My Other Self

I enjoyed the Animated Series and Mask of the Phantasm but I don't put that in with the film canon of the Burton/Schumacher films.

The Antipodean

I hated this so much that I never ever SAW Batman & Robin, not even for car crash value. I've watched the 10-minute or so YouTube short version and wow, that was enough for me.

The Cow

"Holey rusted metal, Batman"

Yes, a very bad movie.

mhg83

fixed

conscience

The best thing about this film is the way it looks - and I just so happened to look at its IMDB page and it was Oscar nominated for its cinematography. Good choice.

I find Carrey's performance to be seriously underrated and I think Kilmer is fine. TLJ hammed it up but I guess that's what Schumacher wanted because I think he was going for a lighter feel in his films instead of the dark, brooding of Burtons'.

However, this movie is in no way better than the first and second films.

raven56706

Riddler was awesome but the rest was diaherria

toddly6666

What was the Oscar voters smoking that year? Very strange - what exactly looked good?

Travis McClain

One thing about the cinematography is that it was very dynamic; there weren't a lot of static, still shots. A lot of unusual angles, moving shots, etc. really contributed to the energy of the movie. Whether any of that means anything to a given viewer is, of course, subjective.

toddly6666

Just crazy...Catwoman was uniquely filmed as well...I don't think the Oscars do those kind of nominations any more...I guess it would be like nominating The Last Airbender for something....

Travis McClain

I don't see what's so crazy about it. It really suited the film and while it may not have been groundbreaking like The Matrix it's a style that was fairly creative and somewhat ambitious. There are a lot of sweeping shots that cover principle cast members, miniature sets, digital effects, etc. all in a few moments of screen time and they're very smooth.

It sounds like your problem isn't that the cinematography wasn't deserving of recognition, but that you hate the movie and think anything to do with it should have been "beneath" the Academy. That's pretentious nonsense.

conscience

Yes! And todd must remember that this was filmed in 1994!

The use of shadows, color and light (those spotlights are everywhere and are always in tone with the scene at hand) in this film are spectacular.

toddly6666

No, I don't hate the movie. I think it's a bad film. I just wasn't impressed with any of the visuals of this film when I saw it during that time period and when I watched it over the years. There's nothing visually interesting that stands out for me. I appreciate tons of older movies with effects that are considered dated, but I really don't see anything that visually appealing in this film. I'm glad you see something you like in this film. Every time I watch this film, I'm probably just too distracted from the awful make-up job and costumes of all the characters!

Rizor

The movie has a lot of faults, but I love it.

eiker_ir

i used to love it back in the day, i thought it was very underrated compared to the rest.

I Recently got the Blu-ray collection and watched them in order and i gotta say i'm surprised at how easily Batman Returns surpasses the others in every aspect. It looks awesome compared to the now dated looking first film and it's easily the best movie of that saga, i was seriously shocked at how good it was and how it had withstood the test of time.

Forever was a MAJOR letdown after watching Returns, it almost killed any little interest i had in watching B&R again after that.

Travis McClain

I treated myself to the Batman Digibook for my birthday last December and have watched it a couple of times. I'm horribly biased, though; I'm nearly obsessed with the movie so I don't even pretend to be critical about it. I just got the sequels on Blu-ray in the last week (Returns arrived from Amazon yesterday) and am looking forward to re-watching them. I haven't seen them in a few years now, so I'm interested to see how they fare this time. Traditionally, I've ranked them:

1. Batman
2. Batman Forever
3. Batman Returns
4. Batman & Robin

eiker_ir

i used to be the same before rewatching them all on BD, Batman first and Forever second, but Returns blew me away compared to the others.

Yeti4623

I actually like it less than Batman and Robin. Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey annoy me more than Uma Thurman and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Travis McClain

I always liked the parts with Selina Kyle/Catwoman, but never liked Danny DeVito's Penguin. I think his lines were generally funny and interesting, but...hisss...deliv...er...y...ruined them for me. And what was up with him spending half the movie in gray pajamas, anyway? Far and away the most boring visual element in any of the four movies.

Travis McClain

Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy is the only performance I would label "annoying." It's truly awful, and even the general goodwill I have toward her doesn't rescue her eye-rolling "So many people to kill, so little time" or the are-you-kidding-me "Curses!" I don't fault her for playing it that way because it fits the aesthetic of the rest of the film, but just hearing the sound of her exaggerated voice makes me want to slap her.

As for the three guys, I was always disappointed by the way they squandered the two most tragic and interesting characters in the Batman mythology (Two-Face and Mr. Freeze). That's a separate issue from the performances, though, and while I'd have rather seen Tommy Lee Jones play Two-Face with less giddiness I've accepted what he did with the role. And Arnold might actually be the bright spot in Batman & Robin because he's the only one who seemed to be having any fun.

Travis McClain

Okay, so around midnight last night we popped in the Batman Returns Blu-ray. It looks gorgeous, incidentally, which only underlined my earlier point about how visually boring the Penguin's gray pajamas are. It moves at a much faster clip than does Batman. On the one hand, it's nice to see the energy; on the other hand, I have to say that when it was over I felt like it was much more shallow than its predecessor. The Bruce/Vicki relationship really played well; Bruce/Selina is more of a dalliance. It's fine, though; it works for the movie.

Alfred is much less important here than he was in Batman, which I found disappointing because I adored Michael Gough in the role. Bo Welch's production design is much sleeker than the grittiness of Anton Furst's. Furst's was an environment; Welch's is a setting. I also had forgotten that the movie is wall-to-wall with Danny Elfman's score; I bet there's at most a cumulative 15 minutes of music-free dialog. Fortunately, I enjoyed his Bat-scores quite a bit so that was fine.

Where Batman Returns doesn't work for me is in a lot of little things that pile up. Like why innocuous CEO Bruce Wayne would be so forthright about having investigated the Red Triangle Circus and flaunt his findings to Max Shreck, or why Selina Kyle would return to Shreck after being pushed out a window. Batman's disposing of the circus giant with the bomb has never set right with me, especially the huge smile on his face when he does it.

And, of course, I still just don't care for DeVito's Penguin. I wanted to like him in 1992, and I wanted to like him this morning; I just don't. Nicholson's Joker was suggestive, but witty. DeVito's Penguin is just vulgar. Throw in DeVito's sluggish enunciation and the aforementioned drab look of the character in most of his scenes, and he just doesn't work for me.

Looking forward to getting to Batman Forever in the next couple of days.

Hokeyboy

No offense, but if you really think that you need to read more fiction.

Travis McClain

Name, if you will, another character that can work in as many different contexts as Batman. Most characters exist well within specific contexts. Sherlock Holmes, for instance, must be in Victorian London. There's room for humor, certainly, but it mustn't be comical. Likewise, he must be specific in his attention to detail, but not explicitly gruesome.

Count Dracula can be presented in various times and places, can be violent, refined, erotic, frail, virile, humorous, etc. But the danger with him is that he is often just one of those things in any given incarnation and thus comes off as one-dimensional. Dracula is also greatly at risk of being a self-parody, since it is really Bela Lugosi's performance and not Dracula himself at the root of the depiction.

James Bond has endured outside of the Cold War that spawned him but I think we're all in agreement he should never, ever, leave the planet. Bond works well in video games, but not in movies that resemble video games. You wouldn't put James Bond in a story with Count Dracula, but you could get away with it with Batman or even Holmes (depending on the writer).

These are just a handful of prominent characters who've had numerous writers take a stab at them over the years and have been portrayed in quite a lot of TV shows and movies, as well. I'm sure I need to read more fiction (especially since the last ten years or so most of my reading has been non-fiction). I wouldn't say Batman is the most interesting, compelling, accessible or original character in fiction. But I maintain that few, if any, characters can be placed in as many contexts and settings as him.

Batman can be anywhere between campy and gritty; set any time from the past to the future; pitted against common thieves or super villains; working by himself or with partners from Robin or Batgirl to the entire Justice League; based entirely in Gotham City or set on a globe-trotting adventure, or even leave the planet. He can be a detective, an action hero, a spy, a general in charge of underlings, a tortured soul or a righteous do-gooder.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold is as far removed from the "Nolanverse" movies as I can imagine, and yet it's still recognizably Batman in both worlds. Who else can work like that?

Solid Snake

Jesus...

MrSmearkase

Santa Claus

FRwL

That's a very good point MinLShaw about Batman's flexibility.

Forever's beginning felt very Kobayashi Maru when he has no chance to escape and save the scientist in that pod.