Summary
- Batman & Robin deserves a second look. Don't judge it based on what it isn't, but appreciate it for what it actually is.
- George Clooney's Batman lacks the depth needed, but his smirking, not-bothered performance works within the context of the film.
- Joel Schumacher's vision for Batman may not match the darker versions, but it stays true to the campy nature of the character and is still entertaining. #BatmanRobin
live-action Batman? Three decades after the Bat nipples debacle, there could be temptation for a revisionist reassessment of Joel Schumacher's alleged $160m bomb, but there's something to be said for reviewing Batman & Robin in a light that is all-too-rarely considered. Not for what it isn't, but for what it actually is.
The narrative around Batman & Robin has been shaped by three things more than any other factor: firstly, George Clooney's disowning of what he's called his worst movie; second, the idea that it didn't "get" Batman; and last, that compared to Burton and Nolan's visions for the Dark Knight, it is comically inferior. There is some truth to all three elements, but all remove any assessment of Batman & Robin on its own . It's not Burton, it's not Nolan, it's not Ocean's Eleven, it's not Out Of Sight, it's not the dark image of Batman from the comics... but what about the things it is? Let's address it head on.
Batman & Robin In Numbers
Release Date |
June 20, 1997 |
|---|---|
Rotten Tomatoes Score |
12% |
Budget |
$125–160 million |
US Box Office |
$107,353,792 |
Worldwide Box Office |
$238,235,719 |
What Went Wrong With George Clooney’s Batman & What Went Right?
Without the necessary direction to play Bruce Wayne as he needed to be played - and robbed of the opportunity by Warner Bros. continued insistence on building a wall between Schumacher’s vision and the darkness of Tim Burton - Clooney’s Batman & Robin performance is dull. Wayne is a believable playboy, but he comes off as a vapid interloper even compared to Val Kilmer.
The thing that would have rescued Clooney’s Wayne would have been some sense that he were a performance, as Michael Keaton so perfectly captured. But Clooney’s Wayne is an empty vessel for too light comedy. He doesn’t even have the nasty enough edge required to really make the perceived betrayal of Dick Grayson believable even from the sidekick's perspective. He’s a Hollywood, clinically cleaned up version, as shiny and distracting as the silver flourishes added to his Batsuit.
Clooney's Hated Batsuit Is Actually Perfect For Schumacher's Idea Of Gotham City
For all the criticism, George Clooney's Batman isn't completely irredeemable. His Batsuit may be more ostentatious than Burton's designs (and even the Batman Forever iteration), but the very idea of a Batsuit is fabulous. Putting aside, for a second, the idea of a vigilante who operates from the shadows, a superhero renowned as Gotham's protector should be a force of nature, and absolutely should make an entrance. Schumacher's Gotham City isn't a shady cesspit that needs a monster: it's a circus, where every single villain is a clown, from the street level thugs to the brilliant evil scientists. It's not like a lion tamer would be fashionably understated.
Going beyond that, George Clooney's smirking, not-bothered performance as Batman, even during heavier action scenes, works when you don't consider it in the context of Keaton, Bale and Pattinson's more intense performances. Each of those performances were characterized by Wayne losing something of himself to Batman, but Clooney is Batman at his most assured. He's as unflappable as Adam West's version, grizzled by countless experiences with Gotham's hardest supervillains, and the fact that he beats them down without breaking sweat, pausing to throw in quips, speaks to his mastery. Plus, on rewatch, it's all hysterical. It's only his relationships with his Batfamily that represent anything like a threat to him.
Batman’s Overbearing Protective Father Routine Is A Great Idea
Batman & Robin introduces the Batfamily in a more substantial way, thanks to Barbara Wilson's arrival and the centering of Alfred as a real character, and not just part of Wayne Manor's furniture. And at the top of the table sits an over-protective, rather grumpy Bruce Wayne, already having his patience tested by Chris O'Donnell's upstart Dick Grayson. Batman is cynical and impatient, lumbered with an impetuous sidekick, and Batman & Robin doesn't get enough credit for exploring the idea that Bruce Wayne wasn't so much an irresponsible master to his young ward, but a reluctant mentor motivated by not wanting Grayson to follow his path too closely. It makes him come across as a bit of a dick, but Bruce Wayne isn't a normal, functioning person, and it absolutely works.
George Clooney Was A Great Bruce Wayne Choice (15 Years Too Early)
In Batman & Robin, George Clooney plays Bruce Wayne much like the cliché of the TV hearth-throb (even though his breakout ER role was way deeper than that). Sure, there was a cock-sure bravado about his Dr. Doug Ross; he challenges authority, breaks rules, is a promiscuous lover, but the cool waters ebbed back to reveal a traumatic childhood and an almost vigilante sense of justice. Of course he’d be a good Batman. Sadly, his Bruce Wayne took all the wrong things from Ross, and didn’t give Clooney the substance he so richly deserved.
That’s a little cute to say, however, because Clooney didn’t deserve anything at that point. By his own ission he was a still a jobbing actor, by no means a movie star. The three picture deal as Batman brought not just unprecedented big money but also the promise of true stardom. He wasn’t just replacing Val Kilmer, he would be following the same path, surely. He was Batman, after all.
Now imagine Clooney as an older man playing Batman. The Clooney who would go on to be fashioned out of the raw materials of Doug Ross, but who took time. The one influenced by Danny Ocean, by The Descendants, by Syriana, Intolerable Cruelty, and O Brother Where Art Thou? Those roles brought the gift of depth and development, to Clooney’s charm, to his ability to wade from light-hearted stories to deep dark material, and to his ability to play the kind of quirky caricatures his Bruce Wayne should have been. Clooney had the skills, they just weren’t quite ripe yet.
Joel Schumacher Did Understand Batman (Just Not YOUR Batman)
There have been accusations since Batman & Robin crashed and burned that Joel Schumacher was just a bad decision. That much is unfair, and his vision for Batman was never truly revealed from beneath Warner Bros. concentrated agenda to sell toys and monetize the Bat family. By all s, Schumacher wanted to make something darker - his director's cuts and the fabled Schumacher Cut of Batman Forever prove as much - but he was given a remit that he stuck to. And really, he made Batman in the image that DC Comics had for years, and which Adam West’s Batman had already brought to life.
It may not be a popular assessment, but Schumacher’s Batman was right for Warner Bros. manifesto. They needed to embrace the camp of Adam West’s 1960s Batman and make Batman the Caped Crusader more than the Dark Knight. Under duress, Schumacher delivered him once in Batman Forever and dialed him up even more for Batman & Robin. There’s no BONK or ZAPPs on-screen, but they live on in the supervillain puns and the silliness. Kids would and did love it, and watched through that lens now, Batman & Robin does still mostly work.
Batman & Robin Is Silly, But At Least It Goes Hard
The revisionist view of Batman & Robin is that it’s high-camp art, that everyone involved knows exactly what they’re doing and that it’s great fun if you squint and place a tongue firmly in one cheek. Lots of that rings true if you ignore the melancholy George Clooney has always draped any assessment of his performance in. It is high-camp and there is a lot of fun happening, and there’s a case to say it’s the closest to screwball comedy superhero movies have come. That’s not intentional, but then neither was Morbius’ marketability, so who’s counting?
What you can’t fault Batman & Robin for is commitment. As soon as Joel Schumacher realized what he was involved in, he embraced the silliness of it all. A liberal splash of codpieces here, a day glow roid rage luchador there, and a final swish of a Bat credit card, of course. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Mr Freeze takes a beloved comics story and mangles the heart out of it, but can you stay mad when he says “stay cool, bird boy”? Of course not. It’s all like a Spinal Tap concert and imagining everyone was in the joke makes it all a lot more fun.
But Is Batman & Robin Good?
Let's start with the best ideas in Batman & Robin that tend to be overlooked when it's trotted out as the Worst Ever Batman Movie:
- Batman & Robin still has the best Robin (and set up a great Nightwing spin-off)
- The Alfred story is broadly great, even if the pay-off is very silly
- The expansion of the Batfamily was a very welcome change
- Schumacher’s Gotham is still better than both Snyder’s and Nolan’s, because it has actual personality
- It's so fast-paced that there's zero fat on the story
Then again, the million dollar question for Batman & Robin is whether it’s actually any good. Viewed against the critical high points of The Dark Knight trilogy and Burton’s Batman movies, the answer is a resounding no. But do you compare Minions to The Mission? Is Shrek any less good because it’s not like Schindler’s List? The point is becoming labored, but you understand it: Batman & Robin vs The Dark Knight is no fairer a fight than those. Think of who it’s for and what it tries to achieve, and it’s a lot less rotten.
Yes, the looping - which George Clooney famously hated - renders lots of it rather hollow, the plot could probably have done without one of the storylines, and it's all very gauche, but Batman & Robin is an entertaining, fun romp through a part of the DCU that will not substantially be revisited while the modern fetish for Dark Batman endures (and boy, will it?!) It’s the Eurotrash of the family, the impossibly-aged niece of the stalwart butler with a Valley accent, a street racing backstory, and a decades-early anti-Rich activism streak. And yes, all of that really was in Barbara Wilson’s origin story, you didn’t imagine it.
If you can fold away your prejudices based on what Batman & Robin is not, there’s a lot to love about it. It’s impossible not to see the problems, of course, but that doesn’t come at the cost of what’s actually there. And nor should it.
