Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11099 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-05-11
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Turkish, Hungarian, Polish, Icelandic, Arabic, Croatian, Czech, Greek
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 120 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Following Val Kilmer's portrayal of the caped crusader in Batman Forever, the fourth Batman feature stars George Clooney under the pointy-eared cowl, with Chris O'Donnell returning as Robin the Boy Wonder. This time the dynamic duo is up against the nefarious Mr Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who is bent on turning the world into an iceberg, and the slyly seductive but highly toxic Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman), who wants to eliminate all animal life and turn the Earth into a gigantic greenhouse. Alicia Silverstone lends a hand as Batgirl, and Elle McPherson plays the thankless role of Batman/Bruce Wayne's fiancèe. A sensory assault of dazzling colours, senseless action and lavish sets run amok, this Batman & Robin offers an overdose of eye candy, but it is strictly for devoted Bat-o-philes. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Special Features
Wide Screen
English
English
Region 2
Dolby Surround 5.1 English
Dolby Surround 5.1
Interactive Menus
Production Notes
Scene Access
Arabic\Croatian\Czech\English\Greek\Hungarian\Icelandic\Polish\Turkish

Synopsis
The Caped Crusader returns to battle the abominable Mr. Freeze and green-thumbed Poison Ivy. To save his ailing wife, Dr. Victor Fries turns to a life of crime after a hideous accident makes him unable to tolerate even moderate temperatures, while Dr. Pamela Isley falls victim to mutated plant DNA when things go awry in a jungle laboratory funded by Wayne Industries. Of course, though their interests are diametrically opposed (Freeze wants another Ice Age; Ivy wants to make the world safe for plants), the two villains team up to defeat Gotham's dynamic duo of Batman and Robin, who are joined by butler Alfred's motorcycle-obsessed niece as Batgirl. And when Alfred is diagnosed as having the same terminal disease as Freeze's wife, the trio find themselves not only fighting an altruistic battle, but a personal one as well. A frenetic, colorful, and often overwhelming sequel to "Batman," "Batman Returns," and "Batman Forever."

Customer Reviews

Well...read the review
I understand completely why this film suffers such severe critiscm. It is entirely plotless and very stupid, and nowhere near true to the Batman comics or Animated Series or even Adam West TV show. Mr. Freeze is way too evil, even though they try to make him sympathetic. He's just too pantomime, with many crass and overly-camp ice puns(way too many to count.) You don't feel sorry to him at all, and his reformation is too abrupt. Poison Ivy is actually quite entertaining though, camp, bizarre, over-the-top and eccentric, but enjoyable. The biggest disappointment of the whole film is definately Bane, and this does NOT do justice to the character. He is really nothing more than Poison Ivy's lackey, who can barely speak, and I see no reason why he's even in it. However, despite all these faults, despite how hard I try to hate this more than anything else, I can't help but enjoy this. It just moves so fast, with many senseless but highly entertaining action sequences. It always makes me laugh when Mr. Freeze freezes someone and when Ivy uses her love-dust, and even though Bane is rubbish in this, I love it when he clobbers or breaks something. I just wish it was someone different like Killer Croc, just not Bane. And as I said before, despite all her faults, I like Poison Ivy. Robin is just annoying though, too influenced by the love-dust, and Batgirl is nothing really special. This is clearly a bad film, and obviously aimed for children, going for the lighter tone as with Batman Forever. Not a good film, complete and utter garbage, but if you can over-look the terrible plot, over-the-top acting and one too many pantomime villains, then I thoroughly recommend this.

* AVOID THIS LIKE THE PLAGUE *
This is a truly awful movie, recently voted the worst "blockbuster" ever made in a recent British movie magazine poll (Total Film), nominated for 10 Razzies back in '98 and starring Arnie (at that time the worlds most popular movie star) at his most wooden, as Mr Freeze. It really is that bad, it's so bad it gives bad a bad name. It has no plot to speak of, the dialogue is truly awful, the action scenes are ridiculous, Alicia Silverstone's character is pointless (and won her a Razzie for worst supporting actress), Uma Thurman is awful (and in a possible career sinking move, she followed this up with The Avengers), Chris O'Donnell is his usual forgettable uncharismatic self, George Clooney is wasted and it is more CAMP than a gay convention, although the costumes and the sets (as ever) look great. It is Joel Schumacher at his worst. It is so bad that this movie nearly killed the careers of all it's leading stars and its Director as well as the Batman franchise which it has set it back a number of years.

Poor George Clooney initially took most of the flak for this movies failure (although it still took $230million worldwide) and critical mauling on its theatrical release but has since proved what a fine screen actor he is. Blame for this awful mess lies squarely on the shoulders of two men: Joel Schumacher, the Director whose vanity project this was and Akiva Goldsman who wrote a truly truly embaressingly awful script. With lines delivered by the Austrian Oak such as "Allow me to break the ice. My name is freeze. It is the chilling sound of your doom." this really is one to avoid like the plague.

I'd swear but it wouldn't get printed
This is absolutely awful. I wanted to like it so much because I'm a fan of the other Batman movies (I even thought Forever was ok) and I'm a massive fan of Schwarzenegger and Clooney who has been fantastic in movies such as From Dusk Till Dawn and Out Of Sight but neither of them could save it. I can't say I really have much respect for Uma Thurman as an actress but up until this at least she had chosen great roles in the likes of Pulp Fiction and Mad Dog And Glory. Every time Uma Thruman enters the shot I want to cry. Her costume is completely awful and every other line she says is some sort of pun to do with plants. Arnold Schwarzeneggers dialogue is no better but at least he has an ok costume even if it is OTT. Introducing Batgirl into the storyline makes the film all the more unbelievable. I appreciate that they were making an effort to replicate the atmosphere of the original camp tv series but camp can be done without being completely unbearable. Films such as Escape From New York and Con Air manage to be completely over the top without causing the viewer severe pain unlike this. The plot... well I think I'll leave that well alone because it's just bad and you wouldn't believe me if I told it you anyway. Overall I would only recommend this movie to my most hated of enemies. Watching this is painful. It's just heartbreaking to see such a superb franchise going to waste like this. Batman and Robin has single handedly robbed Batman of any credibility he had. It's beyond me how this was made because the people involved have proved their worth as actors and even Joel Schumacher has made good films (8MM, Tigerland, Falling Down).
Hopefully the next installment in the series will reaffirm Batman as one of the greatest superheroes we have. Batman: Year One is due out in a couple of years and rumours are everywhere as to who will play him. George Clooney apparently signed on for 2 films before Batman And Robin and although I would welcome him back my preferred choice for Batman would be Christian Bale of American Psycho. Let's hope it's better than this anyway.