I
have seen much in my travels. I've seen homicidal little girls, man eating fish, and Bob Dole
talking about limp dicks. But never, never have I seen this! Batman, circa
1966.
Lord help me, I actually watched this thing voluntarily. I'm such a slave to my own Mission, a mission that I am seriously reconsidering.
Oh, who am I kidding? It'll take more then Adam West to stop me.
Just not much more.
Because this here is a movie doesn't just violate the Geneva Convention, oh no. It's not satisfied with that. This movie dumps the Geneva Convention right into a vat of acid. So sanity shattering, so mind melting, so surrealistically rancid is this movie that . . . oh God, words fail me. Hang on a second.
For all its admittedly huge degree of badness at least Batman and Robin wasn't meant to be a bag of shit. Batman and Robin is the combined hopes and dreams of a production crew's worth of people that went horribly, horribly wrong. A Bad Movie in its purest form.
But this . . . this was meant to be crap from the moment of conception.
Why God? Why?
As an actor, Adam West makes George Clonney look like Anthony Hopkins. His stop, go, stop, go style of acting would give a man whiplash. William Shatner has nothing on this guy. As Robin, Burt Ward makes Chris O'Donnald look like Tom Hanks. And as a movie, Batman makes Armageddon look like Bulworth.
The piece of LSD marinated sewage so harmlessly called a plot concerns the Joker (César Romero), Penguin (Burgess Meredith), Riddler (Frank Gorshin, who makes Jim Carry look subtle), and Catwoman (Lee Meriwether, the third Catwoman of the Apocalypse) united against their common enemies, the ambiguously gay duo. Since none of them have come close to stopping Ace and Gary (er, I mean Batman and Robin) before they've finally remembered that old "strength in numbers" cliché. Can you guess what they plan to do after they knock of Buttman?
All together now:
"The same thing we do every night, Pinky: try to take over the WORLD!
Narf.
How, you ask? Well, they've kidnapped some stereotypical sea captain/inventor who's invented an instant rum-making machine. A few tweaks here and there and, bingo, it's a dehydrator, capable of sucking all the water out of the human body, turning humans into easy to carry piles of dust. Just add water to said dust, stir, and presto, instant human! The fiends use this to kidnap the members of the United Nation's security council, sneaking all nine of them out in easy to carry test tubes. The immediately hold the Instant UN members hostage for . . .(wait for it) . . . one billion dollars!
Of course, since we could both write this in our sleep, you know Batman and his boy toy come to the rescue, and manage to rehydrate all nine of the members before sliding down their bat-ropes into the sunset.
If this had been a 30 minuet TV show (oh hell, it could even have been a two partner) the pain I suffered would have been significantly reduced. But no, they had to go for feature length, didn't they? Bastards. And, of course, in order to give a fair and unbiased review I had to watch the whole thing, didn't I? Holy sadomasochism, Batman.
If you're going to watch this sucker, consider this: while 30 minuets of watching hack actors slip and slide there way through a plot with more blemishes then a teenagers face might be tolerable, consider what 105 minuets of it will do to you. We're talking about the fate of your soul her people!
Yes, I know what you're going to say. Hey, Doc cut the thing some slack. They made it in 1966 for Christ's sake. It's just a goffie movie, don't take it serious.
Do you think I take a movie like this seriously? Have a little faith. But I take entertainment seriously, and I am not now, nor ever have been or shall be, entertained this version of Batman. I don't like watching stupid people do stupid things for stupid reasons. I mean, would you sell an army surplus submarine to a man named P. N. Guin, who didn't even bother to leave a full address? Would you? Would YOU? Well, that's what the UN did. Boy, I feel so secure knowing people like that are protecting our country.
In short: this movie is 105 minuets of groan inducing dialogue spouted by characters who are thinner then rice paper. When you're done here, check out some quotes from this movie at the IMDb. Some might find lines like "It looks bad, Batman. This brassy bird has us buffaloed," funny, but I don't call that humor. At best, I'd call it Odious Comic Relief.
Yes . . . yes, it all makes sense now. I hate this movie because everyone in the cast is Odious Comic Relief. Every single one of them! I hate that!
Boredom is something else I hate, and by God, this movie has that in spades. Since I can't laugh, I'm left to yawn at it. Constantly.
To wrap everything up Batman is boring, witless, unfunny drivel written by six-year-olds for six-year-olds. On second thought, it has to be the product of those infinite monkeys I've heard so much about because I refuse to believe a human could write something this dreadful.
I know there are fans of the TV show still out there, and I know someone, somewhere, might actually find this version of Batman entertaining. I know that they might find this puppy at their local video store, shell out their cash, pop it in the VCR and have a marry old time.
I also know that none of those people run this site. So, can you guess the rating from here?
