Batman and Robin

In our second entry for "And You Call Yourself A Super Hero Month", I present to you the worst thing Joel Shaumaker has ever done. Possibly. Well, I hear "D.C Cab" is pretty awful. Well, let me re-word that. I present to you the worst "Batman" movie ever, ruined by Mr. Shaumaker.

I think I know what Shaumaker and writer Akiva Goldsman was going for: a big budget modern version of the campy 60's "Batman" show. That's all well and good, because I liked the 60's show, but however when you fill up your movie with stupid needless puns and just horrible acting, it makes any Batman fan boy want to run into their rooms and cry until their mommy's call them for dinner. And no, I wasn't talking about myself. (Ahem.)

This wreck starts off with Batman and Robin suiting up. Gay guys, pay attention cause you see their crotches and asses in full display here. Once they're suited up, the Batmobile comes from below. After spinning around for nearly 3 minutes, Robin states, "I wanna car! PLEASE!!!" To this, Batman says, "I wanna fuck Superman", er, "This is why Superman works alone." HA-HA-HA!

Batman gets in the car and Alfred tells Batman if he ruins this car, he's cutting off his allowance. Batman takes off, and Robin's motorcycle gets its own special entrance. After taking off, Alfred shows signs of made up disease.

On the way to wherever the hell they're going, Commissioner Gordon calls Batman and tells him Mr. Freeze is, well, freezing the Museum. We go there and find 20,000 security guards get beaten by Mr. Freeze and his Freeze Gun. To get the sub plot out of the way now, Mr. Freeze wears this special suit that keeps his body chilled to 0 degrees. Why is explained later. But what powers this suit are crystals, so he's at the museum to steal a big fuckin' crystal.

But of course Batman shows up and slides down a dinosaur and instantly fights Freeze. During the struggle, Robin shows up (and somehow making the Robin sign on the door. Don't ask, I don't know) and joins in on the fight. They go their own separate ways, with Robin going after the crystal and Batman chasing after Freeze.

And their plan to get their objects? Kick their feet to reveal skate blades popping out from their boot. I dunno about you, but I think this poses some problems, one of them being "How in the fuck do you store skate blades in the soles of your shoes?" Anyway, they skate around the museum and Robin eventually gets the crystal. Freeze makes his escape but grabs the crystal when one of Freeze's goons bumps into him, causing it to fall. Good kung-fu grip you got there, Robin.

Freeze takes off in some kind of space ship thing, with Batman jumping in. Robin, with the help of invisible wires, flies to the side of the ship and grabs hold as it goes into the sky. Batman gets in the shuttle and a very weak fight happens, where Freeze just makes Batman lose his balance, then freezes his wrists to the wall. Then Freeze tells Batman that when they reach 300,000 feet, the ship will freeze, then plummet down to the ground. This causes concern for Batman, not only because he'll be inside the whole time, but because the crash will kill "millions of people.” Well, I dunno about THAT.

Freeze escapes the shuttle and in comes Robin. Instead of being grateful to see him, Batman tells him why he isn't back at the museum rounding up thugs. Hmm, maybe because he wants to save YOUR FUCKIN' LIFE! Jeez...

Anyway, Robin uses a laser pointer to free Batman, then Batman plants "Bat-Bombs" (Something left over from the 60's show, taking an object and placing the word "Bat" in front of it) around the ship, to blow it up. Wait...so a solid frozen ship will kill millions of people, but thousands of little pieces of ship, on fire no less, won't? Where the hell did Goldman go to school, in Bizarro World?

Batman and Robin use the escape hatchway doors as surfboards and fly back down to capture Freeze. Robin grabs hold of the crystal, but he and Batman go crashing into a frozen furnace, thanks to Freeze. Robin lunges after Freeze, but he uses his Ice Gun on him, freezing him. After snatching the crystal, Freeze helpfully tells Batman he has 11 minutes to unfreeze Robin, then escapes. Batman throws Robin into some body of water and using the laser pointer, and heats up the water, so Robin unthaws.

We later find ourselves in a greenhouse somewhere in the jungle. This turns out to be South America, but if it wasn't said earlier, we wouldn't have had any idea. We meet. Dr. Pamela Isley, who looks like Charleze Thron in that one movie about miners sexually harassing her. (I don't watch chick flicks unless I want them to appear on this site. Current number of chick flicks on this site: 0) Isley is talking into a tape recorder and says, "Diane, this evil doctor dude is using my formula named Venom to make his own muscle-bound army! Oh, and try the cherry pie!"

She then sneaks into the evil doctor's lab, where some type of meeting is going on. He's showing off what this venom can do when injected into a body. He grabs a weakling serial killer and straps him to a table. He then pumps him full of venom and suddenly he turns into Barry Bonds. I guess what's going on here is the evil doctor wants to sell the Barry Bonds guy, named Bane. Cause, you know, he's "The Bane of Humanity" or some lame crap like that.

While Bane throws a temper tantrum, the evil doctor finds Isley hiding in the corner. Nobody puts ISLEY in the corner! The evil doctor asks Isley to join him and together they can rule the galaxy as father and son, er no. She says "NO! I'll NEVER JOIN YOU!" Er..no..well yeah...but...

Anyway, she says no, so he does what every minor evil guy did in the previous Batman films, kills her by throwing her across a table, then having venom fall on her. She eventually falls into the ground somehow and vanishes.

Back in the Bat Cave, Dick is getting over hypothermia while they watch a security footage of Mr. Freeze being turned into Mr. Freeze. In this sub plot, he was a scientist working on a cure for a made up disease called MacGregor's Syndrome, because his wife had it. Hmm, she had it, Alfred has a mysterious made up disease. Gosh, could these things be related???

We see pre-Freeze Freeze working on something when he somehow stumbles back into his wives cryogenically frozen chamber, turning his body into ice, thus him needing to be kept at 0 degrees at all times. After learning this back story, we get a small hint of the future rift between Dick and Bruce when they argue about Dick feeling like Bruce is holding him back when they fight crime. Alfred takes Dick's side, saying that Bruce is a controlling asshole.

Bruce then has a weird pointless flashback.

At Freeze's hideout, he's trying to get his goons to sing along to some cartoon song, but they won't do it. He gives up and we get even more back story about Freeze. I'll number them:

1. He likes the dark meat.
2. He is still trying to find a cure for his frozen wives’ made up disease.
3. He is building some kind of super frozen thing so he can freeze Gotham and hold it for ransom.
4. In case you forgot, crystals power his suit.

After a shot of Freeze looking at his frozen wife in the tank, we go back to South America, where the evil doctor is cleaning up. All of a sudden, Isley appears out of the ground...AND SHE'S FUCKIN HOT!! YOWZA! Anyway, she tells the evil doctor, who calls him by his name and his name is...aw fuck, his name is Jason. See, every guy in a movie named Jason is evil, an asshole, a weirdo, or a complete useless tool. ARRGH!

Sorry. She tells this Jason that the earth transformed her into a human plant, stating that her blood is chloroform and that her lips are venom. She then kisses Jason, and it kills him. Uma then decides not to waste her acting skills by hamming it up while trashing the place. She notices Bane in the corner and they take off to Wayne Industries for no good reason.

Back at Wayne Manor, a girl in a school girl uniform shows up and starts knocking. Dick answers the door and falls in loves with Alicia Silverstone's legs. She asks for Alfred, then spots him and runs in. This turns out to be Alfred's niece, Barbara. She is from England, despite not having an accent, but on the other hand, we would've had to tolerate Alicia Silverstone trying to use an English accent. She's here to visit Alfred and Bruce insists she stays there with them. Alfred, scared of her finding out about "the secret" gets worried.

We then get a little "remember this for later" bit where Barbara says she's scared of motorcycles. To further showcase this, we cut to later and Barbara walks into Alfred's room, saying goodnight. Alfred is looking at video of some people in India, and there's an elephant, and everything. According to Alfred, his brother is a servant to some dead dude who rides around on the elephant in India all day. Boy, that sure sounds exciting. We then find out that Barbara's mothers name is Margaret, Peg for short, and then Barbara takes off. She sneaks out of the house, actually using a rope made of bed sheets, steals a motorcycle, and takes off.

The next day, I guess, Bruce and his arm candy Julie are at Gothom Observatory, showing off to the press this fancy new telescope thing that he donated, I guess. It's supposed to look at any part of the world at any time using satellites and mirrors. It's kinda complicated, don't ask me to explain it. During this, Poison Ivy shows up, disguised as Isley. She barges up to Bruce, saying she has this plan that'll somehow rid the earth of people and put nature as number one. Bruce states that people come first and Isley says that the plants will come after them. Everyone oddly laughs at her, saying that Batman and Robin protect them, even from plants. Then Bruce invites Isley to an auction where Batman and Robin will be auctioning off The Wayne Diamond.

The whole auction thing is a ploy to trap Mr. Freeze and as we see, Mr. Freeze falls for the ploy. But before he shows up, Poison and Bane show up, wearing really stupid looking monkey outfits. Ivy blows some kind of dust all over everyone, making the crowd, even the females, be totally enchanted by her. Of course, she goes after Batman and Robin, taking the diamond. During this, everyone starts bidding on Ivy, including Batman and Robin. Batman pulls out a credit card. Ugh... Then guess who shows up with more God awful frozen puns.



Ivy tries to enchant him, but according to Freeze "You can't enchant the cold hearted." Sure ya can, look at The Grinch. So Freeze takes the diamond and Batman and Robin go into hot pursuit. There's a big chase on the streets that somehow end up on this giant ass statue that's just there in the middle of town. When both Freeze and Batman are about to make a jump, Batman tells Robin not to make the jump. Robin insists he can make the jump, but Batman cuts off Robin's engine. Yeah, that's safe.

When they come crashing down, Batman grabs Freeze and arrests him, no doubt using Bat Cuffs. Freeze is taking to Arkin Asylum, which was mentioned at the end of "Batman Forever.” The guards, one of whom is being played by Jesse "The Body" Ventura (Seriously), is escorting Freeze to his cell. The cell looks out of place at first, it's only a bed and a sink that's under a blue light and that's it. They place Freeze under this light and Freeze attempts to escape. Suddenly, he falls on the ground, like he's choking. It turns out the blue light is called "The cold zone" and as long as Freeze stays in this light, he'll be alright (hey that rhymed).

Back at the cave, Robin is pissed that Batman cut off his engines and says that Batman is just jealous cause Ivy likes him. Batman keeps telling Robin that Ivy did something to them to make them fight like this, but Robin says F.U and storms off.

Man, this is probably gonna be my longest review to date. Feel free to stop now, take an intermission, smoke something, have sex, whatever.

Back? Ok, let's get this over with.

Alfred is putting together some type of package when Bruce walks in. When he asks Alfred if Robin is right, Alfred takes his side again and says "Yep." After another odd flashback by Bruce, we cut to the garage, where Barbara is sneaking in, with a motorcycle. Dick sneaks up on her and she judo CHOPS him to the ground. When she realizes who it is, she remains unapologetic. Well, no. She does apologize and makes up a story about taking the motorcycle out for a spin. Man, I hope this whole thing goes somewhere soon. I'm losing my patience.

Now it's time for Poison Ivy and Bane to find a crib to kick back at. She picks a closed up Turkish Bath for some reason, and this is even weirder when the place is occupied by day-glo gangsters. When the gangsters try to beat up on Bane, Bane teaches them a lesson and they go running off. Soon, Ivy is planting some seeds and suddenly vines grow all over the place.

Next is a pointless scene (Hell, they're all pointless) of Bruce and Julie having dinner. This is here for two reasons that I see. To remind us that Julie exists and to show that Ivy has some kind of hold on Bruce. Bruce hallucinates that Ivy is there instead of Julie and Julie gets kinda ticked about it. The scene ends with Julie asking "Who's Ivy?" And Bruce replying "I wish I knew." Smooth, Bruce.

That same night, the next night, next week, who knows, Dick is working on something when the computer tells him there's an intruder in the garage. Yes, it's Barbara, big surprise. Dick decides to follow her to see where she runs off to at night.

And that turns out to be a night time motorcycle racing thing. And it's run by Coolio. Come along for a ride on a fantastic voyage, indeed. Barbara and Dick sign up and get ready to race. Barbara immediately runs afoul with a fellow racer, who is painted up like a skull. Skull Dude secretly (Read: really loud so everyone in the race can hear him) tells some of his posse to get things set up at the bridge.

And they're off! It's your typical action filler race, with Barbara doing pretty good and Dick being just behind her. She squares off with Skull Dude until they reach the bridge. Some other Skull Dude's set a part of it on fire and both Barbara and Dick slides through it and of course the bridge is out, so Dick uses his acrobat skills to grab onto Barbara and the way they swing probably gave Alicia Silverstone flashbacks to the video of "Cryin.”

Back at Wayne Manor, Barbara says she's been secretly racing to raise enough money to get Alfred out of being a slave to Bruce, stating that he isn't happy. Dick swears Alfred's ok and happy, but Barbara drops a bomb on him: Alfred is dying from made up movie disease. Bruce confirms this, as he creepily overhears their conversation.

Back at the Asylum for the Typical Batman Villains, Freeze is getting good at ice sculpting. Jesse The Former Governor tells the future Governor that he's got a visitor. It turns out to be Ivy and she kisses the two guards, which kills them dead. Bane is off getting Freeze's ice suit and brings it via a shopping cart. Freeze puts it on and after a stupid joke about winterizing pipes (ARRGH SHUT UP!), the wall breaks...somehow. I'm tired of thinking of this movie already and there's still like 40 minutes left. God help me.

Batman and Robin find out about Freeze's escape with the help of Ivy and they head over to Freeze's hideout, where Batman and Robin realize they've been stupidly fighting over Ivy and they're both over her. More lame jokes about her stems (you figure it out) and they stumble upon Mrs. Freeze. Below them in a grate is Freeze and Ivy. Freeze goes to get the crystals for his suit, Ivy is trusted to get Mrs. Freeze. Ivy blows some horny dust all over the place while Freeze turns the heat off and puts the air on. Somehow this causes all the police to say their lungs are freezing.

Batman & Robin go after Ivy but meet up with Bane, who instantly lays the smack down on them. Ivy appears and makes Robin more horny while Batman fights Bane. Bane throws Batman to the ground and Ivy climbs on him, in riding cowgirl position. She starts to woo the bat and Bane comes to finish the job of killing Batman. But he manages to kick some ass this time and stop Ivy from kissing Robin, finally deducing that she has poison in her lips. Robin of course doesn't believe this horsehockey and goes after Ivy. Batman's solution: push Robin into a vat of ice cream.

Back in Copland, Ray Liotta is...er, I mean, Commissioner Gordon finds the Ice/Heat switch and turns it back to heat, making everyone's lungs unfreezing. Freeze snags his ice gun and escapes, along with Ivy. Gordon is pissed off that Batman and Robin lost their villains yet again. Maybe Gordon should out source to Superman or something.

Oh and just so you know: Ivy turns off the power in Mrs. Freeze's chamber and Robin declares that he's going solo. The More You Know! (Star)

Ivy and Bane return home and find Freeze has made himself at home. Ivy tells him that Batman killed his wife and Freeze goes on a rampage, although not a lyrical one. Then it's decided that they're gonna freeze the entire world so only them two can live on the planet together. And I'm assuming Bane, but if it's only them two, who are they gonna need Bane's protection from? This plan involves the Gotham Observatory and the telescope.

Meanwhile at Wayne Manor (Pretend that was said by the narrator of the old Batman show), a doctor checks out Alfred and declares that he has...you ready for this mind blowing shocker?? ARE YA?!? Alfred has MacGregors Syndrome!!! THE SAME AS FREEZE'S WIFE!! WHA?!?! Oh and there's nothing nobody can do. At least until the end of the movie, which is about 30 minutes away. Hey, I'm typing as fast as I can here.

Another thing for you to know: Alfred gives Barbara the package he was making earlier and tells her to send it to his elephant serving brother and only family can open it. Oh and at a party at the observatory, Ivy tricks Gordon in giving her the keys to where the bat signal is. So she and Bane steal it.

Guess what? Barbara declares herself family and pops in the CD that was in the package. The thing is encrypted, so Barbara spends about 35-40 hours typing in stupid random passwords. Like Alfred, Wayne, and probably even "Giant ass house", to no avail. Hey lady, the first rule in picking a password is not to make it something that everybody can figure it out. I mean my password to all my accounts is "Pulp Fiction Is God" and...oh.

Back. The actual password turns out to be "Peg", which we get thanks to the picture on Alfred's desk. Check out the picture though. One shot, there's nothing written there. Next shot there is. CREEPY!! So once she types in the correct password, Barbara finds out that Bruce is Batman, Dick is Robin, etc.

When Bruce returns, there's a Robin signal in the sky and Robin is ready to take off. Bruce tells him that it's Ivy and it's a trap. Robin gets all pissy again and says that Bruce is just jealous. Finally Bruce says "SHUT UP YOU STUPID BRAT! THIS IS GONNA BE THE FINAL MOVIE YOU'RE GONNA BE IN, SO JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!!" Thankfully, after that, Robin listens to Bruce.

Or does he?!?!? We see Robin driving up to the Robin signal and goes into Ivy's lair. She's sitting inside Audrey 2 and is wooing Robin. She asks to kiss Robin, but before she does, she gives into the typical James Bond Villain Syndrome where she reveals her plan before killing Robin. Then she kisses him and...nothing.

Turns out Robin had on wax lips, so she shoves him into some water where he'll remain for the next 5 minutes for some reason. Batman shows up, saying he too pulled a trick and is gonna clean her clock. But some vines show up and trip Batman so now he's trapped too.

What's this? Our tangled up troops caught in a weed of deceit? Is the earth gonna freeze and be green at the same time? STAY TUNED! Same bat time, same bat channel...

Ok, not really. What really happens is Barbara breaks into the bat cave, a computerized Alfred tells her he knew she was gonna do that, so he made her her own special bat suit. Then we see her suit up and leave the cave. She arrives in time to kick Ivy's ass. Ahhh, that's why Batgirl was introduced in this movie, so two guys wouldn't have to beat up on a girl. But...what about Batman Returns? Ah, hell, my brain hurts.




Anyway, Batgirl shoves Ivy back into Audrey 2, which somehow kills her? I dunno... Once freed, Batman and Robin meet Batgirl and they take off to the observatory.

There, Freeze is already hard at work starting to freeze the town. Our trio show up and Freeze vanished. Batman says if they position the mirrors and the satellite’s n'stuff, they can thaw out the city. So they do so. During this, Freeze appears and starts kicking the crap out of Batman. The struggle causes Robin and Batgirl to fly out and not fall and die. Bane comes out of nowhere and fight them two, but they get the idea to pull the giant ass tube from the back of his head. When they do so, he turns back into a wimpy guy. Freeze continues to fight Batman until the telescope is nearly destroyed. Batman places some kind of Bat-heater on him, causing to him roast slowly, I guess.

When Robin and Batgirl get back to the observatory, they state that their original plan is shot to hell now. But they can position the satellite to direct sunbeams to the city. Suuuure... Well, they do so. And everyone thaws out. Yay...I guess.

Finally, Batman asks Freeze for the cure to MacGregor's Syndrome. Freeze gives him two bright blue vials and tells him to call "me in the morning." ARRGH!! Just die, damn you!! And it turns out that Freeze is gonna share a cell with Ivy, who somehow isn't dead. Oh and Freeze finds out from Batman that Ivy is the one that killed his wife...but she isn't really dead. This is too confusing, let's move on.

Bruce puts the vials on Alfred's IV and they just sit around and wait. The next morning, Alfred wakes up, cured, and hugs everybody. After a small fight about whether or not Barbara can be Batgirl, Bruce gives in and they do the typical put their hand in the middle of the circle thing. Then we get our final shot of them three running towards the camera.

Wait..the end? It's over?!?! I SURVIVED!!! WOO!!!! Thank ya, JESUS or whoever!

Ok, here we go. Bad puns=sucked royal ass. Acting=Really sucked royal ass. Uma Thurman and Alicia Silverstone=Horrible but still pretty hot. The entire plot=Didn't need to exist. Bane, however, was pretty friggin cool. I wish he was the main bad guy. I dunno, I just like bad actors in Mexican wrestler masks, don't ask me why. I can only be thankful that the entire Batman series is starting anew and that "Batman Begins" kicked royal ass. Just don't ever let Joel Shaumaker direct a Batman movie ever again. K'Thanks.


-Jason