicholson 's joker and danny devito 's penguin .
their evil plot is as predictable ( schwarzenegger actually pronounces the words , " today gotham city , tomorrow the world ! " ) as it is lame - brained
( did n't it ever occur to poison ivy that freezing the entire world would kill her precious plants too ? ) .
and robin 's constant challenging of batman
mostly just makes him look bull - headed and stupid and makes us wonder why batman ever would have taken him on as a partner in the first place .
strip away the stars , the fancy set design , and the status as a " batman movie , " and all you have here is another barely passable summer action flick .
Output: N