Batman historian (and producer) Michael Uslan agrees with you. And so do I. Batman & Robin is nowhere near the best Batman movie, but it's not complete garbage either.
Well, that depends. If you mean the comics of the '50s and '60s, then yeah, okay. But the actual comics and animated interpretations of Batman that were coming out at the same time as Batman and Robin were far, far more serious, plausible, and intelligent than it was. That was part of the problem -- at the time, the feature-film interpretation of superheroes was lagging decades behind comics and animation. It wasn't until Batman Begins in 2005 that live-action Batman cinema caught up with where the comics had been since the mid-'80s and where animation had been since 1992. B&R was actually about as far as you could get from what a contemporary Batman comic or cartoon would have been.
Batman & Robin is what I call worst movie ever made. Ed Wood made better films and at least his were enjoyable for the sheer awfulness. Batman & Robin was so bad that everyone involved was embarassed to be associated with it. It was like a new version of the Adam West series without the excuse of it being made in the 60s on a low budget.
I swear...you're all over the place man. in the 60's Batman thread you got all insulted because I suggested that you like camp. And here you are saying that you prefer the Adam West series and that you want a campy Batman. You clearly DO like camp and siliness...just run with it.
Though I enjoy Brave and the Bold...it was NEVER very popular. Hell the show itself admitted that it struggled to find an audience. It never enjoyed anywhere near the level of success that B:TAS did (hell that series spawned its own universe).
Except that audiences have generally not gravitated toward the lighter Batman in the same way that they have the darker toned films. Hell the "lighter toned" Live action Batman films are roundly creditied with killing the film franchise until Nolan ressurected it with a darker more realistic approach. You know, one of the more interesting things that I noticed about Brave and the Bold was that Batman himself, was not all that silly. He was actually played pretty straigt. It was the world around him that was frequently goofy and over the top. In fact there were times when he seemed downright annoyed at the foolishness around him (not unlike his depiction in the old JLI comics).
You're engaging in the basic logical fallacy of mistaking the specific for the general. I do not "like camp." I like good work. I like good camp and don't like bad camp. I like good drama and don't like bad drama. See what I said above, just this morning: category doesn't determine quality, quality does.
I'm with you. Batman as goofy clown is best left in the past. Audiences today are looking for that dark hero not someone to dance the bat-tusi.
Actually, Batman Forever made a lot more money than Batman Returns. It was the fact that Batman and Robin was utter garbage which killed the series.
Here's a pretty good comparison of similar scenes of Nolan Batman films and Schumacher Batman films. [yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCBxoossZOw[/yt] The serious approach makes you care. Comedic approach/overly stylized approach ruins it. They could have done a pretty amazing Batman film with George Clooney, Chris O'Donnell, Uma Thurman and Arnold Schwarzenegger had it just been serious and not played for laughs. But everyone in this film is camp and overacting by design. It's like watching circus clowns.
While I don't mind a dark and serious Batman there does have to be some lighter moments because I personally can't take too much darkness.
Seriously I've seen darker stuff in more mainstream films. Certainly we've seen more graphic and gratuitous violence than Nolan's trilogy. Seeing those side-by-side Schumacher/Nolan clips is certainly an eye opener.
It says 'live action', but fuck that, I abstain. Best Batman - Batman TAS/Mask of the Phantasm Kevin Conroy is Batman......
I especially like the comparison between the part where Bale-Wayne hangs on the ledge holding Ra's al Ghul, and he screams and it's extremely painful and exhausting, and where Robin catches Batgirl, and he's just casual, spouting a one-liner with no effort. That's the big difference, the difference between "realism" and camp what makes you either care or facepalm. It's not really about dark or light, serious or comedic. It's more about what to do that an audience can relate with these characters and the film. If everything is camp, then there's nothing at stake. If the characters are unnatural, you don't care. And I think making a scene comical where, for example, a life is at stake is where people stop caring.
Yeah, but I figured to make a point. More new Batman and it ain't light. Of course one could try to wrap their head around how a story like The Dark Knight Returns could be done as goofy.
^ They could have made it a year after the graphic novel came out as a live-action movie, reuniting the cast of the 1960s show?!