Batman & Robin
Lame script, over the top production, homo-eroticism... and the Batman.

It has great action sequences, sharp direction, beautiful images, and is imbued with the madness and energy that make superheroes and their stories great. Yes, you guessed it -- I'm talking about The Matrix.

Batman & Robin is pretty much the opposite of what is probably the best recent superhero movie. It's a mess. A messy excuse to sell toys -- ugly, phallic toys (hey check out the peni -- er the rocket on Mr. Freeze's... whatever the hell kind of vehicle he has). It's also a mish-mash of ugly colors trying to pass itself off as beautiful. And, of course, it's garish costumes with nipples that try to be sexy but end up being rubber carcasses with nipples.

It would quite easy to criticize this movie for the way it takes a whopping bowel movement all over the rich comic book and animated history, but I will resist doing that here because it's quite easy to criticize it for what it is: a bad movie. A movie so over the top that it becomes ugly and unattractive when it tries to be sexy and appealing.

But the lack of subtlety does not stop there. Oh, no.

In Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin, we are treated to a smorgasbord of homo-eroticism and alternate sexuality metaphors; our heroes are clad in garish, kinky rubber with distended nipples and tremendously disproportioned crotches. And, you know, Mr. Freeze (played by an obviously blackmailed Arnold Schwarzenegger) derives a little too much enjoyment from the constant use of his freeze-ray gun. His ice-vehicle has a "rod-shaped" rocket that erects itself before firing up into the sky. Gotham City is filled with huge statues of naked men, as is Wayne Manor. Poison Ivy transforms into the mother of all drag queens as the movie itself drags on. Don't get me wrong -- I have nothing against homosexuality subtext (in this movie it's not very "sub" but still...) or any kind of subtext when it is used to make a point. But the only point in Batman & Robin seems to be that there isn't one at all. Sure, I guess they could've used the secret identity thing as a metaphor for being in the closet, but that would be way too deep... and we all know that, in Hollywood, "deep" gets in the way of selling toys.

There's simply too much of everything, even in the characters themselves, meaning, of course, that there's also no place for character development. The very few bits presented on this front are communicated through banal snippets of dialogue that include sage quips like "Batman, you have trust issues," and "Robin, you don't think enough about your actions!" Yes, subtlety pores over every scene in this movie. All lines spoken by Mr. Freeze are pathetic one-liners, as if writer Akiva Goldsman thought that the mere act of Ah-nuld saying them would make them cool as "I'll be back."

I won't bother to include a plot summary, since most of the elements are ripped off from both the previous Batman movies as well as the animated series (sadly, not ripped enough to make the movie anywhere near as good as its source material). It doesn't make a lot of sense, it's none too intelligent, and is really just there to show off toys for the kiddies.

Batman & Robin is a bad movie for many reasons, but mainly because it tries too hard. Too much style and nearly not enough substance. The Matrix has raised the bar for all superhero movies by having equal amounts of both. Let's hope that Joel Schumacher remembers that, should he ever try to do another Batman movie. God help us all.

DROOL FACTOR: Schumacher can try all he wants, but I'll never believe those rubber outfits are sexy. Still, for the ladies, there's George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell out of their costumes.

GROSS-OUT FACTOR: Poison Ivy as the ultimate drag queen, cardboard villain Bane wearing a something akin to an S&M get-up, the fact that the movie was made -- take your pick.

STRONG CHICK FACTOR: None at all. Three female characters: bland supermodel girlfriend, overacting veggie drag queen, and a boring Batgirl whose presence is needed to add a new action figure to the catalogue.

-- Yannick Belzil

Batman & Robin is currently available on video and DVD.

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