#36 - Batman and Robin

OK, before we start time for some house-cleaning. It’s become apparent that this meme

Is massively overused so I’m starting a coin jar. Every time I’m tempted to use the clip, I put a coin in the jar, this will last until the end of the year and any money in it will be donated to charity. (I’m all heart, I know)

That’s for the time I used it just now. So with that out of the way, Batman and Robin

I think I might need more change

Oh good grief, this is when Schumacher went too far. I have my issues with Batman Forever but ultimately, I enjoyed it more than I did the Burton movies. Sure, it was over the top but it did have quieter moments and focus was where it should be, on Batman!

In terms of success, being more kid-friendly than the Burton movies helped as it made it more marketable. I doubt they lost any fast food tie ins with this movie. But, this movie’s success was questioned from the start. The movie was fast-tracked into production by the studio after the success of Batman Forever, meaning there was a rushed feel to it, even from the beginning. Making it worse is toy companies coming in during pre-production, adding a commercial feel to proceedings. Chris O’Donnell has said that filming Batman and Robin felt like a toy commercial

Because of scheduling conflicts, largely relating to the fast tracking of the movie, Val Kilmer couldn’t return for a second shot as Batman and so George Clooney was hired instead. Also, with some insistence from Schumacher himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger was cast as Mr Freeze, one of the main villains of the movie, and they were planning to base his origin on the vastly popular episode of Batman: The Animated Series, Heart of Ice. So, yes, I’m doing yet another terrible attempt to replicate it (you might remember the awful attempt to retell Mr Freeze’s origins in Batman Annual #1)

A lot of people in production don’t have nice things to save about this movie, I’ve mentioned Chris O’Donnell’s thoughts. George Clooney said he’d offer refunds to anyone who saw it in theatres (I did not, being the ripe old age of 5 when this came out) and Joel Schumacher himself apologised for it. 

  

Produced on a $140m budget, the movie made back its money with a strong overseas performance but it was lambasted critically, holding a mere 11% on rotten tomatoes, 28% on metacritic and a 3.7 on IMDb.

So, now we’re past the longest intro ever, let’s dive into the sea of sh*t that is, Batman and Robin.

TV Retrospective: Young Justice episodes 1-5

It’s been a while, what with me reducing the number of reviews I do on a weekly basis and the mass of comics I’ve had to review (that isn’t stopping by the way, I’ll be covering DC’s rebirth post-hiatus) but it’s time once again for a Television Retrospective

It’s time to look at Young Justice, the DC version of Avengers: Earth’s mightiest heroes. An ever-evolving team in a place where a wider universe exists. Based on the comic, but only loosely since it only stars one of the core cast of the comic. Young Justice has received a lot of praise and fans have begging producer Greg Weisman for season since its cancellation, for the record his response is always #notuptome, so you can stop asking now, it’s bugging up my Twitter feed.

Young Justice never came out in a Pal-2 format for UK viewing. I’m considering doing a #WTFU video (is this still a thing, I’m writing this in February people) about what studios can look toward doing to prevent their works suffering copyright infringement, but I digress, that’s for another day. For now, let’s dig into my American copies of Young Justice

Guilty Pleasures #2 The Dark Knight Rises

Yup, it's Batman, always Batman. And it’s the third in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. I must admit, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Batman begins (in fact there are certain parts of it I absolutely hated "I won't kill you, but that doesn't mean I have to save you" YES IT DOES, YOU'RE BATMAN), and was sceptical when the Dark Knight came out. My sister saw it before I did. I only bought it because I had ClubCard coupons and it was cheap at Tesco.

To my surprise, for the most part it was amazing, catching the relationship the Joker has with Batman better than Tim Burton's movie, although they didn't make him all that funny, but you can only ask for so much, especially in this incredibly grim world of Christopher Nolan. So, I came into the cinema to watch the Dark Knight Rises and came out smiling. Then I read all the negative reviews, and found points I genuinely agreed with.

So I wasn’t sure how I'd feel watching it again, but I still enjoyed it, for every flaw, and there are lots of them, I actually still like this movie. Thing is, I have an incredibly hard job explaining why. So, with no idea how this review will end, let's dig into the Dark Knight Rises