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Liveblogging the '90s: Batman and Robin

By Courtney Enlow | Miscellaneous | July 19, 2012 |

By Courtney Enlow | Miscellaneous | July 19, 2012 |


I will live to regret this, I know it.

Welcome to another installment of Liveblogging the ’90s, even though the last installment wasn’t named that yet. In honor of tomorrow’s release of The Dark Knight Rises, I give you this. The Dark Knight’s Thighses.

I don’t even know.

0:00:14 - I’m already mad at myself for this.

0:00:27 - Did I block out that Arnold Schwarzenegger got top billing over Clooney? I’m trying to put myself back into a time when that made sense, but I’m having a very difficult time with it.

0:00:52 - By the way, since I’m on a vicious shame spiral as it is, I should probably tell you that I didn’t need to rent this. This lives in my house. My house where I eat and everything. And I let a man who owns it put a baby inside me. So, there that is.

0:01:07 - The weird sound effect that gets added into the score when the title pops up sounds like a clown’s rape whistle.

0:01:11 - And now a parade of body parts. Bat nipples. Bat taint. Bat mansnatch. It’s all just too much.

0:01:46 - And no offense to the dear man, but I read “Pat Hingle” as “Bat Hingle” which sounded like another unsavory bodypart to add to the above list.

0:02:00 - “I want a car. Chicks dig the car.” You know why we all know that line? Because that is the exact moment every single viewer tuned the fuck out and quit, and that is its legacy. Robin being a whiny bitch; Clooney hating his life choices.

0:02:22 - Seriously. You can feel the searing heat of Clooney’s self-loathing. It warms me.

0:03:05 - Bombast and neon. That is what Joel Schumacher gave to the Batman franchise. And, just, just so many body parts. All of them. All of the Bat Hingles.

0:03:07 - You know, I would like to retroactively apologize to Chris O’Donnell for all his bad reviews. He really did the best he could with his terrible, terrible role. He gave it gumption. Moxie. Boy Wonder Taint. I’m embarrassed for him. I want to hug him.

0:03:35 - Even Commissioner Gordon can’t give his lines more than the bare minimum of effort. This movie has, thus far, given us maybe six lines of dialogue, and each one has been given with the hearty energy of a family-sized bottle of NyQuil. You can genuinely hear everyone’s self-loathing pouring out of their hair follicles. Was the paycheck worth it, everyone involved? I contest it was not.

0:04:10 - I am 90% certain that the iced over Gotham Museum of Art is an exact replica of Joel Schumacher’s house. This is just how he lives his life. And, in the corner, an unlit poster of Dying Youngreaching its hand up to touch the light, because it’s the only one of his movies not to heavily feature a smoke machine, and because of that, it is unloved by its father. Why, Papa Joel, why?

0:04:18 - With “the iceman cometh” we have our first Mr. Freeze bullshit pun of the movie.

0:04:28 - Four minutes in and I’m tired and sad. I don’t want to do this anymore. I thought it would be funny, and now I hurt inside.

0:05:06 - “Hi Freeze. I’m Batman.” COME ON. No. Lazy.

0:05:27 - Is there a non-pun line uttered by Freeze in this movie? I am genuinely asking. Because if every single thing he says makes some reference to ice and cold, I will actually be impressed. And then I’ll punch Akiva Goldsman. And then I’ll pat his head and send him on his way.

0:05:47 - This has all the dignity of a furry convention at the Kardashians’ house.

0:06:59 - DID THEY JUST FUCKING CLICK THEIR FUCKING HEELS AND PRODUCE ICE SKATES LIKE FUCKING DOROTHY GALE-RETZKY WHILE FLYING MONKEY-LOOKING MOTHERFUCKERS PLAY HOCKEY WITH A DIAMOND? How did I manage to forget all of this? Is this real life?

0:08:50 - Somewhere in the past, Adam West is running around with a bomb, thanking the batlords that it’s actually less goofy than this scene.

0:10:41 - You know how they had to re-dub Tom Hardy’s lines in the new one because no one could understand him? They really should have done that for Schwarzenegger. Because I have no idea what the hell he’s talking about. Something something ice cold something bullshit something.

0:11:57 - Question: is the movie actually this batballs stupid, or is that the Nolan effect? Or, was Joel Schumacher an ahead-of-his-time genius, attempting to reboot the series by making a hugely budgeted episode of the ’60sTV show?

0:13:29 - In an unrelated story, it just took me 45 seconds to ask my husband for a pretzel, so my brain has melted into buttergoo. I have no idea what’s happening on my TV right now.

0:13:46 - Robin just got frozen by a freeze-ray and Mr. Freeze called him bird-boy, and now Batman has 11 minutes to save him. It’s like The Dark Knight, only written by a 12-year-old whose brain has been replaced by jumpy claps, Pop Rocks and the stuff inside Stretch Armstrong dolls.

0:17:11 - So, here’s our Bane, being created by technology innovated in the film Flubber.

0:18:34 - It’s like if Nacho Libre and Frankenstein had a baby and dropkicked it into some Jell-O.

0:19:39 - You know what I respect about this movie? No need for backstory or plot or thinking or any of all that. You are dropped right into the stupid and left there to immerse yourself in its culture. Like a college foreign language course, only instead of learning a new language, you’re hitting yourself in the head with a hammer repeatedly.

0:21:36 - I love any movie that explains science-y things by saying “he survived somehow.” It’s the “somehow” that displays how much effort went into all this. “He survived…somehow. I don’t know. MORE COLD PUNS AND WHINY ROBIN NOW.”

0:23:33 - Dramatic flashbacks lose their drama when they’re being had by Smug Clooney.

0:24:29 - “They replaced my blood with aloe” and her voice with another voice recorded months later in someone’s bathroom.

0:25:38 - I don’t know if she means to be, but Uma is going in and out of an English accent, and I don’t know why it’s the thing that’s standing out to me right now, because there’s a shit-ton of spazziness happening in this scene.

0:26:45 - And, yet, it’s elegantly restrained in comparison to this scene of Arnold Schwarzenegger conducting his eskimo people in a lethargic rendition of the Snow Miser song. Also I still have no idea what he’s saying. Also, I’m pretty sure one of them is Tom Arnold.

0:29:36 - I’m now filled with annoyance remembering how they made Alicia Silverstone lose a bunch of weight to be in this movie and still called her fat when it came out. Everyone being assholes is not just an aughts thing.

0:31:05 - I just had a horrible mental image of a Batgirl and Robin porno where Alicia just feeds chewed food into Chris O’Donnell’s mouth. Why did that just happen to me? I’m sorry. I need a hug.

0:31:57 - We open the movie with a full minute of close-up Bat-taint, but heaven forbid we see even a hint of body beneath Alicia Silverstone in a robe. Alicia Silverstone in a robe has to be the most chaste thing in the history of cinema. It’s basically a full-body turtleneck.

0:32:40 - Why does Alfred have an autographed headshot of his own sister?

0:32:48 - Alicia Silverstone used to do this smushy pouty face thing, and everytime she does it in this movie, it makes me thing that Cary Elwes is about to get the psychological shit kicked out of him.

0:34:10 - In fact, I’d rather talk about that movie. But I’ll save that for later. Because Bane is wearing a fedora over his Mexican wrestling mask and it’s adorable.

0:34:48 - Has Elle MacPherson always been in this movie? Granted, I apparently remember nothing about this movie except ice puns, but she’s apparently this movie’s Drew Barrymore in Batman Forever, basically cinematic amnesia.

0:36:41 - To say Uma Thurman’s acting in this movie is bad isn’t really quite fair, because she’s as good as it deserves and she’s certainly doing it on purpose, but it’s still just really…it’s a lot.

0:39:21 - So, Mr. Freeze has video of his wedding. That’s all well and good. But he apparently also has video of him giving his wife a necklace in their bedroom, which is just a weird thing to have. Except this is post-Titanic and we still lived in a couer de la mer world.

0:40:28 - If Christopher Nolan had his Batman make a public appearance at some manner of African tiki King Kong Polynesian diamond party (forget it, Jake, it’s Schumacher), Christian Bale would shove cheese up his ass and release the mice, I know it.

0:42:08 - Never forget that Uma Thurman once did a sexy striptease in a gorilla suit. Ever.

0:43:15 - It’s a weird thing to fixate upon in a movie so filled with terrible and awful, but every fall or jump is incredibly slow. Purposely so. Like Schumacher had the stunts guys pull the harness cord very gently. It’s an artistic decision, clearly.

0:45:13 - The extras in this movie are the extra-iest.

0:45:28 - Clooney just sounded so sad about that Batman credit card line. Because, seriously, he should. Why would Batman have a bat credit card? That’s just unrealistic. And this is a documentary shot in real-time.

0:46:29 - You know, this is why I just don’t go to African tiki King Kong Polynesian diamond parties. They don’t end well.

0:47:47 - Aw, first the fedora, now a matching monkey suit. Forget everything, Bane is adorable.

0:49:06 - Where does Mr. Freeze get his ice minions anyway? Did he just find some wayward guys and say “I’m gonna throw some eyeshadow on you and have you live in a sewer fridge with me?”

0:50:25 - I mean, I guess it really shouldn’t bother me that these cold puns don’t even make sense half the time, but it does.

0:50:58 - I completely forgot that Robin is circus people. Flying Dick.

0:52:10 - There’s an Alfred subplot somewhere in this movie. I think. Somewhere. I don’t know.

0:53:48 - Self-defense tip #1 - when a completely recognizable person approaches you in a mansion, say “yah” with absolutely no feeling and do some manner of…thing. I don’t know. But it works. Leads to banter. The uszhe.

0:56:20 - So why does Bane have to wear a disguise while Poison Ivy is totally cool wandering around in a leotard and the rest of Gotham is basically the Gathering of the Juggalos?

0:57:31 - I don’t want to speak out of turn here, but I just don’t think Gotham is that great a place to live.

0:58:40 - Whistle sound effects make my heart hurt.

1:02:10 - YOU GUYS. IT’S COOLIO. If they’d done some “Rollin’ With the Homies” dancing, all would have been forgiven.

1:03:13 - You have to respect the delusional confidence of a man who would put extras dressed in Clockwork Orange gear into this movie. Aw.

1:04:47 - This movie had a decent soundtrack. I mean, we’re not hearing any of it, because right now it’s just sounds and Ecstasy and incidental whistles signifying wackiness, but I know it existed.

1:05:56 - Alicia while hanging off a building near death: “Uggggghhhh.” SHE IS SO BORED. How can you be bored in such a sumptuous world of fanciness and castoffs from The Warriors.

1:07:38 - Oh, right, the Alfred subplot is that he’s dying. BUT DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT BECAUSE ICE AND NIPPLES.

1:08:11 - Jesse Ventura’s in this movie. Sure, why not.

1:10:04 - Bane is basically Mongo. I think I love him.

1:12:41 - I feel like I should tell you that I keep typing timestamps, and the next thing I know, it’s two minutes later, I’ve typed nothing, and my forehead hurts from brow furrowing. I mean, did they know? They had to know? I want to believe they knew. That they naively thought “people love camp, right? Right?” But camp on purpose doesn’t work. It has to come from a purely organic place, not a wicked place of sad and stupid.

1:15:37 - Robin is hitting Bane and I feel like I’m somehow supposed to be rooting for the whiny twatty teen over the adorable “Mongo like candy” precious peach that is Bane, and that is just crazytown.

1:17:25 - Let’s talk about this some more, because Schumachery things are happening and I’ve become numb. Do we think they set out to create a fun throwback to the TV show, a nostalgic romp with a big budget? Or, do we think zero fucks were given and they just shit this mess out of their Schwarzen-holes and this is what happened? Because I’m watching frozen tears on my television screen right now, and I need to know. Did everyone involved really believe that we’d love this and have the funnest goddamn time watching it? Did Arnold think he was giving us the performance of his life, or did he know he was giving us Doctor Manhattan’s punning Cousin Balki?

1:25:34- If I could punch any one film character through my screen, it would be Gossip Gerty. I want to kick her in the bouffant. And I don’t mean her hair. And I don’t even know what that means. MY BRAIN IS A FLIGHTLESS BIRD.

1:25:51 - So, this is a scene in which Schumacher apparently ran out of neon and bullshit and just had them throw in some balloons.

1:28:08 - Why is it in these movies that the female characters’ only disguise to distinguish them from their villainous alter-egos is no makeup?

1:30:44 - My secret favorite thing in the world is when characters laugh and smile when coming out of their own flashbacks.

1:31:18 - Alfred has two copies of the same picture of his sister, one signed, one not signed. I’m just saying that there’s more to Alfred than we know and it is UN-FUCKING-SAVORY. There’s some Lannister shit in House Pennyworth.

1:34:28 - Bane is saying “bomb” over and over again while neatly organizing his bombs. Because he’s cute, and that’s what cute henchmen do.

1:35:58 - Alfred also knew his niece’s exact measurements right down to nipple plate size. I’M NOT SAYING, I’M JUST SAYING.

1:36:45 - Why in the late ’90s did a video of Alfred require Max Headroom stutters? Did they think that people would still not understand video or computers? And why would they suddenly start caring about people when they’ve spend the last hour and a half doing all this to them?

1:38:33 - On a positive note, Ivy’s manicures throughout this movie have been FABULOUS.

1:39:04 - “Sorry. My vines have a crush on you.” THAT’S NOT EVEN A THING AND NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE. MY MIND HAS SPIDERS CRAWLING IN ITS HAIR.

1:41:03 - “Bruce, it’s me. Barbara.” IT IS PLAINLY VISIBLE THAT YOU ARE BARBARA AND I HAVE STOPPED FEELING FEELINGS.

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1:42:16 - I feel like you think I’m trying too hard to point out that this movie is bad, that I’m being obvious, that this is lazy. But I’m not and it is and I regret literally everything.

1:43:54 - I thought this was such a good idea. I thought it would be so funny and now I’m so sad and embarrassed. I KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE JOEL SCHUMACHER NOW. All I want is to see my mom. Just one more time. Once more before the darkness descends.

1:44:20 - I feel it all slipping away…

1:45:20 - please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard

1:46:58 - Why do none of them ever dislocate their shoulders when they bounce after using the grappling hook thingies?

1:48:15 - Bane just squirted out all his brain juice and shrunk down to early movie Steve Rogers size and the only character who mattered to me is gone. WHAT OF HIS STEALTHY DISGUISE FEDORAS? I love you, Mr. Bane. We’ll always have the Paris of this time together.

1:48:19 - Or something. I don’t know. WHY IS THIS STILL ON.

1:50:48 - The Gotham Observatory is an incredibly dangerous building. How did it even pass code? That’s where Batman is really needed, in the architecture firms to reign shit in. Maybe if Gotham had fewer gabillion foot tall structures with moats at the bottom, everyone would be safer.

1:52:24 - And Gotham is saved using the power of science-y things or something.

1:54:08 - Also, Batman films everything using a video Talkboy that makes old timey rewindy sounds and he even films scenes he wasn’t in. And, yet, it’s the first thing in this movie that’s made any sense to me.

1:55:41 - There’s a lab at Arkham where Mr. Freeze can perform experiments on his wife? That is a terrible idea.

1:56:44 - Speaking of Arkham, what is Ivy doing there? Because she was very clearly eaten by Audrey II. I saw it. It happened. Also Mr. Freeze can apparently teleport and appear in her cell. Arkham is a terribly run facility and needs some manner of government interference.

1:58:00 - Oh, good, Alfred, you’ve survived. MAKE ME SOME FUCKING BREAKFAST. With freshly squeezed orange juice. Batman fucking loves orange juice. It’s delicious and good for you.

1:58:53 - Cool. The movie’s ending. Whatever. I’d rather talk about juice. Juice is great. It supplies you with the Vitamin C you need to stave off colds and packs a delightfully sunny punch of sugar. It’s part of this balanced breakfast, along with milk and cereal and toast and a vase of flowers and I know this because they always included that image in all ’90s cereal commercials so it’s pretty much fact. Remember Pop Tarts cereal? That was pretty good. It didn’t taste like Pop Tarts but I liked it. I don’t like Toaster Pastries I think they’re fascist. Croissants are good. I like them. My mouth tastes like pennies and I smell bacon. What were we talking about again? Oh, right. Yes. Anyway. This song exists and will sing us out. I’m going to go stick my head in the dishwasher and set it on Full Cycle. Bye forever.