Other than the inclusion of Alfred Pennyworth (Michael Gough) and Commissioner James Gordon (Pat Hingle), BATMAN & ROBIN continues no other great Batman movie traditions except for its two major themes: family and reconciliation.
These themes were perhaps strongest in Tim Burton's 1989 original, where the loss of his family proved a catalyst for Batman's war on crime. Seeing his parents gunned down by a mugger as a child not only drove Bruce Wayne to vengeance but wrought other changes in his character as well. Consider, for example, the ambivalence of Bruce's personal relationships: he clings to his butler Alfred as a sort of surrogate father (when asked by Vicki Vale about his family, Bruce replies, "Alfred IS my family."); yet simultaneously he is wary of getting too close to Vicki, who represents a second chance. Having already lost loved ones, Bruce doesn't want to experience that pain again. Accordingly, he forsakes his desire for a family as a sort of defense mechanism.
Having thus resolved the conflict within him between family and commitment, Bruce Wayne observes that struggle within others in BATMAN RETURNS. The Penguin has also been denied the protective cocoon of family and wants retribution in a fashion not unlike Bruce's. The difference is that Oswald Cobblepot wants revenge not only on those who wronged him directly but seemingly on the entire planet; this prompts Batman to incongruously sympathize with the bird-man while clucking his tongue in disapproval. In a similar vein, Selina Kyle also lacks a familial axis in this movie. However, her loneliness is but a secondary factor in her impulse to become Catwoman (the primary factor, of course, being the copious abuse and eventual murder attempt she suffers at the hands of her brutal employer, Max Shreck. There are various other references to family in RETURNS: Shreck refers to The Penguin's circus gang as his "extended family" and ultimately must offer his own life to preserve that of his beloved son Chip (his sole redeeming character trait, it turns out).
Now, observe the basic changes in attitude that emerge from the "family values" mythology of new director Joel Schumacher in BATMAN FOREVER. Bruce Wayne's initial coyness at rebuilding his circle of friends is apparently reversed. First he adopts the young orphan Dick Grayson, totally disregarding the fact that the boy has just lost his own parents and is obviously reluctant to graft himself onto a new "father." Then, later in the film, Bruce is so ardently wooed by the pretty psychiatrist Chase Meridian that he actually considers abandoning his crusade and settling down with her. (Compare this to the cold shoulder he gave Vicki Vale six years earlier.) The only rock-solid parallel to Burton's vision in FOREVER, in fact, is Dick's angry, vindictive attitude toward the ruthless gangster Two-Face - not to mention the murder of his parents and brother, which inspires Dick immensely in his quest to become Robin the Boy Wonder.
By the time BATMAN & ROBIN comes out in the summer of '97, it is crystal-clear to even the most casual observer that the image of Batman as hopelessly obsessed loner has undergone a paradigm shift. (Bruce does mingle easily with Vicki wannabe Julie Madison, but that's beside the point.) Just as he is getting chummy with foster son Dick, into Bruce's life steps a foster daughter - Barbara Wilson, the niece of aging, kindly butler Alfred. With growing fanfare, a new cycle begins: Bruce Wayne, the onetime lost little boy, now finds himself the proud "father" of two troubled kids. And Schumacher doesn't stop there, piling on the family propaganda all the way to the film's conclusion. We meet the pathetic, tortured genius Victor Fries ("Mr. Freeze"), whose loss of his young wife to an incurable disease has driven him to the same kind of wholesale misanthropic hatred in which The Penguin once revelled. Concurrently, we are invited to share in Bruce's renewed grief as he witnesses the decay of the slowly-dying Alfred. "I love you, old man," Bruce consoles the weakened patriarch; one wishes that he could have shown half as much sentiment when The Penguin succumbs to an excruciatingly painful death in the stony, emotionless vacuum that was BATMAN RETURNS.
In conclusion, the sensitive viewer could look upon the BATMAN movie quadrumvirate as a sort of psychological marathon. I don't mean to sound like Dr. Meridian here, but the whole affair gets really touchy-feely toward the end. Like an oddball collection of co-dependents in a twelve-step program, the cast of the BATMAN franchise are all striving for the joyous nirvana of BATMAN & ROBIN, where the rallying cry is "Family above all." The Penguin and Catwoman falter along the way, but the rest of our heroes more or less manage to patch things up and conquer the plagues of history.
The problem with all this? BATMAN isn't supposed to be about family and reconciliation! It's not meant to be upbeat, to be replete with folks turning lemons into lemonade. Tim Burton understood this, which was why his brainchildren were forced to exist within the nihilistic framework of an alienated Gotham. Then Schumacher came along and twisted the series into a sort of Chicken Soup for the Comic Book Soul. What manner of bilge is this? Burton had Batman and company transcend adversity, stoically become one with it; Schumacher had everybody blithely overcome it. Therein lies the main problem with the development of the Batman character at the movies. At the climax of BATMAN & ROBIN, we're all encouraged to have a good cry as Batman urges Mr. Freeze to help him save Alfred as the cold-hearted scientist once endeavored to save his wife, to rediscover the real Victor Fries, "buried...beneath the snow." Give me a break. I'll take Burton's gloomy, Nietzschean outlook any day of the week. As Max Shreck would say, if it's broke, don't fix it.
These themes were perhaps strongest in Tim Burton's 1989 original, where the loss of his family proved a catalyst for Batman's war on crime. Seeing his parents gunned down by a mugger as a child not only drove Bruce Wayne to vengeance but wrought other changes in his character as well. Consider, for example, the ambivalence of Bruce's personal relationships: he clings to his butler Alfred as a sort of surrogate father (when asked by Vicki Vale about his family, Bruce replies, "Alfred IS my family."); yet simultaneously he is wary of getting too close to Vicki, who represents a second chance. Having already lost loved ones, Bruce doesn't want to experience that pain again. Accordingly, he forsakes his desire for a family as a sort of defense mechanism.
Having thus resolved the conflict within him between family and commitment, Bruce Wayne observes that struggle within others in BATMAN RETURNS. The Penguin has also been denied the protective cocoon of family and wants retribution in a fashion not unlike Bruce's. The difference is that Oswald Cobblepot wants revenge not only on those who wronged him directly but seemingly on the entire planet; this prompts Batman to incongruously sympathize with the bird-man while clucking his tongue in disapproval. In a similar vein, Selina Kyle also lacks a familial axis in this movie. However, her loneliness is but a secondary factor in her impulse to become Catwoman (the primary factor, of course, being the copious abuse and eventual murder attempt she suffers at the hands of her brutal employer, Max Shreck. There are various other references to family in RETURNS: Shreck refers to The Penguin's circus gang as his "extended family" and ultimately must offer his own life to preserve that of his beloved son Chip (his sole redeeming character trait, it turns out).
Now, observe the basic changes in attitude that emerge from the "family values" mythology of new director Joel Schumacher in BATMAN FOREVER. Bruce Wayne's initial coyness at rebuilding his circle of friends is apparently reversed. First he adopts the young orphan Dick Grayson, totally disregarding the fact that the boy has just lost his own parents and is obviously reluctant to graft himself onto a new "father." Then, later in the film, Bruce is so ardently wooed by the pretty psychiatrist Chase Meridian that he actually considers abandoning his crusade and settling down with her. (Compare this to the cold shoulder he gave Vicki Vale six years earlier.) The only rock-solid parallel to Burton's vision in FOREVER, in fact, is Dick's angry, vindictive attitude toward the ruthless gangster Two-Face - not to mention the murder of his parents and brother, which inspires Dick immensely in his quest to become Robin the Boy Wonder.
By the time BATMAN & ROBIN comes out in the summer of '97, it is crystal-clear to even the most casual observer that the image of Batman as hopelessly obsessed loner has undergone a paradigm shift. (Bruce does mingle easily with Vicki wannabe Julie Madison, but that's beside the point.) Just as he is getting chummy with foster son Dick, into Bruce's life steps a foster daughter - Barbara Wilson, the niece of aging, kindly butler Alfred. With growing fanfare, a new cycle begins: Bruce Wayne, the onetime lost little boy, now finds himself the proud "father" of two troubled kids. And Schumacher doesn't stop there, piling on the family propaganda all the way to the film's conclusion. We meet the pathetic, tortured genius Victor Fries ("Mr. Freeze"), whose loss of his young wife to an incurable disease has driven him to the same kind of wholesale misanthropic hatred in which The Penguin once revelled. Concurrently, we are invited to share in Bruce's renewed grief as he witnesses the decay of the slowly-dying Alfred. "I love you, old man," Bruce consoles the weakened patriarch; one wishes that he could have shown half as much sentiment when The Penguin succumbs to an excruciatingly painful death in the stony, emotionless vacuum that was BATMAN RETURNS.
In conclusion, the sensitive viewer could look upon the BATMAN movie quadrumvirate as a sort of psychological marathon. I don't mean to sound like Dr. Meridian here, but the whole affair gets really touchy-feely toward the end. Like an oddball collection of co-dependents in a twelve-step program, the cast of the BATMAN franchise are all striving for the joyous nirvana of BATMAN & ROBIN, where the rallying cry is "Family above all." The Penguin and Catwoman falter along the way, but the rest of our heroes more or less manage to patch things up and conquer the plagues of history.
The problem with all this? BATMAN isn't supposed to be about family and reconciliation! It's not meant to be upbeat, to be replete with folks turning lemons into lemonade. Tim Burton understood this, which was why his brainchildren were forced to exist within the nihilistic framework of an alienated Gotham. Then Schumacher came along and twisted the series into a sort of Chicken Soup for the Comic Book Soul. What manner of bilge is this? Burton had Batman and company transcend adversity, stoically become one with it; Schumacher had everybody blithely overcome it. Therein lies the main problem with the development of the Batman character at the movies. At the climax of BATMAN & ROBIN, we're all encouraged to have a good cry as Batman urges Mr. Freeze to help him save Alfred as the cold-hearted scientist once endeavored to save his wife, to rediscover the real Victor Fries, "buried...beneath the snow." Give me a break. I'll take Burton's gloomy, Nietzschean outlook any day of the week. As Max Shreck would say, if it's broke, don't fix it.