Nov 22, 2017
It's Thanksgiving and you know what means... it's time for this
year's cinematic turkey! Few movies are as deserving of the the
title as 1997's epic misfire Batman & Robin. Reviled by
fans and critics alike, this film did so much damage to Warner
Bros' flagship franchise that it would take the better part of a
decade for the Caped Crusader to recover.
In fact, it's developed such a notorious reputation that at this
point, it almost felt like too easy a target. So in addition to
breaking down why it doesn't work, we were also interested in
figuring out how it happened in the first place, whether or not
Joel Schumacher's decision to draw from a particular era of
Batman's history was actually perfectly valid, and what this
adaptation can teach us about bending even the most malleable
properties too far.
Topics include: our expectations before we saw it for the first
time and what we thought of it back then, why it didn't even matter
who was playing Batman at this point, an earlier draft of the
script where Mr. Freeze was more in line with his animated series
counterpart, the film's reliance on Batman Forever's
formula, the inclusion of Bane and a bunch of other unnecessary
elements, how this set the stage for the modern comic book movie,
and much much more!