Why is BATMAN & ROBIN (1997) more hated than BATMAN FOREVER?

[TMC]

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« Thread Started on Oct 5, 2012, 9:41pm »
BF basically did everything B&R did and got a much nicer, if still
lukewarm reception from the public. Hell, Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee
Jones chewed scenery so much that IMO some of the movie is flat out
unwatchable. Now, I'm not saying B&R is some kind of masterpiece, but
what was the straw in it that broke the camel's back, so to speak?



« Reply #4 on Oct 5, 2012, 10:11pm »
A pointless Bane, a terrible Mr. Freeze (Though one of Arnold's few
roles where his accent makes perfect sense), an apathetic Batman, a
fight scene with ice skating and spotlights in a museum, an
afterthought Batgirl, and a TERRIBLE Poison Ivy all added up to be a
waste of everyone's time. Batman Forever is a bad movie, but it has
some kernels that work. Batman and Robin fails on just about every
front.

So which is worse to you: a movie with wasted potential or a total
dud? It really is a case of which bothers you more.



« Reply #9 on Oct 5, 2012, 10:59pm »

Oct 5, 2012, 10:54pm, YAK MAN, Attorney at Law wrote:
Probably because given the approximate demographic around here, most
of us were young enough to not give a s*** that Batman Forever was a
terrible movie. By the time Batman and Robin came out we were a little
older, a little more refined in our tastes, and couldn't stomach it.


That's what I was about to say. I was still young enough to enjoy
Batman Forever without questioning how over the top and ridiculous
parts of it were. But I was a teenager who thought things out more by
the time of Batman & Robin.

And there's also the fact that Val Kilmer was more brooding and had a
bit of a mystique to him at the time that Clooney lacked.



« Reply #13 on Oct 5, 2012, 11:33pm »
I think it's because Batman Forever came out first, Kilmer was a
better Batman, and Jim Carrey was HUGE back then and people pretty
much loved him in everything he did from 1993-1998 (except Cable Guy).

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« Reply #20 on Oct 6, 2012, 3:46am »
B and R was just too wacky.

Forever also had decent performances from all involved, B and R... had
Drag Queen Mae West Poison Ivy.



« Reply #22 on Oct 6, 2012, 4:15am »
You had to love Forecer just for the fact that you had two villains,
one played by Jim Carrey, the other by Tommy Lee Jones, one of whom
ate scenery like there was no tomorrow, overacting and mugging all
over the place, and generally being as broad and cartoony as possible.

Then you had Jim Carrey.

Who wouldn't love a movie where TOMMY LEE JONES, Mr. Taciturn himself,
outhammed Jim friggin' Carrey.

Someone needs to find TLJ a role like that again, homeboy's looked
like he's been about to fall asleep in his movies the last several
years.



« Reply #23 on Oct 6, 2012, 5:57am »
The villians were less cheesy. That says a lot because the villians in
Forever were pretty cheesy. However, I think Carrey made the Riddler
work though. He was Jim Carrey but the character was still menacing
and fairly dark. Two Face was kind of half assed and extremely cheesy.
Mr Freeze, Poison Ivy, and Bane did nothing for me in Batman and
Robin.

Val Kilmer was a better Batman than Clooney IMO.

Robin had a fairly good storyline in Forever. He was annoying as hell
in B & R.

No Batgirl.

Cool soundtrack.



« Reply #27 on Oct 6, 2012, 10:07am »
Forever was definitely campy, but B&R took the cartooniness to
incredible degrees. Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones were both wacky as
their charactrs, but you could still tell they were giving it their
all, while in B&R I got the impression that most of the actors were
sleepwalking their way through the parts, and from what I have heard
about what a mess the filming of that movie was I suspect they just
reached a point where they all wanted to just collect their checks and
go home. B&R screwed up the story of Bane, turning him into a dumb lug
instead of a challenging villain. I was no fan of the Batman and Robin
suits in Forever, but at least they did not have visible nipples and
over-exxaggerrated cod pieces.

Is that enough reasons for you?



« Reply #29 on Oct 6, 2012, 10:12am »
Batman Forever at least had some decent moments and a good Bruce Wayne/
Batman thanks to Val Kilmer. Had they gone with the original script,
it would've been a much better movie, but too late for that. I read
that Joel Schumacher wanted to do a director's cut for the 10th
anniversary, which would've been closer to the original script (to be
released on the 2 disc special edition that all 4 films received), but
WB decided against it. What a shame.

Batman & Robin was destined to be crap from the very beginning. Unlike
Forever, which had a different script initially, Batman & Robin's
script was more or less the same. It was just a stretched out and
overblown toy commercial. No redeeming moments, and plenty of
silliness that would even make Adam West and Burt Ward question
"why?". Mind you, I like the 1966 series...at least it was campy in a
fun way. Although I can look back at Batman & Robin and laugh at some
of the ridiculousness of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze.



« Reply #31 on Oct 6, 2012, 10:38am »
Forever just doesn't hold up anymore for me. Jones's Two-Face was
godawful in retrospect, Nicole Kidman was hardly allowed to do
anything, and Kilmer was a solid Batman but his Bruce was way too
brooding and that cancelled out the contrasts between the two
identities. Unlike B&R which I can just sit back and laugh at how
stupid and goofy it is, BF tried to take itself way too seriously and
it failed.

Although Forever had a far superior soundtrack. Seal, PJ Harvey, U2,
Method Man, Massive Attack, Nick Cave, Offspring and even Brandy all
brought it.



« Reply #34 on Oct 6, 2012, 11:32am »
Batman Forever did have somewhat of a story to it, and the whole theme
of Bruce Wayne not wanting Robin to become like him was interesting.
In Batman and Robin, the whole thing was a disaster.



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« Reply #40 on Oct 6, 2012, 2:23pm »

Oct 6, 2012, 2:15pm, Krimzon wrote:

Oct 6, 2012, 3:17am, Terroriffic wrote:


And they didn't even get her origin right. Alfred's niece? Come on.


She was supposed to be English, yet had ZERO accent whatsoever.


Yup, you know thinking this topic over there's just some director's
styles who don't fit the franchises. Bryan Singer did great with the X-
Men franchise, but that style didn't translate well to the superman
mythos. Joel Schumacher has directed some good films, but Batman
really didn't fit his style.



« Reply #45 Yesterday at 12:05am »
I find B&R far more entertaining than BF. It's far more fun for me and
it is the most honest adaptation of the 60s series, which was just as
much a staple of my childhood as TAS. It is most assuredly flawed, but
I love cheesy films like it.

And let's be honest for a moment here: B&R is actually the most
internally consistent of that series of Batman flicks. It doesn't
pretend to be a serious take on the character and then have an overly
long barreled pistol take down a plane. It doesn't try to pass itself
off as dark and brooding before unleashing rocket penguins and CD
scratching. It embraced the goofiness that preceded it and established
it from the beginning. And unlike Forever, B&R had the actors far more
in synch with each other. In Forever, you have Kilmer and Kidman more
or less acting like they are in a serious movie while Carrey and Jones
chew so much scenery that there are bite marks in scenes they don't
even appear in.

[John Doe]

TMC <tmc1982 gmail.com> wrote:

> Jim Carrey was HUGE back then and people pretty much loved him
> in everything he did from 1993-1998 (except Cable Guy).

The Cable Guy (1996)

Budget
$47,000,000 (estimated)

Gross
$100,700,000 (Worldwide)

Rentals
$33,600,000 (USA)

[Kenneth M. Lin]

Nipples on the costumes? Clooney and O'Donnell were very gay.

"TMC" wrote in message
news:186ad733-3370-4144...@b15g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...

[TMC]

On Oct 7, 11:36 pm, TMC <tmc1...@gmail.com> wrote:
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by IndianaMcClane (Mon Aug 27 2012 02:18:17)

UPDATED Thu Oct 25 2012 11:53:20
BATMAN FOREVER I do find to be a far superior film. It had its goofy
moments yes, but there are a couple of major differences.

1) The story is far less haphazard and contrived.
All of these Batman films have varying degrees of contrivance used to
put together their story. Moreso than this film with BATMAN & ROBIN or
even BATMAN RETURNS. FOREVER at least makes the attempt to connect
most of its subplots with a throughline. In RETURNS it just so happens
that Catwoman gets created as the Penguin reveals himself to the
public also orchestrating the return of the Red Triangle Gang and
Shreck putting forth his powerplant agenda. BATMAN & ROBIN is even
further like this. Though RETURNS has enough other things going for
it. It wants to essentially tell the same story as BATMAN FOREVER, but
is lazily patched together. We are told by Gordon at the beginning of
the film that Mr. Freeze is a "New villain in town", meaning that it's
his first appearance. And at the same time Pamela Isley finds out
about her crazy boss' agenda and gets turned into Poison Ivy. (A
character who I might add is basically the RETURNS version of Catwoman
and the FOREVER version of Riddler put into a blender) But that's not
all. At the same time Alfred gets sick and dying (and it just so
happens to be the same disease that Nora Fries has) which brings in
his niece Barbara Wilson who eventually becomes Batgirl. There is no
event that gets all these things going they just all collide together
at once with virtually no thought put into it.

Almost everything in BATMAN FOREVER stems from the set-up established
at the beginning. Two-Face (who is firmly established to have fought
Batman before) escaping from prison and seeks to get revenge on
Batman. The first result of this is that it brings in Dr. Chase
Meridian who becomes Batman's love interest. The reason she was
brought into the storyline was because the Gotham Police Department
wanted her help to try and reason with and or stop Two-Face. Two-
Face's second attempt is where he kills Dick Grayson's parents at the
circus triggering not only the meeting of Wayne and Grayson but also
triggering both of their character arcs. Bruce Wayne sees how Dick is
going through a similar ordeal that he did, and it brings him back the
memories of his parents' deaths and make himself question why he's
Batman. Dick obviously starting down the path to revenge because of
this. And lastly while Nigma was already insane he didn't decide to
become a costumed criminal until he saw Two-Face's attack on the
circus on TV. Not only explaining that but also is why he decides to
go to Two-Face in order to form an alliance with him rather than the
two just bumping into each other randomly and then deciding to team up
a little while later like in the other two films. Not to mention that
Alfred making a suit for Dick and supporting his becoming of a
crimefight makes a lot more sense. He shows the need of guidance
throughout, had much more logical motivation since his parents were
murdered by a madman instead of just dying in an accidental car crash,
as well as displaying some fighting capability. (in the laundry room
scene) For all he knows in BATMAN & ROBIN Barbara is just a
schoolgirl, who in spite of the fact her parents had died in a car
crash was fine.

2) It balanced seriousness and goofiness better.
For my money all three of the sequels to BATMAN 89 have different
balances of serious elements and goofy elements. And quite frankly I
find FOREVER not so much sillier than BATMAN RETURNS as much as it is
just more lighthearted. Seriously that film had Batman with a radar
system that made quacking duck noises while tracking down the penguin,
and a toy poodle catching a mechanical homing Batarang in its mouth
among other things. Doesn't make it a bad film, but I don't see why
people think it's that much more serious. Yes there are both serious
and silly moments throughout the film, but I find at least FOREVER
kept each in their place. Characters that were played straight were
played straight, and those who were played more comical were kept more
comical. Batman and Robin were played straight. They may have had a
few one liners here and there, but not to the extent of the following
film or to the point you couldn't take the characters seriously. Heck
other action hero's have a couple of oneliners and aren't
automatically thought of as jokes. (And wasn't it Keaton who said "Eat
floor...High fiber") Unlike BATMAN & ROBIN he was still kept as a dark
and secretive creature of the shadows. And Wayne still was presented
with a mystique and as tortured. Not the jolly guy dressed in a blue
bat-suit who attends flower balls and bids on women with a Bat Credit
Card. Riddler and Two-Face weren't played as serious, but they stuck
with that. I find one of BATMAN & ROBIN's major problems to be how
they present Mr. Freeze in it. He can be funny to watch, but from a
storytelling standpoint they made a major mistake in combining the
60's Mr. Freeze with the animated series version. Like the 60's
version he plays it very hammy, has a heavy Germanic accent, and
spouts ice puns. But at the same time there are many scenes wanting us
to give the character are sympathies when he's brooding over the
tragedy of his wife. I just cannot see that being taken seriously when
he's acting like a goofball through the entire film. Even Two-Face in
the last film who could've easily been done the same way was at least
played entirely in an over-the-top manner rather than doing that while
exploring that character's plight. Arguably towards the end they kind
of do with the whole "You were always a good friend Bruce" thing at
the end but that came off as him just trying to psyche him out. And
just in general it's undeniable that BATMAN & ROBIN is much sillier on
the whole.

3) At least one villain was good...At least in my opinion
I have said it many times on these boards, but Jim Carrey is a far
better Riddler than most people give him credit for being. People
comparing him to how they want to see the Riddler nowadays rather than
how he was for a large portion of his history. Many people complain
about how electric and flamboyant the Riddler was played in the film,
but that's how the character was for a long time. It's very true to
the Golden and Silver Age Riddler. Jim Carrey oft said in interviews
that he was channeling Frank Gorshin, and I can see the reasoning for
that. For years Frank Gorshin was the Riddler. The character didn't
even become a popular mainstay in the franchise until Gorshin's
acclaimed performance in the Adam West television series. The version
that was in the comics before and a long while afterwards. I'm not
exactly sure where the changing of Riddler's character was, but I am
pretty sure that it was at least in the late 80's or early 90's. It
could've even been the Bruce Timm animated series that started in '92.
As in a special feature in the DVD boxsets Bruce Timm said they had to
reinvent the character because if they went with the classic version
they felt he would be too much of a "Joker clone". FOREVER only began
production a short time after the animated series and the redefined
Riddler had even begun, and at that point the more maniacal rubber
bodied character was still the predominant version and Carrey played
it to a tee. I found him to be funny, pathetic at points that fit with
his character (which was essentially an obsessive nerd turned
supervillain), and I personally think even kind of creepy at points.
Like the "Why doesn't anybody put you in your place" bit, "Now the
real game begins", and the "I'm Batman" ending. Heck, I found his
extreme obsession with Bruce Wayne to add onto that. He was
characterized with traits indicative to the Riddler. His massive ego,
leading him to wanting both the spoltight and also prove how great/
smart he is. He still had the obsessions of using Riddles in his
plans, as well as proving that he was better than and staying several
steps ahead of Batman (or rather his alter ego Bruce Wayne in this
version). And he still thought of knowledge as the ultimate weapon.
His plan revolving around getting smarter and outright saying "If
knowledge is power than a God am I". It is undeniable that a lot of
the time it felt like he was playing himself, but that worked with the
character they were going for. (in a similar vein to Jack Nicholson as
The Joker in BATMAN 89) Indeed Two-Face is a MAJOR letdown in the
film. He could've been a great more stern and more brooding
counterpart/straight man to Carrey's manical Riddler. I think the
dynamic there could have been different and better that way.
Apparently TLJ was hard to work with, and had some backstage issues
with Jim Carrey. Saying in interviews that he was more of a vaudville
clown than a real actor, and is said to have played Two-Face more
goofily in an attempt to not be upstaged by Carrey. (Apparently
according to an interview with Joel Schumacher TLJ wouldn't take
direction and did whatever he wanted) As disappointing as Two-Face is
in the film, he doesn't ruin it for me. It is the Riddler we spend
more time with and who really takes center stage as the primary
antagonist by the end of the film so I can take it. BATMAN & ROBIN On
the otherhand was basically all tried being goofy with characters that
it didn't work with as it didn't with Two-Face.

4) The heroes' character arcs work better
People often debate how much depth each of the original Batman films
has. Many arguing that there was not enough focus and or development
on Bruce Wayne in Burton's two pictures. Regardless of there are any
or not in its two predecessors, Bruce gets a pretty strong character
arc in this film. One that actually builds well upon the two films
that proceeded it. And it's interwoven nicely with Dick's character
development.

Let's examine BATMAN & ROBIN. In that film they bring up the idea of
Bruce facing the fact that deep down he's been trying to master death
itself but must realize that he cannot. A lot of this used in regard
to the fact that Alfred's dying and it seems like there's no way out
of it. Only for him to survie at the end and Bruce basically learning
nothing. Dick essentially regresses as a character who becomes just
way to whiny and defiant.

BATMAN FOREVER builds on Bruce's descent and murderous actions in the
two Burton movies and does something with it. They make it so he's
come to regret what he's done and tries to keep Dick from making the
same mistakes he did. He said that getting revenge against Two-Face
wouldn't make the pain go away but would make it worse and make him
keep looking for another face to take down to try and satiate the
pain. (Bruce actually doesn't kill in BATMAN 89 until he discovers the
Joker was the one who killed his parents and after he dies we see
Bruce in returns kill a lot more people and even seem to kind of enjoy
it) And in the end ther is payoff with that since he does save Two-
Face rather than kill him to try and avenge his parents. It is
debatable whether or not Batman breaks his own moral at the end. But I
think that depends on whether or not he actually tried to kill Two-
Face. Like the Joker's death in BATMAN 89 it's questionable whether or
not the death was intentional or by accident. Batman easily could've
just been trying to disable Two-Face by making him lose his coin, and
he wouldn't know that he'd try to hard to get it back to the point
that he'd fall off the beam he was standing on. It also makes sense
that Bruce being the loner he is at first resists Dick as a partner
when he's feeling the obligation to be Batman, but takes him when he
decides to be Batman by choice and not face it with a self-exilation
kind of mentality. There is a neat parallel in their character arcs
with Riddler and Two-Face. Two-Face wants revenge against Batman, and
like Bruce with Dick Riddler tries to mentor him about how to handle
it. Saying that he should be crushed in spirit and made to suffer
before ultimately being killed. Like with Dick he faces a position
where he can get the revenge he wanted but stops to do as the Riddler
has told him. Being the good guys Bruce's mentoring ends well with the
good guys winning, while Riddler's mentoring is what ruined his plans
since if Two-Face had killed Bruce he wouldn't have been able to stop
them. It seems like they almost try the same kind of dynamic between
Bruce and Freeze. Both essentially wanting to master death and save
ones they love, but it never really gets past the basic idea.

There is a lot better character stuff in FOREVER than generally given
credit for being. Though to be quite frank that's my general opinion
of the entire movie. Is it perfect, no. And do I think it's a great
film. No, it's not. But I do think it's a fun movie that should be
seen in that light rather than as a travesty as most people seem to. I
in fact would say I think it's about as good as RETURNS, though below
BATMAN 89 and the Nolan films. But quite frankly it was a very popular
and well liked film when it first came out, it's name only really
starting to get dragged into the gutter because of it's sequel. I can
watch BATMAN & ROBIN and get a nice laugh with it as well as a nice
dose of childhood nostalgia. But FOREVER I actually legitimately like.

[d4rkn1ght]

On Mon, 08 Oct 2012 03:36:09 -0400, TMC <tmc...@gmail.com> wrote:

> « Reply #45 Yesterday at 12:05am »
> I find B&R far more entertaining than BF. It's far more fun for me and
> it is the most honest adaptation of the 60s series, which was just as
> much a staple of my childhood as TAS. It is most assuredly flawed, but
> I love cheesy films like it.

Batman 66 was fun and some how more accurate to how Batman was in the
comic books in those times. B&R was just plain ridiculous and an
embarrassment to the rest of the Batman movies. Batgirl is Alfred's
niece?? Come on. :|


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