Batman & Robin

Em: 00:02:22

Hi, everyone. I'm Em. And welcome to Verbal Diorama, episode 307, Batman and Robin.

This is the podcast that's all about the history and legacy of movies you know and movies you don't. And allow me to break the ice. My name is Em. I host Verbal Diorama.

Learn it well, for it is no chilling sound, but it is a sound you can chill with, hopefully. Welcome to Verbal Diorama it's ice to see brand-new listeners and regular returning listeners. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for choosing to listen to this podcast. I am so happy to have you here for the history and legacy leg icy of Batman and Robin. I am so sorry. The puns in this movie, it's just. It's just.

They're there. They're just there. Okay, I promise this episode is not going to be fun of puns.

I just wanted to get some in before we started so that I'm expunged of all my puns and there will be no more. Maybe. I can't promise.

There may be some at the end, but huge thank you to everyone who listens to this podcast who appreciates my very weird sense of humour sometimes and just has continued to listen and support this podcast over the last six years and well over 300 episodes now. Thank you so much for your support. It genuinely means so much. And I'm finally doing an episode on Batman and Robin.

This has been such a long time coming as have all of the episodes this month. They have all been episodes that have been a long time coming to this podcast.

Originally, back in the day I was going to do a double episode on Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, and then I realized the stories of both of those movies were just so huge that I basically split them up. And then my plan was to do Batman Forever followed by Batman and Robin. That never happened.

So I did Batman Forever last year and I'm finally doing Batman and Robin. And this has been so much fun, genuinely doing these movies, doing Batman Forever and then doing Batman and Robin. So much fun.

I can't tell you how appreciative of both of these movies that I am. I'm not saying they're the greatest Batman movies, but I really genuinely do appreciate both of these movies.

The last episode was on Mr. And Mrs. Smith, and obviously that was also a long time coming to this podcast, and mostly about the intense paparazzi trying to get a shot of Golden Couple Brangelina. Batman, of course, harkens back to the golden age of comics. That's not the only link between these two very different scenes.

Mr. And Mrs. Smith may have had the onset chemistry. How many butt shots did it have? None. Were there pronounced Bat nipples? No, there were not in Mr. And Mrs. Smith's.

I like to think that because George Clooney and Brad Pitt are friends because they work together on the Ocean's films, that I'm pretty sure that Pitt would have ribbed Clooney about his time as the Caped Crusader. Even though we know George Clooney has a sense of humor about this movie.

There's also a lot of shame, I think, about this movie, but also cast and crew of this movie. There's also a lot of sense of humour, but the paps weren't just trying to get shots of Brangelina.

90s paparazzi also swarmed the Batman and Robin set and they were desperate for a photo of one thing in particular. Not the COD pieces, unfortunately. Let's face it though, there's something about an anatomically correct rubber suit that puts fire in a girl's lips.

Here's the trailer for Batman and Robin.

Em: 00:08:28

The dynamic duo of Batman and Robin work to protect Gotham City from evil forces. But their relationship is challenged when they must fight the ice cool Mr.

Freeze and the venomous Poison Ivy, who seek to both freeze Gotham and repopulate it with mutant plants. Joining them on their quest is Barbara Wilson, the niece of Bruce Wayne's faithful butler Alfred, who joins the team as new hero Batgirl.

But Alfred is very sick, and it turns out the only person with a cure is Mr. Freeze. Let's run through the cast of this movie. We have Arnold Schwarzenegger as Dr. Victor Freeze, aka Mr.

Freeze, George Clooney as Bruce Wayne, aka Batman, Chris O' Donnell as Dick Grayson, aka Robin, Uma Thurman as Dr. Pamela Isley, aka Poison Ivy, Alicia Silverstone as Barbara Wilson, aka Batgirl, Michael Gough as Alfred Pennyworth, Pat Hingle as Commissioner James Gordon and Elle macpherson as Julie Madison.

Batman and Robin was written by Akiva Goldsman, directed by Joel Schumacher, and was based on characters appearing in DC Comics by Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Riddle me this. Riddle me that. What happened to Schumacher's sequel to Bat Man Forever? So much. So freaking much.

Last September: 2024

So I will just wait here while you go and listen to that. If you already haven't, or if you did and you need a refresher, please go and listen to that episode. But the Batman series so far has been a ride.

Let's summarize.

After Batman: 1989

But it was also violent, dark, scary and sexual. While Batman Returns was successful at the box office, it wasn't as successful as Batman.

And obviously, when you're in the movie business, merchandise is a necessity. So Joel Schumacher was hired to bring merchandise, but also some homoeroticism, neon and batnips to Batman Forever.

But filling the coffers with that lucrative merchandise was the main reason why they wanted this movie. They had to persuade companies to come back to the bat after Batman Returns, and that wasn't a particularly easy task.

McDonald's had been specifically burned by the association with Catwoman's tight black catsuit and whips, not really being considered family friendly, except for Indiana Jones. But he didn't really use the whip the same way Michelle Pfeiffer did. He also didn't wear skin tight black pvc. More's the shame.

ever did the business in June: 1995

First, Schumacher would work on his second Grisham adaptation, A Time to Kill, and then he would start on Batman 4, which as I mentioned in Batman Forever should have been Batman 4 ever. And Batman Forever, which introduced Robin, should have been called Batman and Robin, but I digress.

Also returning was screenwriter Akiba Goldsman, who was also working on A Time to Kill. Schumacher and Goldsman came up with the plot of Batman 4 together while spitballing ideas during Time to Kill's production.

And Warner Brothers were very specific. They knew what they wanted.

More family friendly, more suitable for children, and more suitable for the toys that children would want for birthdays and Christmas. The leap of faith taken with Batman Forever had paid off, and Warner Brothers wanted more Schumacher less Tim Burton.

And indeed, this would be the only Batman movie that wouldn't have the involvement of Tim Burton in any capacity. He was a producer on Batman Forever. And Joel schumacher completely embraced the 60s, campy, colorful Batman with added sound effects.

He wanted a live action cartoon. Early on in the process, Akiba Goldsman expressed his concerns about the sequel and about what Warner Brothers wanted from it.

The early warning signs were then Schumacher would say that in retrospect, Goldman was right in the long run. But at the time, they just went with the flow and did what they were told to do.

ith the Hollywood Reporter in: 2017

He did admit to wanting to make an Arkham movie, especially after the events of Batman Forever, the Riddler currently residing in Arkham Asylum.

After using two Face and the Riddler in Batman Forever and the sanctioning of Jim Carrey's buffoonery, Schumacher wanted to avoid retreading similar territory, so they chose villains with completely different aesthetics and motivations. They were specifically looking for villains that would provide strong visual contrast and spectacular set pieces.

The ice and fire dichotomy between Mr. Freeze and poison Ivy offered exactly that one villain associated with cold blue environments and another with warm, green organic spaces.

Having two visually striking characters would also translate well to toys and merchandise. Mr. Freeze's elaborate mechanical suit and Poison Ivy's seductive plant themed costumes were designed to be both cinematic and commercially appealing.

Mr.

in February: 1957

r the version featured in the: 1966

reminger, and eli Wallach. In: 1992

Freeze being Victor Fries, Poison Ivy also has to have a name that sounds somewhat similar to Poison Ivy.

in June: 1966

Considered one of the most beautiful women in all of Gotham, she is empowered by an elemental force known as the Green, and she attempts to protect the sanctity and supremacy of nature at all costs by lashing out against humanity. She was initially depicted as having an attraction to Batman and creating love potions to inspire him.

Also seen as an antihero, as well as being the love interest of Harley Quinn in the New 52 reboot, Ivy is an equal opportunity seducer of both men and women. And because Ivy doesn't really have the requisite muscle to take on Batman, Bane was introduced as her muscle in this movie.

in: 1969

Schumacher wanted to have a female hero to balance the male heroes as well as to take on the female villain.

The First Batgirl in April: 1961

This movie has Barbara Wilson, the daughter of Alfred's sister Margaret, AKA Peg, a character created for the movie with Barbara, a combination of Daphne Pennyworth and Barbara Gordon.

Now, if you've listened to the episode that I did on Batman Forever, you will know about the countless issues on the set of Batman Forever and despite these issues between Val Kilmer and Joel Schumacher. Kilmer was contracted for a second Batman film and originally it was expected that he would reprise the role.

for paramount until mid July: 1996

Paramount weren't happy and suggested they'd make the Saint without him. Val Kilmer responded that in that case he wouldn't do Batman, thinking that would encourage Warner Brothers to postpone filming for him.

Instead, Warner Bros. Kept its start date, released Kilmer from his contract, and started hunting for a new Batman.

That there was no love lost between Kilmer and Schumacher probably also exacerbated matters. It's widely known that the two didn't get along. Some casting controversies fade over time.

Michael Keaton is now pretty beloved as Tim Burton's take on the Caped Crusader, but people forget that at the time, the fan base revolted at the idea of Keaton, then known for Mr. Mom, playing Batman. I guess you could argue that Keaton made the role iconic, and if you do that, you get a pass from the initial backlash.

Such grace wouldn't be afforded, though, to George Clooney, who'd end up being the guy to take over from Val Kilmer. William Baldwin was originally considered. He would go on to voice the character in the animated Justice League Crisis on Two Earths.

Instead, his brother Alec Baldwin was considered by Tim Burton to be the original Batman. Those Baldwins just can't seem to get a back break. Nor could David Duchovny, who was considered but rejected, allegedly because his nose was too big.

Knowing the mid-90s, George Clooney was primarily known for his role on the hit TV show ER.

But in: 1996

He was cheap, he wasn't a movie star back then, and he was also still filming er, and so the shooting schedule was adjusted so he could work on both simultaneously without scheduling conflict.

Schumacher wanted a loiter interpretation and felt Clooney was perfect and certainly offered something different to the serious actors that were Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer.

Chris o' Donnell was already lined up to appear for a second time as Robin, and with the villains set in their minds, Schumacher went about casting his new characters. There's a popular theory that Patrick Stewart was up for the role of Mr.

Freeze, but this is something Schumacher has denied, saying that despite it being a wonderful idea, Stuart had never been suggested.

The idea may have come from an earlier script where it was clearly meant for someone more Shakespearean, but the script changed in subsequent versions. And just like when Jack Nicholson signed on to play Joker in Batman, they wanted a big name actor for this role.

There was no one bigger in: 1997

Again, just like Nicholson, only 12 hours built into his contract, which, when combined with his time spent in the makeup chair and getting suited up, limited how long the filmmakers could shoot with him. He would end up spending 25 days on set, basically earning $1 million a day. That is definitely not minimum wage.

The character had to be adapted specifically for Schwarzenegger's personality and acting style.

The filmmakers knew they were getting the action star's particular brand of performance, complete with his signature one liners and his physical presence for Poison Ivy.

Similarly, Julia Roberts was not on the director's list, but considering they'd spent a lot of money on Schwarzenegger, they needed to keep costs low, which meant Demi Moore and Sharon Stone were both out. Schumacher had seen Uma Thurman in a Vanity Fair photo shoot, as well as her small role in the Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

She had her breakout role in: 1994

Priest, but also Poison Ivy and Bruce Wayne's girlfriend, Julie Madison, played by supermodel Elle macpherson. Originally, Ivy was going to stab Julie, who would have died from her wounds.

Instead, Julie just disappears halfway through the movie, and Ivy attempts to stab Batgirl instead. Julie Madison, interestingly, was the first known love interest for Bruce Wayne.

She appeared in Detective Comics number 31, weightlifter and WCW wrestler Jeep. Swenson was cast as Bane after a stuntman from Batman Forever suggested him he had the biggest biceps on record at the time.

er the movie opened in August: 1997

Alicia Silverstone was riding high from her breakthrough role as Cher in Clueless, still one of the greatest comedies ever made. And she signed a deal with Columbia TriStar worth $10 million as a result of Clueless.

As part of the package, she got a three year first look deal for her own production company, First Kiss Productions.

She was Schumacher's only choice to play Batgirl, retconned as Alfred's niece rather than Commissioner Gordon's niece, presumably so it would make total sense that her uncle knew her exact measurements to pre fit her for a Batgirl costume, just in case she was needed to help fight crime. Many of the team who worked on Batman Forever returned for Batman and Robin, including production designer Barbara Ling.

The design philosophy was deliberately extravagant and theatrical, pushing the visual aesthetic to extreme levels. Ling and Schumacher aimed for what they called a living comic book.

The design was intentionally Artificial and stylized, rejecting any sense of realism in favor of a hyper colorful, neon soaked world that would feel like stepping into the pages of a comic book. Lin created a more art deco inspired cityscape to a massive scale.

Buildings and sets were designed to dwarf the human characters, creating an almost mythic sense of proportion. Batman Brother was splashed with neon. Batman and Robin was saturated in it.

The city was bathed in blues, purples and other vibrant colors, giving it a neon Tokyo feel with a similar sense of architectural excess. Giant statues, elaborate facades and ornate details were everywhere, creating a sense of theatrical grandeur like Greek or Roman statues.

Miniatures and computer generated elements were used for some scenes and large full scale sets were also constructed including Gotham City Covered in Ice. The scene featuring people frozen by Mr. Freeze's ice ray. Life size mannequins covered in fake ice were created.

Each villain's lair also reflected their thematic elements with Mr. Frieze's designed as a crystalline ice palace with frozen machinery and blue tinted lighting. The set featured actual ice elements and required careful temperature control during filming.

Poison Ivy's hideout was a lush overgrown greenhouse environment with organic plant like architecture. The design incorporated living plants with artificial elements to create an Eden like but dangerous environment.

And we need to talk about batnips because the Greek and Roman aesthetic also continued into the costume design which took Batman Forever's batnips and made them more pronounced.

Schumacher defended this choice by saying he wanted the suits to resemble classical Greek and Roman armor which often featured idealized male anatomy. The nipples were sculpted as part of the moulded chess pieces.

Both Batman and Robin's suit featured extremely pronounced muscle definition with every ab, pectoral and arm muscle dramatically emphasized. They were more anatomical sculptures than functional armour. And then there were the cod pieces.

Kind of enough said about those, but it certainly added to the homoerotic undertones, tones and overtones. The costumes in Batman Robin were designed by a team led by Jose Fernandez and Robert Tutoris.

The costume design philosophy, just like the production design philosophy, was deliberately theatrical and exaggerated, moving completely away from practical considerations in favor of visual impact. Unlike previous Batman films, Batman and Robin featured multiple suit variations. The primary black rubber and latex suits were both.

Batman and Robin maintained the basic color scheme, but with more pronounced detailing. But to fight Mr. Freeze, they also had special silver and blue ice suits designed for the final confrontation with Mr.

Freeze, featuring built in heating elements and modified esthetics to match the icy environment. Just how did Alfred manage to build all these suits while also being seriously ill with McGregor's syndrome? No one knows so many questions.

In this movie, the costume department created multiple versions of each suit for different purposes.

You had your hero suits which were used for close ups and detailed shots, stunt suits which were more flexible versions for action sequences, and practical suits which were versions that had working gadgets and effects. Speaking of practical suits and Mr. Freeze.

His costume was designed to look like a walking refrigeration unit with tubes, gauges and LED lights throughout.

It weighed approximately 40 pounds, was constructed using 500 hand beaten aluminium parts and required cooling systems to keep Schwarzenegger comfortable during filming.

The transparent helmet dome was designed to fog up periodically, creating visual effects that emphasized the character's need for sub zero temperatures. The suit also incorporated numerous LED lights and fiber optic elements that would illuminate during filming, creating a high tech appearance.

Schwarzenegger wore acrylic paint on his face and body to mimic the frozen blue look of ice. The suit was created by armorer Terry English, who's been creating armor for film and television for over 50 years.

He also created armor for the films Excalibur, Aliens and First Night.

Seven of the suits were made and Schwarzenegger was allowed to keep one of the suits and after filming ending, but he had to sign a contract stating he would pay the studio $1 a year, essentially granting him the rights to lease the costume. It's unsurprising that out of everyone who worked on this movie, Schwarzenegger is the one who has no regrets about his involvement.

He had a blast on this movie, including having Jon Bon Jovi turn up to set to give him Cuban cigars. This is despite him having battery acid leak into his mouth due to the LED lights that made his mouth light up.

His saliva would get into the LED light, disintegrate the battery, and battery acid would leak into his mouth. A workaround was created by Jeff dawn, his longtime makeup artist. He won an Oscar for Terminator 2 Judgment Day by packing the device into a balloon.

But the battery would only last 20 minutes and it literally cost $5,000aminute for delays.

Schwarzenegger was originally going to shave his head for the role, but he ended up getting a bold cut which added an extra hour and 45 minutes to his time in the makeup chair every day. But he was getting paid bank, so presumably was completely fine with it.

Also, no regrets, Uma Thurman, who absolutely relishes the part and for me is the best thing in this movie because she understood the assignment. Her outfits incorporated leaf patterns and organic shapes with some costumes featuring actual preserved leaves sewn in Fabric.

ng was due to start in August: 1996

Although not quite as intrusive, high public interest in Batman and Robin led to paparazzi regularly disrupting the set. Security were regularly escorting people off set who had cameras, and all they wanted was a photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger in costume.

They could get $10,000 just for one photograph. The press intrusion didn't stop there, though. The other person they were obsessed with was Alicia silverstone, then only 19 years old.

If you weren't stick thin in the 90s, you were fat.

And I'm saying that as someone who grew up in the 90s and saw the magazine articles showing girls and women with perfectly slim figures being called out for being, quote, too fat. Alicia Silverstone looks great in this movie, but she had to go through horrendous body shaming, not only from the press, but from the crew.

A production assistant made a copy of a cartoon of the character of Batgirl being squeezed into a costume drawn by storyboard artist Tim Burgard, which was called clueless to the casting of Batgirl. Rumors circulated that Silverstone was struggling to fit into her costume, despite training hard for the role and reportedly losing 10 pounds.

Bob Ringwood, the costume designer, saw the cartoon and wasn't happy it was being circulated. Bergard was never reprimanded because he never signed the work.

Schumacher would constantly stick up for Silverstone and wanted to use her as a way to bring in the younger female audience to the franchise. Before filming ended, one of Mr.

Freeze's blaster guns would disappear from the set, leading to an investigation into the theft of the item and police being involved.

d his home raided in November: 1996

Nearly 300 items were seized from his possession, including an Ewok costume, a sign from Jurassic Park, a plaque featured in Dead Poet Society Tom Cruise's fangs from Interview with the Vampire, and a number of items from the Star Trek franchise, including a Borg eyepiece, a Klingon head, and Cardassian panels.

spent three nights in jail in: 1998

The OS effects on this movie would take six months to create.

Batman and Robin would feature 150 more visual effects shots than Batman Forever, with John Dykstra and Andrew Adamson credited as the visual effects supervisors. And there were multiple different stunt people for each character. An ice skating Batman, a gymnastic Batman, multiple drivers.

Batman and Robin had several doubles as well as digital doubles for the sky surfing scene where a skyborder was motion captured in a wind tunnel. There were also multiple Mr.

Freeze doubles, mostly because they only had Arnold Schwarzenegger for a limited time each day, so close ups are him, but wide shots. They would use a double and despite filming starting late, the movie was finished with two weeks to span.

A straightforward production in many ways, but the ice would soon hit the slushy machine. But before we go into that, it's time to segue into the obligatory Keanu reference of this episode.

And if you don't know what that is, it's where I link the movie that I'm featuring with Keanu Reeves for no reason other than here's the Best of Men.

This movie famously didn't have Val Kilmer and it came out a week after a movie that famously didn't have Keanu Reeves Speed two Cruise Control came out a week before this movie, the movie where Keanu jumped ship when he realized it would be a disaster. The thing is, despite a few rumblings of discontent, no one at Warner Bros Realized what was coming for Batman and Robin.

Most of any at Goldenthal's score is directly lifted from Batman Forever as the opening theme is the same as the previous one, just slowed down slightly. The themes for Mr.

Freeze and Poison Ivy are modified versions of Two Face and Chase Meridian's respective themes, but otherwise Elliot Goldenthal did return to score Batman and Robin. The soundtrack also features the Smashing Pumpkins, Goo Goo Dolls, remember and convicted sexual abuser R. Kelly.

June: 1997

the big summer blockbuster of: 1997

They gave icicle pops to waiting fans and rolled out $125 million promotional drive including themed Batman and Robin roller coasters at Six Flags theme parks, promotional campaign with Taco Bell. The cast signed special trading cards. There was also a tie in PlayStation game and there were toys. So many toys.

You could buy multiple versions of Batman, Robin, Mr. Freeze, Bane, Poison Ivy, Batgirl. You could buy Batgirl's Ice Strike Cycle.

There were multiple scale versions of Batman, Batmobile, Mist of Praise's henchman, Frostbite. You could also buy him.

There were 14 different versions of Batman alone including Wing Blast Batman, Snow Tracker, Batman, Thermal Shield, Batman Battleboard, Batman and Ambush Attack Batman and Warner Brothers wanted your child to have all of them. You can still buy these figures online and Prices range from $24.99 for Ice Blade Batman to $99.99 for Mr. Freeze.

June: 1997

hest opening weekend gross of: 1997

By its second week it dropped 61% to fifth place behind Hercules, Face Off, Men in Black and My Best Friend's Wedding. Batman and Robin would only stay in the top 10 for five weeks on its estimated 125 to $160 million budget.

Batman and Robin would gross $107.3 million domestically in the US and $130.9 million internationally, for a total worldwide gross of $238.2 million, with at least $125 million spent on the movie and at least $125 million spent on marketing. Batman and Robin didn't do as well as Warner Bros. Had hoped. It ended its box Office run nearly $100 million short of Batman Forever.

Critically, it also didn't do very well. Rotten Tomatoes has this movie at 11%, the website's consensus reads.

Joel Schumacher's tongue in cheek attitude hits an unbearable limit in Batman and Robin, resulting in a frantic and mindless movie that's too jokey to care much for. Batman and Robin was heavily criticized for its script, direction, acting, toyetic approach, but it was praised for its production values.

Those Offending bat nipples, though, became the one thing this movie is most remembered for.

Even though technically they premiered in Batman Forever, Batman and Robin was nominated for 11 Razzie Awards, winning Worst Supporting Actress for Alicia Silverstone.

It was also nominated for five Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, winning four Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay for a film grossing More than $100 million worldwide. Using Hollywood math, Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actress again, Phil Silverstone.

But all throughout this, Warner Brothers were so positive about this movie and because they were during the filming of Batman and Robin, they were so impressed with the dailies.

So even before Batman and Robin came out, they'd hired Joel Schumacher to return as a director for Batman 5, with Mark Protozevich hired to write follow up. This would have had the Scarecrow as the main villain. Reportedly would have been coolio. He has a small cameo in this movie.

It would have also included Harley Quinn as a supporting character. The follow up, which was called Batman Unchained was already in development when Batman and Robin was released.

A spin off focused on Robin was also on the books. Warner Bros. Scrapped plans for Batman Unchained. Clooney vowed to never reprise the role again.

All of the spin off films were cancelled and Warner Brothers spent years going through directors and screenwriters before finally settling on Christopher Nolan's pitch for Batman Begins. And that is a story for its own separate set of podcast episodes. My fondness for Batman Forever is pretty well known, I think, by this point.

In fact, I love all these Batman movies. The Tim Burton ones are great. I lean more towards Returns, to be honest, but I adore Forever.

And this one just fully embraces the camp, colorful, zany Batman of the 60s TV show. One of the first things we see is close ups of Batman's ass and his chest, his crotch. Robin's too.

And it's almost setting you up for this ain't your dad's Batman. This Batman is a full blown sex object and Poison Ivy knows it. I bloody loving the Thurman in this movie.

I truly believe she understood this assignment and she just says line after line of curses and darn foiled again type lines that definitely wouldn't have been out of place in the series. Not to mention the cartoony sound effects. I half expected to see a splat and a kaboom show up at some point.

Joel Schumacher spent much of his life after this movie apologizing for this movie, as did George Clooney, who still apologizes for this movie, claiming that he killed Batman. To this day, pretty much everyone involved in Batman and Robin seems at least a little bit humiliated to be associated with it.

he creator of Batman, died in: 1998

Schumacher also batted questions about the nipples constantly, usually just laughing them off. He even joked that he expected to see bat nipples on his headstone.

, but when Schumacher died in: 2020

But it's also a shame that Schumacher is ridiculed for this movie because he made really great movies in his life and yet everyone just ridicules him for Batman and Robin.

If you went from Batman: 1989

I talk about that a little in the episode on Batman Forever, which I know you listen to already, and this movie half heartedly attempts to give serious commentary on the relationship between Alfred and Bruce, and Bruce having a father figure who is seriously ill. But mostly, this movie pays homage to the Golden Age comics and the 60s TV series.

It may not be your dad's Batman, it may not be Burton's Batman, but it is still Batman.

The plot, if we can call it a plot, is ludicrous and daft and silly, and has two villains who want completely opposite things, a frozen tundra and a planet filled with plant monster things, neither of them realizing that you can't have both. This is not a movie with any logic or physics or science in any way, shape or form.

This is a movie where Batman and Robin go to a museum, find the bad guy has frozen everything, and magically have ice skates in their boots. It's a movie where said bad guy literally uses puns in every line. Most of them don't make any sense. What killed the dinosaurs?

He asks before toppling a giant sauropod statue onto Batman. The Ice Age. That isn't even remotely true. The Ice Age was millions of years later.

Poison Ivy could be a stark warning about global warming, environmentalism, the erosion of our natural world, but all she does is flirt, set men off against each other and plan the extinction of humanity.

But she looks great doing it, and Uma Thurman really is having the best time winking at the camera and all the men around her fawning over her beauty. She's basically here saying men are dumb and they'll do anything for a pretty girl. And you know what? I hear you, Ivy. Say it like it is.

Sorry men, but I guarantee most of you would fall under Ivy's spell immediately. Although maybe I'm also under her spell because I genuinely think she's the best thing in this movie. And damn you Ivy. Damn you and your pheromones.

As for George Clooney, I feel like he never stood a chance.

His Bruce Wayne was never given anything to work with, and his Batman just disappears under the weight of this campy neon world with its enormous Greek statues and gangs in black light makeup. Clooney is a good actor. He's charismatic and interesting to watch in anything see out of Sight he made the year after this.

He is so good in that movie.

George Clooney has the looks, the talent and the charisma to play both Bruce Wayne and Batman, and yet he's given nothing but cheap gags and butt shots. He does have a great butt though.

I have talked about many disaster productions on this podcast, most recently Cutthroat island and Tombstone both had issues Sometimes it's obvious why a movie doesn't work. Batman and Robin should have worked. It could have worked. No one intended to make a bad movie.

It had the same team behind it, but it also had an extremely rushed production schedule, with Schumacher later admitting he felt pressured to deliver a product quickly rather than focus on quality. The emphasis on visual effects, costumes and set pieces overshadowed character development and coherent plot.

It was too toy focused and certainly was fast tracked too quickly for its own good. But while Schumacher continued to take the blame and apologized again and again, the fault can't really lie with him.

The movie came in on time, actually two weeks early and on budget. There were no production issues. There were no expensive reshoots.

tly, so did everyone else. In: 2009

opportunity to make X Men in: 2000

It meant no yellow spandex for the X Men, but it also meant casting genuine thespians alongside unknowns. It was a serious story about oppression, fear mongering, and yes, superheroes have always been political.

The X Men have roots in the civil rights movement and work as an allegory for any marginalized community.

Most importantly, X Men wasn't made with just children in mind and nor was Spider man, despite it leaning towards the camp and color of Batman and Robin.

Thanks to this movie's failure, other superhero movies got the chance to shine, tell compelling stories, to be proud of their comic book roots, and it changed cinema as we know it.

earance as Bruce wayne in the: 2023

For him to come back and play this character again, albeit for a brief cameo, must have meant quite a lot. Sometimes you need to hit rock bottom or bat bottom before you find your way back up.

Hollywood needed Batman and Robin so that we could get the sort of grounded, recognizable human stories within comic book adaptations that we can't have silly, campy movies, but that we weren't going to let Hollywood insult our intelligence and demean the important messages that come from our comic book movies. And I for one am so happy this movie exists. Batman and Robin. I'm cool with it. That's the last pun, I promise. That is a bad pun.

Thank you for listening. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on Batman and Robin. And as always, thank you for your continued support of this podcast.

If you want to get involved and help this podcast grow, that would be amazing and I would be so thankful. You could simply tell people you know, friends and family about this podcast or about this episode, help them download and listen to it.

You could leave a rating or review wherever you found this podcast, ideally five stars. Or you can find me Follow me on social media. I am@VerbalDiorama. You can share posts, comment on posts, like posts.

It all helps with spreading visibility of this podcast and about the work that I am trying to do on this podcast which is basically telling these incredible stories about movies that you may think are worthy of those stories. I disagree. I think Batman and Robin is incredibly worthy of this podcast.

on Batman: 1989

I have no immediate plans to go to Christopher Nolan Batman's, but please let me know, are the Christopher Nolan Batman movies something that you would be interested in hearing the history and legacy of? They are incredible movies.

I know a lot of people are huge fans of the Christopher Nolan trilogy, so get in touch on social media or on the email address that I'm just about to tell you. Let me know, would you like an episode on the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy? And obviously give me feedback on my recommendations.

since its initial release in: 2021

Well, the world has changed a lot in that time, and we live in a world where women's bodily autonomy is being stripped away piece by piece. It feels like women's rights are taking a step backwards.

And this is a movie where young orphaned girls are taken, brainwashed, forcibly sterilized, and turned into elite assassins that have to do their leader's bidding. And this is the Black Widow program. Or it was.

han I did when it came out in: 2021

I genuinely think it's one of the MCU's hidden gems. So I want to do an episode on the history and Legacy of Black Widow in the next episode. Kind of.

Again, long time coming to this podcast because I know I've talked to people about doing Black Widow in the past, but it is time to talk about Black Widow and it's also time to introduce the McPugh. So please join me next episode for the History and Legacy of Black Widow.

If you enjoy what I do for this podcast or you simply want to support an indie podcaster who does all of this on her own.

If you have some spare change and you want to financially contribute to the upkeep of this podcast, you're under no obligation because this podcast is free and it will always be free.

However, there are a couple of ways you can help if you have the means to you can make a one off donation verbaldiorama.com/tips or you can subscribe to the patreon at verbaldiorama.com/ patreon all money made goes back into this podcast by paying for things like software, subscriptions, website hosting or new equipment.

Huge thank you to the amazing patrons of this podcast to Simon, Laurel, Derek, Cat, Andy, Mike, Luke, Michael, Scott, Brendan, Ian, Lisa, Sam, Jack, Dave, Stuart, Nicholas, so Kev, Heather, Danny, Stu, Brett, Philip M, Xenos, Sean, Rhino, Philip K, Adam, Elaine, Kyle and Aaron. If you want to get in touch, you want to talk about Batman and Robin or any episode of this podcast, feel free to send me an email.

Verbal dioramail.com you can also go to verbal diorama.com and fill out the little contact form. I would love to hear from you genuinely. You can also message me on social media or you can DM me on social media as well.

Please feel free to get in touch if you wish. And finally,

Em: 00:54:50

Bye.