Well, as the old saying goes “be careful what you wish for”…. Ahhh Black dog never fails to dish up when it comes to Shit Covered Goggles… and what a feast of fecal matter you’ve presented this week. Possibly the ultimate example of excrementality in film-making – arguably worse than the Phantom Menace, Batman and Robin is the quintessential example of just how fucking terrible comic book movies have been. A pollip in the anus of Hollywood causing a monumental backlog , where every now and again a chunk or two of bile ridden filth manage to loosen themselves and are emitted forth and thus we get subjected to another instalment of the Underworld franchise.
Tim Burton’s Batman in 89 wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t the Batman, the Comic book nerds really wanted, nor did it sell enough Action figures – the first 12 rated film in the UK, it narrowly missed its ideal market but was a huge leap forward from the 60s series, a year or two later and we were visited again by Mr Burton’s version of Batman adventures, Batman Returns was again ‘not terrible,’ but not great but this time it nailed its target audience, a 15 rating and a tight fitting cat suit (forgive the pun) wearing Michelle Pfeiffer and a revolting fat suit wearing Devito offered something nearer the ideal, but still vey far off from total satisfaction.
It wasn’t good - Sorry I can’t stand Tim Burton, for me his career has been patchy at best and I can’t begin to tell you how monumentally violent my reaction was when I awoke from a nightmare I once had - in my dream he’d directed a version of Planet of The Apes so badly, that whenever it was viewed by humans they lapsed into a death like coma. The violent reaction came when I realised this was in fact real and Tim Burton truly had made me fall into a very Lynchian nightmare.
Sorry, I digress – So, we move to the first of Mr Shumacher’s instalments and boy, with Batman Forever what a switch we were dealt – The mood and darkness (that permeates the source material - Not the mind numbingly dull “GOTH” vibe that Tim Burton imbues into EVERY single film he makes) was gone, switched for ridiculous colour saturation and stupid characterisations, only ever kept in check by a modicum of respect for the aforementioned source material. Jim Carrey’s Riddler is just a lazy combination of Ace Ventura’s noise and The Mask’s “unpredictability” - unquestioningly terrible….but let’s be honest, at that point he was pretty one-note until he did Eternal Sunshine. Well that’s my opinion anyway. Nicole Kidman was shite, Tommy Lee Jones was atrocious and Chris O Donnell’s performance was as enjoyable as the notion of gargling with a dog’s seminal fluid.
No worries about sentimentality towards the comics when Schumacher next took to the streets of Gotham, he just ignored the mythology completely, had a mental pro-lapse and spewed forth the mental equivalent of AIDS into the atmosphere, Batman and Robin was THAT bad. Uma Thurman gives a lacklustre performance as Poison Ivy in a pantomime outfit that would make Biggins blush – Doing her best to destroy Pfeiffer’s work in Batman Returns by mimicking that performance, besides the cat references of course and ultimately achieving her goal. I can’t even begin to go into Schwarzenegger’s performance as Freeze, not that he actually acted and why the fuck would Freeze smoke a Cigar anyway? – He mildly redeemed himself a couple of years later though with End of Days, not his best but definitely a leap away from this shower of shit.
I think this film can be set on a par with The Phantom Menace without fear of upsetting geekdom as a whole – so fundamentally absurd is every aspect of this film that the words fail me when I even attempt to contemplate the notion of the plot. I just don’t think there was one, or at least that’s my take on it. If you acknowledge that there was a script and that it was written by a person or persons, then you must accept that Warner Brother’s was the late 90’s film studio equivalent of Auschwitz – This can’t be the truth as a couple of years later we were introduced to The Matrix and that was very good. So maybe I’m being a little harsh
Definitely not, I couldn’t decide whether my eyes were stinging because of my hayfever or the diabolical scripting (there I go again, assuming – was there a script?) – I think I can comfortably state that it just physically hurts me to watch this film, even in small doses – I felt a bit like Malcom Macdowell at the clockwork Orange to be honest.
I’m sorry guys, I couldn’t get to the end of this film, it took two sittings just to get to the Alicia Silverstone walking into the Bat cave bit, by which time I’m afraid I was starting to lose vision and the will to live – I can only surmise that the population of Miranda at the end of Serenity were all just victims of advanced Screenings of Batman and Robin.
I feel for the Reavers, we should embrace their pain.
It certainly felt a like a Psychological Enema was what was lacking in my life right about now. I’m going to continue my first ever viewing of Twin Peaks now, I think it will be a suitable feast on which to gorge my mind and fill my soul with goodness again.
Shit Covered Goggles is strangely cathartic and highly entertaining. It’s been sorely missed. I look forward to hearing Blackdog 36 (and 36.5)
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