Batman & Robin

An amiable, almost farcical Batman episode, with George in Nespresso mode.

Schumacher is like a bad stepdad who thinks we'll love him if he just feeds us candy all day. (Yes, Burton is the daddy in this metaphor - the manic-depressive, annoyingly emo daddy.)

Of all modern Batmans, George Clooney bears the closest physical resemblance to the comic-book hero, but there isn't much to say about his performance because there isn't much performance to discuss.

The movie has its entertaining flashes, but there's too much bat-jive and bat-hokum.

In terms of new twists or narrative momentum. Poison Ivy, the sinuous villainess, is the only relief from the onslaught of spoofy humor, special effects and meaningless comic book mayhem.

[A] loud, long and pointless spectacle.

It’s hard to hate a movie that’s so fun, even if it’s quite flawed.

It's not good, but it's not the total disaster its legacy would suggest. As an ode to the Silver Age of the Caped Crusader, it gets a lot of things right, but the pacing grinds to a halt any time one of our heroes is on screen. Thank god for Uma Thurman.

There's pleasure to be found in how campy Joel Schumacher's second Batman outing is (puns!), but everyone except Thurman and Schwarzenegger are phoning their performances in. Too long and too focused on toy sales, this is excess, but not the good kind.

Batman & Robin really feels as if director Joel Schumacher was painting by numbers.