Batman & Robin is a camp masterpiece that gets too much flak

I watched it again last weekend with some friends who had never seen it, and the neon colors and puns are just pure 90s fun. The ice skating rink fight scene is so over the top it circles back to entertaining for me. Anyone else find themselves actually enjoying the goofy stuff when you stop taking it serious?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_cole29d ago

Nah, I gotta disagree on this one. The camp was there, sure, but the movie felt more like a soulless toy commercial than a fun ride (even the Schumacher Batman Forever had more charm). The ice skating fight is a good example actually, it's so disconnected from any real stakes or character logic that it just pulls me out. Arnie's Mr. Freeze puns land with a thud for me, like a dad joke delivered by a malfunctioning robot. I can appreciate that people enjoy it as a "so bad it's good" thing, but calling it a masterpiece feels like a stretch. The 90s energy is there, but the execution was just too sloppy to work as anything more than a curiosity.

danielhenderson29d ago

You said it feels like a "dad joke delivered by a malfunctioning robot" and I get that, @the_cole. But I think people miss the real genius of this movie. It's not just a bad Batman film, it's a time capsule of late 90s marketing desperation. The ice skating fight isn't bad because of bad writing, it's there because someone in a boardroom said "kids love the X Games right now, put rollerskates on Freeze." The Schumacher movies were flashy but they still tried to be comic book movies. This one feels like a focus group came up with every scene. I'm not defending it as a good movie, but calling it a soulless toy commercial is actually the point. That's exactly what it is. It's impressive how perfectly it captures that moment when studios stopped trying to make art and just made products. So in that way, it's kind of a masterpiece of corporate art. Nobody wants to hear that, but it's true.

masonbell18d agoMost Upvoted

Right? I've been saying this for years. It's like watching a car crash that was engineered by a committee of toy executives. Everything from the neon colors to the zany gadgets feels like it was designed to be a Happy Meal toy first and a movie second. That Batmobile with the giant flame decals? Totally a playset prototype. It's fascinating as a historical artifact, even if it's a total mess as a movie.