Besides Michael Gough's performance as the ailing Alfred, since I figure that would be an obvious choice. Admittedly, there are some beautiful visuals and cinematography here:
https://www.batman-online.com/forum/index.php?topic=3805.msg58677#msg58677
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_KK9vEH_Vs
Some of the Mr. Freeze jokes are funny, like when one of his minions barges in while he's watching something on tv. Annoyed, he freezes the guy with his gun and says "I hate when people talk during the movie."
It was also cute watching Robin totally drooling over the new girl, and she sees right through his flirting.
What was nice seeing Batman and Mr. Freeze make peace with each other. Mr. Freeze helps him cure Alfred, who is suffering from Stage 1 of McGregor's Syndrome. Batman recovers Mr. Freeze's wife and (I presume), Mr. Freeze is allowed to do research at Arkham (under supervision) to cure her without having to commit crimes to get the resources he needs. Plus, it was great seeing him get back at Poison Ivy for trying to kill his wife. She totally deserved to be his cell-mate at Arkham after that.
Think it's worth noting Tim Burton had strong casting choices that were head of the time, something Forever and B&R don't come close to, some of the cast in Forever and B&R were distracting especially when they were associated with other things.
shareIt's fascinating to learn that many actors and actresses wanted to take part in "Batman and Robin" due to popular reception of the franchise at the time of the making of the movie. This was a high-profile production and everyone wanted to be a part of it.
~~/o/
I agree MickyMac. I will never get casting Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze. He just can't do smart scientist well. Also the characterization of Mr. Freeze was terrible. He's not supposed to enjoy doing the bad things he's doing. He's miserable and is wanting to make everyone else miserable. But instead they turned him into a sadist who happily murders people.
shareIt was having Schwarzenegger and Clooney that lost me not the toyetic approach, be like casting Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus in a superhero film. All the villains were portrayed as generic Joker knock offs be like having everyone at the mCU trying to be like Robert Downey Jr.
shareI think this version of Mr. Freeze was meant to be the 'perfect man'. This ubermensch character who was now only a genius but the perfect physical specimen. I'm not sure if Batman says it in the film, but the novelisation explicitly states that Doctor Fries was a distinguished Olympic athlete, as well as a top scientist. From that perspective, it made perfect sense to cast Schwarzenegger.
My issue wasn't his casting so much as the poor direction of his performance. He was turned into a joke, despite the tragedy that underpinned and motivated him.
You have to admit though that Arnold just isn't that convincing as a scientist. They tried doing that in Junior which came out 3 years before this and it didn't work there either.
shareI know what you mean. But I think it could have worked with a better script, especially much better dialogue.
For what it's worth, if I'd been doing a more serious version of Batman & Robin circa 1997, I'd have cast Ed Harris. I think he'd have been great playing a tragic and sympathetic, but scary and absolutely unrelenting, Mr Freeze.
Well that's the problem, Scumacher didn't want to make a serious film, he wanted to make a camp spectacle.
Which doesnt fit the descriptions of the authentic Mr. Freeze at all, but I guess they wanted to shoehorn Schwarzenegger in, and that was the only villain role that seemed to fit him.
If the intent was to make a camp spectacle then there shouldn't be scenes in the movie that we're expected to take seriously, such as the scenes involving Alfred on his death bed. Those latter scenes feel like they belong in an entirely different movie. That's one of if not the biggest problem with Batman & Robin, is it's bi-polar tone.
shareIMHO the camp spectacle parts are the only enjoyable parts of the movie. Uma Thurman doing a musical number in n a gorilla suit was a hoot, the rest fell flat.
Some movies can carry off a mixture a serious moments and silly ones.. but it sure as hell didn't work here.
I remember in 1995 after Batman Forever came out there was a news report about Patrick Stewart being cast as Freeze (and I think Julia Roberts as Poison Ivy)
shareThe characterization for Mr. Freeze doesn't make sense. I don't entirely know where to put my finger onto it, but I don't understand why Mr. Freeze had to be portrayed as a corny, cackling punster. With Jim Carrey's Riddler, him being being a goofball had some reasonable logic to it since it would be easy to assume that the Riddler is one of Batman's more eccentric, quirky villains. With Mr. Freeze (at least the depiction of him on the animated series), he's very stoic, very dour, very intense, and very self-loathing. He doesn't enjoy being a bad guy but he feels that he has do what he does because circumstances forced his hand.
shareI'm guessing that Joel Schumacher and Warner Bros. were still in the mind-set that superhero movies needed "big names" to sell it (like Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman for the first Superman movie, Richard Pryor for Superman III, Faye Dunaway for Supergirl, Jack Nicholson for the first Batman movie, Jim Carrey for Batman Forever, etc.).
shareThe hot women: Uma Thurman, Alicia Silverstone, Elle Macpherson, Vivica A. Fox, Vendela, the women at the Gotham Charity Flower Ball, and so on.
I know that's pretty shallow, but still, and if one's sexuality is not catered for by those beauties, there's always George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell.
The toys that came out for it when I was kid were pretty cool
shareI thoroughly enjoyed Uma Thurman's over-the-top campiness.
Very few modern actresses can play it as camp as Joan Crawford in a fifties melodrama, but Thurman got it exactly right. She was great fun, the only fun thing in the movie!
Arnold is in this movie aint he? i never saw the film but i saw clips of arnolds scenes. man oh man idk how the rest of the movie is but the arnold scenes are funny as fuck. i would watch any dumb movie hollywood makes as long as they put that rockstar in it
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