July 17–24, 1997

movie shorts

Batman and Robin

recommended

After several filmic attempts to delve darkly into Bruce Wayne's scarred psyche (they never did get it right), director Joel Schumacher finally succeeds at turning Batman into a campy flyaway cartoon. With spiraling lights and retro gadgets all around, Batman (played with clunky TV-actor affect by George Clooney) no longer broods. The homoerotic contextualism of his relationship to Robin (Chris O'Donnell) is replaced with boyish jealousy over the usual macho stuff: cars, attention, girls. With dialogue that vacillates between snappy and banal, they wrestle with kooky visual cues, constant weather shifts, a dying butler (Michael Gough) and his lisping chubby niece from England (Alicia Silverstone), who will eventually become chubby Batgirl. Oh, and they fight way-illustrated bad guys with lofty issues. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a doctor who, while in the process of curing his dying wife, falls into a vat of really cold water and suddenly becomes the bald 'n' frozen Mr. Freeze. When Arnold rages, his characterization is flat — cold even. But when he broods, his demeanor thaws. For the first time, Arnold — painted flecked-blue — is moving as an actor. His scenes of watching video footage of married life or overheating in a jail cell show exquisite frailty and fear — a Peter Lorre-in-M pathos. On the other side of the world, female environmentalist Dr. Isley falls into a pit of snakes and lots of colored beakers and voila! She becomes sexy earth mother Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman doing a fab Julie Newmar impersonation). Together or alone, they work to bring the city to its knees and restructure the earth according to their ideal. Holy Global Blah Blah! Unfortunately, there's more holes here than in the Batcave. Why does Alfred's Brit niece talk like a Valley Girl? How did Isley come out of a pit with a Southern accent and sexier clothes? Why does Schumacher insist on shooting teen crowds like extras in a Cyndi Lauper video? Mindless adventure, yes. But its special effects work toward furthering the script, and unobtrusive Batman guarantees that all is well with the world. Kerpow!

—a.d. amorosi