Batman & Robin (1997)I remember when I first watched it on TV when I was 7-8 years old, I thought the movie was very cool and interesting, just like Chris O'Donnell did at the same age (although he still thinks it's a great movie). All those jokes, the super-freezing weapon, the poisonous kisses – just wow, awesome! I loved this movie and whenever it was on TV, I would definitely rewatch it. However, at the age of 12, I had to abandon this tradition because the movie started to seem pathetic, drawn-out, and uninteresting. And now, I rewatched it at 27, and I saw it in a completely new light.
The movie isn't just bad – it's very bad. It's hard to believe that its budget was $125 million in 1997. Perhaps $124 million and 900 thousand went to the actors' fees because the stunts, editing, and everything else were simply done terribly. For example, there's a scene where Batman jumps on Mr. Freeze, and a fight should start, but the next shot shows Mr. Freeze already lying on the ground, defeated, and Batman standing triumphantly next to him – and they didn't even try to create the illusion of a normal transition. I won't say anything about the plot as a whole because it's obvious. The acting is also terrible, considering that there are some quite good actors among them; I assume it's a case of bad acting and bad directing. So, what new thing did I see? Until now, I've been listing well-known facts; everyone already knows that the movie is terrible. But here's something: if someone has watched the movie or the Nostalgia Critic's review, they probably remember the scene with the Bat-credit card, which also appears with an interesting sound. I'll add something to that – in some moments, when the enemies fall or slip, this
sound plays (look for the word "улетучился" on the page and play it; that's the sound). I swear, that's exactly what happened, at least twice; I'm not lying. The sound itself might be slightly different, but it's very similar in essence. Then, I analyzed the situation from another angle – Schumacher, the director of this film, also made
8mm (about what the rich do for entertainment with ordinary people, very seriously),
Flatliners (a film about sin and forgiveness), and
Falling Down (a film about an ordinary man who is tired of society in all its beautiful complexity). And finally, I came to this conclusion.
Schumacher wanted to make serious films about serious problems. He was first offered to make
Batman Forever, which is also objectively bad but was commercially successful. And then, Schumacher decided to show everyone that superheroes are crap for kids and made a film as badly and pathetically as possible, inserting cartoon sound effects to show everyone how unserious it is to admire people in costumes if you're older than 8. And I must say that he succeeded – the superhero film genre almost died after him for about 10 years, and the Avengers appeared even later. At the same time, the funniest thing is that the Avengers and other Marvel films are made according to the same scheme, namely – jokes, costumes, pathetic action, just done more smoothly and with better quality. I believe that now, in 2020, we can finally appreciate the enormous amount of post-irony that Schumacher put into his film and recognize that he did everything right and set back superhero films by decades with his film-parody.