Remember how I said Schumacher hoped to make Batman Year one by giving the studio what they wanted? Well, Batman Forever was actually a hit. It made a ton of money. And guess what the studio wanted? If you said, “A gritty look at Batman’s first year”? Slap yourself. They said “Give us more toys and product placement. Which led to a seen where Batman uses his BatCredit Card.
In addition, Kilmer was the George Lazenby of the franchise. He was out…in was ER heart throb George Clooney. Clooney got the luck of putting the nails into the coffin of the original Bat-Franchise.
Batman & Robin is bloated, as it has introduced Robin and now Batgirl (who is Alfred’s niece, rather than Commissioner Gordon’s daughter). The villains are Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze. Freeze is almost wonderfully miscast with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the role. The character has always been a thin and lanky dude. So casting a muscled action star only makes the most sense. In addition to the two villains, the film includes Bane as one of the henchmen of Poison Ivy.
Batman and Robin try and stop Freeze and Ivy who team up for reasons…even though their reasons are kind of in conflict. Alfred is sick (and Freeze may hold the cure) and Commissioner Gordon is still around because people expect to see him in a Batman movie.
Like the last film, this one contains a big deal soundtrack, part of a thing in the 90’s where soundtracks featuring bands was a sign of a cool and with it movie. Scores were for suckers in the 90’s. The soundtrack help more to date the film than make it truly memorable.
Clooney is not terrible in the role…I mean, he is clearly trying to be a good Batman. But the problem is, he is in a toy-centric movie, where his role is only as important in as much as it can sell toys to kids. O’Donnell already feels to old to be playing a whiny entitled brat…but there he is. Alicia Silverstone was a very 90’s choice. She faced a brutal and unfair onslaught of abuse over fluctuating weight that simply did not belong in coverage of the film. Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy is okay in performance, but her hairstyles are pretty terrible. My favorite performance is actually John Glover…his Jason Woodrue is manically entertaining.
Bane is portrayed as a mindless drone under Ivy’s control. Which shows how they just treated characters a something to be cherry picked with little regard for the original visions of these characters. Visually the lush color schemes of Schumacher’s previous film.
The entire film is a crazy mess of an art department cut loose in concert with a demand for product tie-in to the point of almost beautiful obnoxiousness. It never comes together in the end…but if it does not give you a seizure? You probably got out okay.
Batman Forever had some big shakeups. Tim Burton and Michael Keaton were out. Joel Schumacher and Val Kilmer were in. But the real shakeup was…Warner Brothers wanted to sell more toys. Schumacher had read Batman: Year One. He really wanted to tell that story. The studio was not interested. Schumacher thought that if he gave them the movie they wanted, he might be able to persuade them on the next film to do the film he really wanted to do.
Jack Nicholson kind of established the villains would always be played by big names. Danny DiVito was brought in to play the Penguin. But this was not the traditional Penguin from the comics. Not merely a short round guy is a top hat, Burton envisioned an origin in which Oswald Cobblepot is born to an affluent family who are repulsed by his grotesque appearance. His father (played by Paul Reubens, who would play Penguin’s father on Gotham decades later) and mother (Diane Salinger) dump him over a bridge where he is found by penguins.
1989 saw the release of the most controversial Batman casting until Batfleck. Michael Keaton, known almost entirely for comedies such as Mr. Mom, Johnny Dangerously and Gung Ho was cast as Batman…oh the horror and oh the wailing. A long tradition of freaking out over casting began right here. People were a bit more open to Jack Nicholson playing the Joker.
One of the writers of the Return of Swamp Thing went on to write the screenplay for the beloved Disney comedy Hokus Pocus. On the other hand, it is directed by Jim Wynorski, He has a spotty record and his later career includes films with “breast” or “busty” in the title. And it is not a good sign when your hero monster appears and is asked who he is…he responds, “They call me…Swamp Thing”.
During 1972 and 1981, beloved horror director had made five films. His sixth was the coic book movie “Swamp Thing”. Based on the iconic character initially brought to life by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson. It was more horror than super-hero and even though it had ended in 1976, producer Michael Uslan had purchased the rights to Swamp Thing and Batman (which would not see the screen for seven more years) out of love for those characters. Craven was more of an upstart, rather than cherished genre director.
So, nearly twenty years later, after numerous failed attempts to bring Superman back to the big screen Warner Brothers managed a major coup. The wrangled Bryan Singer, Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris away from the X-Men franchise to bring Superman back. This seemed like a decent idea. One of the things Singer talked about was a love for the character and the first two Superman films. He wanted to stay in a loose continuity with those films and ignore films III ad IV entirely. They set out and found a guy who bore a striking resemblance to Reeve, named Brandon Routh. Truthfully, it would have been wiser to simply begin again with a new continuity, especially since they were starting with an actress ten years younger than Margot Kidder was in Superman II. And to facilitate the “Returns” part they had Superman go on a five year journey to explore the floating rocks of Krypton.
Superman III bombed heavily. Eventually, the rights were sold to Canon Films. Reeve had sworn off ever playing Superman again. But four years later he was back. In part, he was promised that he could be involved with the story. And the story we got was Superman getting rid of all our nuclear weapons. He puts them in a net and hurls them into the son. Gene Hackman is back as Lex Luthor…he gets busted out of prison by his dope of a nephew Lenny (Jon Cryer, looking like he stepped on the set of Hiding Out). His plan is to take advantage of Superman’s plan by using Superman’s DNA (from a strand of Superman’s hair) and get it in with the missiles. He succeeds and creates the weirdest enemy for Superman the screen has seen.
Superman three came three years after Superman II, riding high on it’s success, but behind the scenes things looked bleak. There was a divide between some of the cast and the Salkinds over how they had treated Richard Donner. Kidder was not really feeling up to participating. To address this, Perry sends her off to the tropics, while sending Clark to do a story in Smallville at his High School Reunion.
Tripping Through Gateways 