The Worst Movies... Ever (with a Miscasties on top!)

Congratulations, Batman and Robin (1997)!

When I started making a mental list of movies to include on this series, Batman and Robin was, of course, one of the first that occurred to me. But despite that, I've avoided it until now.

Why? Because making fun of Batman and Robin is almost too easy.

Talking about this hunk of monkey turds is more than anything an exercise in superlatives. I mean, exactly how many ways can you say "it sucks" before you run out of ideas?

For instance: does it suck "like a starving Ethiopian whore"?

Or is it's terribleness better expressed by the notion that if movies were US presidents, Batman and Robin is probably Stalin.

I distinctly remember the experience of watching Batman and Robin in the theater. I was 15 and had really liked Batman Forever, and even though they had replaced Val Kilmer as Batman, you know, who gave a shit? Val Kilmer was a mediocre Batman. I remember reading a story where some actress said all you needed to play Batman was great lips, and "George has great lips."

Yeah, not so much. From frame 1, you could tell Clooney had realized he'd made a mistake and had decided to phone it in. Hard. If Rule #1 of acting is to believe every line of dialogue you give... well, Batman and Robin proves George Clooney's capacity to be a terrible actor.

In retrospect, it should have been obvious he'd be terrible. Clooney's chief attribute as an actor is his ability to display a kind of ironic amusement. His entire performance in Ocean's Eleven is built on this.

As Batman, this is all wrong. After all, Batman is an inherently ridiculous concept. If you don't sell it, you make everyone in the audience sort of realize, "hey, that guy's wearing a rubber bat costume!"

This is not to say, of course, that even Laurence Olivier could have made Batman and Robin into a good movie (though I'd have paid good money to watch him try), or that Clooney is the only one terrible in it. I mean, the truth is that almost the entire cast of Batman and Robin could be given one of my coveted Miscasties.

After all, we're talking about Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl. And also Uma Thurman, as Poison Ivy, who clearly didn't learn her lesson from appearing in this piece of shit.

And then, of course, there's Arnold Schwarzenegger, as criminal supervillain Mr. Freeze.

On paper, casting Arnold as Mr. Freeze made some sense. After all, the script calls for Mr. Freeze to deliver a lot of cheesy one liners, and if there's one thing Arnold's good at, it's one liners.

But on Batman and Robin, they forgot something pretty important: the one liners have to be, you know, good.

Upon busting in:

Mr. Freeze: Ice to see you!

After hearing Poison Ivy's plan for them to rule Gotham together, despite the fact that one of them wants to turn the Earth into an iceberg and the other wants to turn the Earth into a giant greenhouse:

Mr. Freeze: Adam and Evil!

To his henchmen:

Mr. Freeze: Let's kick some ice!

I realize at this point I haven't even described the plot. Do I need to? By this point, you get the idea. The whole thing's a shit sandwich. And all of us who went and watched it in the theaters? Well, we all had to take a bite.

What do we get in return? Well, this.