The movie that almost killed the Batman franchise, "Batman & Robin" quite possibly is the biggest piece of crap to come out of Hollywood in 20 years. The last colossal failure of this epic of a scale would have been "Ishtar." There is nothing, zero, nadda, good about this movie. Which should tell you how bad this movie is since two of my very favorite actors, Arnold Swarzenegger and Uma Thurman are in it and I still say this. There is not a strong enough word that explains how horrible this movie truly is, detestable is close.

So we pick up the latest Batman movie which is barely on life support after the poor showing of the previous Batman movie, "Batman Forever," with Bruce Wayne a.k.a. Batman, played by George Clooney (Ocean's 12), and Dick Grayson a.k.a. Robin, played by "I have fallen and can't get my movie career back up" Chris O'Donnell (Kinsey,) are chasing their latest villain, Mr. Freeze, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger (Terminator movies) in a museum in Gotham, in a spaceship above Gotham, and in the sewers of Gotham. Robin gets surprised by Freeze and nearly dies until Batman saves him again. Then there is this whole diatribe about Bruce not trusting Dick and Dick acting reckless and blah, blah, blah.

Meanwhile, as if knowing that this movie was completely sucking, the producers added another star bad guy or girl in this case, to bring more people to see the movie. Somewhere in Central America, a mad scientist is creating a monster that is pumped up on steroids, probably Barry Bonds, to be sold as the ultimate fighting warrior. The mad scientist assistant, Dr. Pamela Isley, soon to be Poison Ivy, played by Uma Thurman, is helping the scientist until she blows him off and tries to kill her by knocking her into her little chemical experiment table, and instead of dying, she turns into this women who has poison running through her veins instead of blood, or something like that.

Add to this a meaningless subplot about the butler to Bruce Wayne, Alfred, played by Michael Gough (Batman movies,) having a non-curable disease at the same time he gets visited by his niece, Barbara, soon to be Batgirl, unfortunately played by Alicia Silverstone (Scooby Doo 2.)

As you can see when there are this many stars, the movie is going to suck, and boy does it, Hoover style. I shall now list my complaints in order of most insulting to least insulting.

One, the biggest ass of the movie is director Joel Shumacher. He turned the Batman franchise which was originally directed by Tim Burton, from this dark, gothic, tragic-comedic-drama, too a movie that is closer to the movie "Priscilla: Queen of the Desert" then any Batman movie. He directed the actors to, in a figurative sort of way, pull their pants down, and take a collective s**t. His choice of trying to make this movie a special effect, Broadway show without the music, was by far the worst choice a director has made probably since Ed Wood. Shumacher had nearly done the same thing to the previous movie that he directed, "Batman Forever," and he would have achieved it save for the great performance of Jim Carrey. This time around, there was no great performance to save Shumacher. It is clear that he had no concept of the Batman character and the story, and instead of sticking to the ideas of the first two movies, or heaven forbid, do a little research, he turned into a homo-erotic French Quarter drag show. This, by the way, would have been more enjoyable to watch than "Batman and Robin."

My second complaint, George Clooney. It's clear that he did not know anything about the character of Bruce Wayne or Batman. I did not see any pain that the character must have to be who he is. Pain drives the revenge that makes Batman come to life. Michael Keaton, the first Batman in the movies, showed his pain even when he was happy in the first two movies. Even through the mask you could see the pain that Keaton's portrayal produce. I would assume some credit goes to Burton. Clooney on the other hand, tried to create a poor man's James Bond-Roger Moore James Bond at that, and you could tell that he had no true emotions, especially of anger, in the movie. Val Kilmer's portrayal was forgettable in the third movie, but Clooney's was almost as bad as the TV version of Batman done by Adam West.

Third, I want to complain about the rest of the actors. Thurman and Swarzenegger were there to get a paycheck, that's obvious. Probably also just to be in the movie of this size was fun for them, especially Uma, just because at this time she had not done a lot, if any action movies. But Chris O'Donnell, who gave a painful performance in "Batman Forever," and Alicia Silverstone, were just god awful. I have always doubted Silverstone's acting ability. I have always thought her best performance was in the Aerosmith videos. In this movie, it's almost as if she has her script just below camera shot so she can read her lines to the other actors, because she certainly didn't do any acting. She also certainly didn't do any stunt work in the movie because it was clear that she was just a wee bit out of shape, and every time she came running into frame you could see her almost begging the director to scream cut, so she can start gagging for air. O'Donnell was not as bad, but again as in the first movie, had no idea of the character of Dick Grayson, and acted like a younger brother to Bruce Wayne who had his ball taken away and cried throughout the whole movie. I will give credit to the only entertaining actor of this movie, Michael Gough, Alfred, not because he was so great, but he stuck to the character he created in the first movie and never wavered. Unfortunately we don't see enough of him.

Well, I could talk about the writer, but he made the same mistake as Shumacher, not knowing his story. What amazes me about this movie is that the guys made it as if they were assuming that nobody had ever scene the Batman movies or new of the character of Bruce Wayne. They completely rewrote a tragic character and turned him into a game show host. I have not seen a Joel Schumacher movie sense and I probably never will again. What he did is unforgivable, turning a childhood hero into a sick joke. For shame, Mr. Shumacher, for shame.

Brian - the Naked Gun