{"id":6907,"date":"2022-11-02T15:01:46","date_gmt":"2022-11-02T15:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=6907"},"modified":"2022-11-02T15:09:21","modified_gmt":"2022-11-02T15:09:21","slug":"batman-robin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2022\/11\/02\/batman-robin\/","title":{"rendered":"Batman & Robin"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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From Campy to Contemplative<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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A tour of Batman\u2019s evolution on film over 25 years.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Sara Holston
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Holy flop, Batman! You just killed the superhero movie!<\/p>

Well, maybe not killed<\/em> killed, and not all <\/em>superhero movies\u2014but Joel Schumacher\u2019s 1997 Batman & Robin <\/em>set Batman movies back about a decade. And, as we realized when the dynamic duo finally returned to our screens, transformed them into something new.<\/p>

Compare Schumacher\u2019s Batman & Robin, <\/em>25 years later, with Matt Reeves\u2019s 2022 The Batman.<\/em> They couldn\u2019t be more different. Schumacher\u2019s film is short, campy, and colorful\u2014it feels like it\u2019s right out of a silver age comic. Every scene seems constructed to introduce a new Mr. Freeze-in-his-freeze-ray-car or Batman-and-Robin-on-skates toy. George Clooney glides through the film with his classic, effortless charm. Uma Thurman goes from shy, awkward, gangly Dr. Isley to playful, sexually confident femme fatale Poison Ivy\u2014getting doused in toxic chemicals has never looked so good. Arnold Schwarzenegger, painted head-to-toe in blue and sporting an ice suit powered by diamonds, fires his freeze ray and slings ice puns with unbridled glee. And, in case that unexpected villainous team-up wasn\u2019t enough, Batman &<\/em> Robin <\/em>also explores the potential fracturing of the partnership between our titular heroes, the toll Alfred\u2019s impending death takes on the family, and the origin of Batgirl. Phew! It\u2019s a lot of ground to cover in two hours.<\/p>

The Batman<\/em>, in contrast, boasts a whopping three-hour runtime, and a gritty, noir storyline that is clearly aiming to be a \u201crealistic\u201d take on the Batman story. Robert Pattinson delivers Batman\u2019s lines in a terse whisper, staring with an unsettling intensity through the copious amounts of black eyeliner he wears underneath the mask. He pursues the Riddler\u2014reimagined in 2022 as an all-too recognizable malcontent ranting online, streaming acts of violence, and inciting his followers to terrorism. This cat-and-mouse chase, weaving in Catwoman and a conspiracy centered on Carmine Falcone (all of which turn out to be intertwined threads of the larger plot) unfolds over the course of the film in slow motion, as Pattinson\u2019s Batman broods in voice-over reflections.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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This stark 180 in the portrayal of Batman can be traced directly back to Batman & Robin\u2019s <\/em>fall from grace.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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This stark 180 in the portrayal of Batman can be traced directly back to Batman & Robin\u2019s <\/em>fall from grace. WB\u2019s beloved, nearly ten-year running franchise was dropped immediately and hard. The planned fifth film\u2014not just a vague promise but a greenlit plan with story arcs, casts, and groundwork already laid in Batman & Robin<\/em>\u2014was canceled. A Robin-focused spin-off was quietly buried. Several live-action Batman movies were pitched in the subsequent years; all of them were soundly rejected. It wasn\u2019t until 2005 that the studio took a chance on another big screen adaptation for the caped crusader\u2014and it was the first, substantial step away from what Batman movies had been.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

Christopher Nolan\u2019s trilogy went darker and more psychological. It isn\u2019t goofy or campy (despite its moments of humor), and at no point in the film do you expect to get a cool Ra\u2019s al Gul action figure in your next Happy Meal. Batman Begins<\/em> plays more like a character study of Bruce Wayne, and the subsequent films like a meditation on what the presence of a masked vigilante does for and to Gotham City. With the clash of Nolan\u2019s Batman and the Joker in The Dark Knight, <\/em>the trilogy starts to suggest that superhero movies are capable of interrogating ideas like human nature, society, and justice in ways we were previously used to seeing in more \u201cserious\u201d films. It\u2019s a clear rejection of everything Batman & Robin <\/em>was, and it sets the tone that carries through the character\u2019s appearance in Zach Snyder\u2019s Justice League<\/em> films, and now The Batman:<\/em> the world is a dark place, and true heroism might just be a thing of fairy tales.<\/p>

While most newer adaptations haven\u2019t adopted that conclusion entirely, by leaning so resolutely into the complication of Batman as a compassionate and heroic figure, they may still have thrown the baby out with the bathwater.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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As filmmakers try on new versions of Batman, they should be careful not to reduce 80+ years of the character to a single take.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Now, look. I know Batman & Robin<\/em> was bad. Let me say that again\u2014the movie was bad. So bad! Truly, apocalyptically, Batman-and-Robin-escape-an-exploding-space-shuttle-using-its-doors-as-surfboards terrible. But it also gets a few things right that, in their reaction to this movie\u2019s failings, many of our new Batman films are missing.<\/p>

I\u2019ll focus on the big one: the Batman story, at its heart, is about family. That\u2019s at the core of everything Batman & Robin<\/em> does. The eponymous characters spend much of the movie struggling to work together, with Bruce\u2019s arc underscoring the crux of the conflict. He spins in stubborn confusion when Robin complains that the older man doesn\u2019t trust him as a partner, but he develops a new understanding by the end of the film: \u201cYou weren\u2019t really talking about being partners, you were talking about being a family.\u201d Bruce doesn\u2019t just need to learn to work better with others, he needs to learn how to trust them enough to form real familial bonds again.\u00a0<\/p>

Alfred\u2019s illness raises the possibility of another loss for these two orphans. How will Batman and Robin deal with that, on top of the deaths of their parents? They take in Barbara (who will later become Batgirl) because, in the 1997 film, she\u2019s Alfred\u2019s niece\u2014and she\u2019s come to take care of him because he first took care of her. When she stumbles upon Bruce Wayne\u2019s secret identity, it\u2019s by hacking files Alfred meant to send his brother, hoping to keep the care of the Waynes and their mission in his family. Underneath its frenetic plotlines and blatant toy commercials, Batman & Robin <\/em>had at least a little bit of heart.<\/p>

Lately, a lot of Batman adaptations overlook the family-oriented aspect of the character. The focus has shifted toward Bruce as a lonely, brooding, traumatized man, and toward the concern that Batman\u2019s presence in Gotham just might incite more violence than it prevents. Don\u2019t get me wrong\u2014these are interesting angles to explore. It was a refreshing turn for Batman movies to interrogate some of these questions in a thoughtful way. But, as the LEGO Batman movie points out, at the end of that road lies a sad, nihilistic story about a Batman who is more villainous than the actual bad guys.<\/p>

As filmmakers try on new versions of Batman, they should be careful not to reduce 80+ years of the character to a single take. Let\u2019s follow an adaptation in which Batman walks the line between hero and villain with a cheaper-by-the-dozen-style Batman film that highlights the man\u2019s serial adoption problem\u2014which has led to his taking in at least<\/em> six adopted children and legal wards. The Bruce Wayne of the comics may beat up on a lot of bad guys, but he\u2019s also never met a scared and lonely child he didn\u2019t make a part of his family.<\/p>

The Batman <\/em>hints at this direction\u2014a ray of hope in a movie that requires maximized screen brightness and a dark room just to see. Though Pattinson spends the majority of the film in the suit, we get a couple scenes of him as Bruce. In his interactions with Alfred, we see him confront again the possibility of losing someone he loves, and he is reminded how important family is to him. Both in and out of the mask Pattinson clearly captures Bruce\u2019s identification with the orphaned son of one of Riddler\u2019s victims, and even without words we feel the way Bruce\u2019s heart goes out to the child. There\u2019s some solid groundwork laid here to explore in the future, especially since the movie indicates heavily that Bruce\u2019s arc is taking him towards embracing his public persona and working for Gotham\u2019s good out of the mask, as well as in it. If that\u2019s the case, Reeves\u2019s next installment may be poised to combine the complexity of post-Batman & Robin <\/em>depictions of the character with some of the heart we lost in the backlash, adding a new dimension for future explorations of Batman on the big screen.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Sara Holston<\/strong> works on an interactive story game in San Francisco, CA. <\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Batman & Robin<\/strong> was directed by Joel Schumacher and was released by Warner Brothers on June 12, 1997. This year marks its 25th anniversary.<\/em>
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A tour of Batman\u2019s evolution on film over 25 years. 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