Batman and Robin are back in city theatres

By Laksmi Pamuntjak-Djohan

JAKARTA (JP): Retro camp seems all the rage these days. No sooner did Mars Attacks! and Austin Powers celebrate wacky self- parody on our multiplexes when the newly fetishized Batman franchise muscled its way into the cornball club with its visual effects-laden fourth installment, Batman and Robin.

While sequels are not necessarily equals, has anything ever stopped us from lining up to watch the latest Batman? No way. For months, female magazines around the world have been comparing eyebrows, dimples, lips, jawlines, nipples and pectorals in heated polemics of "Who's the sexiest Batman?"

Don't even mention those merchandising tie-ins. Batman is Hollywood's highest-grossing franchise, and Batman Forever was 1995's highest-grossing movie. It needs no lesson in self- confidence.

That is, until we've sat out this two-hour overdrive.

Right after the opening credits, we see Batman and Robin stand proud by the newly updated Batcar. Before we can blink, Robin whines, "I want a car. Chicks dig cars." Strong introduction -- a sign that Robin is developing an "attitude", and a statement that we should stuff any memory of Val Kilmer into the dustbin.

George Clooney, taking over as Bathunk, heeds the cue. "That's why Superman works alone," he says wryly.

As the Dynamite Duo hop into the Batcar, Commissioner Gordon (Pat Hingle) pops out on the Batscreen announcing the new super- villain in town. In no time, they're already slipping and sliding on ice, battling Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a Nobel prize-winning scientist-turned-Polar Robocop-nutcase whose love for his cryogenically frozen wife turned him into a megalomaniac.

Any of you who watched Warner Bros. Icecapades' Batman and Robin on Ice three weeks ago at Jakarta's Istora Senayan will know that it was an advanced preview of this movie in every sense of the word. The difference is just that this time we have the privilege (?) of watching Tinseltown's hottest stars shuttling tongue-in-cheek one-liners in between killings.

Robin nearly drops a vase. Batman barks, "You break it, you buy it." Batman hangs on to dear life aboard a rocket. Robin saves him. "Hey, who invited you?" "I'm just hangin' around." Batman flashes a Batman Forever credit card and smirks, "Can't leave home without it." About Poison Ivy's physical attributes, Batman groans, "Nice stems." Robin quickly adds, "Nice buds too."

It sure ain't easy being Batman. Not only does he get three different faces in only four movies, but he also gets more enemies, romantic interests and sidekicks to fill up a lifetime.

So director Joel Schumacher says: forget it, no more identity crisis. Flashbacks to the past have been reduced to three brief ones (soon there will be none) and any internal drama falls solely on Batman's loyal butler Alfred's shoulders as he gets to suffer from a mysterious disease.

Psychological liberation may not bother regular Batfans as much as it does purists mourning the death of the internally troubled super-hero. After all, Batfans may bicker about what is actually original: the veracity of Bob Kane's original creation or the noirish Dark Knight/Batman comics that inspired Tim Burton's dark gothic mood in Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992).

Schumacher's decision to trade Batman Forever's (1995) stylish buoyancy for Batman and Robin's cartoony Adam West TV series- style may simply be his way to further reaffirm his pop culture path, but monkeying around and kicking some ice are hardly what you can call an alternative.

Arnie of the unmistakable accent gets the funniest lines ("The Iceman cometh!", "Your hoart will freeeeze and beat no moah!", "Adam and Evil") but they still don't justify his reported US$25 million paycheck. O'Donnell of the gee-whiz grin is in his second film playing a gung-ho spoilt brat this summer and is as much a poster-boy for bland acting as a teen heartthrob. Batgirl Alicia Silverstone of the famous preppy pout looks irresistible in rubber suit.

Without the brooding intensity of Michael Keaton and the haughty coolness of Val Kilmer, the darkly handsome Clooney of the bedroom eyes injects the quintessential 1990s spin to the Bruce Wayne legend: ballsy but sensitive, hard-shell, soft-core. In short, what he did very well in One Fine Day.

Yet if anyone really carries the movie, it is Uma Thurman as the deadly and manipulative Poison Ivy, the female version of Jim Carrey's crazy scientist Riddler. Not since Michelle Pfeiffer slithered seductively atop a grand piano in The Fabulous Baker Boys has a woman been as sexually electrifying on screen.

Still, it's an odd paradox, for in this neon otherworld of cheesy celebrity-fests, corny slapstick, icicle-popping ray guns, homoerotic subtext and gaudy fight scenes, we see traces of director Ed Wood that can only exist in the mind of a Tim Burton (remember Mars Attacks?). Yet even Burton would have given the Caped Crusader more respect. After all, Batman doesn't get to be an American movie icon without those very traits Schumacher has dispensed with.

As the movie degenerates into total absurdity, the franchise also nosedives into an uncertain future. Where will it go from here? The U.S. box-office gross' opening weekend stood at $43 million. By the second weekend, it had plummeted to $15 million. It seems Batbuffs have had their last say.