The Movie: Batman & Robin (1997)
What Is It?: Hush,
foolish critics! Stop preventing curious batfans from seeing the Showgirls of superhero movies! From the
opening shots that zoom in on Batman and Robin’s dicks and butts to the idiotic
sequence in which they skate from outer space down to Earth on conveniently
located debris to Mr. Freeze’s non-stop spew of phrases from the “cold” chapter
of the Big Book of Boring Cliches to
Uma Thurman’s full-force portrayal of Poison Ivy to her bizarrely offhand
“death” scene to that shot of Alfred gagging to the trapped-in-a-Christmas-Tree
aesthetic, this movie is terribly fun and fun in its terrible-ness. Of all the
nineties Batman films, this is the one that most disdains the modern yen for
darkness-for-the-sake-of-darkness and almost recaptures the camp glory of the
sixties TV series. No, it is not nearly as good as West and Ward’s adventures,
but it’s never boring, and unlike Halle Berry’s just plain bad Catwoman, Batman & Robin truly is so bad it’s good.
Why Today?: On
this day in 1915, 1950s Batmobile designer Dick Sprang is born with the
greatest name in the history of non-porn-star boner names.
