I won’t sugarcoat it, I don’t Batman & Robin. I’m certainly not alone, as it’s frequently the lowest-rated of the live-action Batman movies. From Mr. Freeze’s excessive cold puns, to how the movie essentially functions as a two-hour toy commercial, to the infamous Bat-Nipples, this movie is just an agonizing chore to get through for me. And this is coming from someone who likes the nearly-as-campy Batman Forever and appreciates Val Kilmer’s performance even more. Even George Clooney is still apologizing for Batman & Robin, although at least left things on a better note with Bruce Wayne when he was brought in to cameo at the end of The Flash.
And yet, I recently found myself rewatching the 1997 flick because I’d been showing someone the older Batman movies for the first time. I had to be thorough, and I know there are some who do appreciate this movie, so no skipping was allowed! I once again fired up my Max subscription, and it remained a rough watch. However, this time around, there was one dramatic moment in Batman & Robin that caught my eye and actually added just a sprinkling of decency to this otherwise unexceptional cinematic experience.
Batman Reminds Robin The Importance Of Trust Between Partners
Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson became crimefighting partners in Batman Forever to defeat Riddler and Two-Face, and once that was accomplished, naturally they decided to keep the partnership permanent. However, when Batman & Robin begins, there’s a bit of friction between them, and that only escalates when Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy hit the scene. The latter especially becomes a nuisance when she uses her pheromone powers to seduce the Dynamic Duo.
It doesn’t take long for Poison Ivy to focus on luring Robin over to her side, and then things really come to a head when he and Batman are pursuing Mr. Freeze and his minions in a chase. Bruce prevents Dick from making a jump that the latter believes he could have easily landed, but the former believes would have “splattered” his brains all over the building. Dick responds:
You know, in the circus, The Flying Graysons were a team. We had to trust each person to do his job. That’s what being partners is all about. Sometimes, counting on someone else is the only way you’ll win.
Dick takes issue with how it’s always Bruce’s way or the high way, to which Bruce countered that it’s his rules that keep them alive, and Dick will need to continue to follow them if he wants to stay at Wayne Manor and on the team. Later in the movie, Poison Ivy converts the Bat-Signal into the Robin-Signal to contact Dick, who’s still under her spell. Bruce, who’s since become wise to Ivy’s act and knows she just wants to kill Dick, tells him:
You once said that being part of a team means trusting your partner, and sometimes counting on someone else is the only way to win. Do you remember that? You weren’t talking about being partners, you were talking about being a family. So I’m asking you: friend, partner, brother, will you trust me now?
Those stirring words were enough to knock some sense into Dick Grayson, as he agreed to have Batman come with him and put on rubber lips so he wouldn’t be killed by Poison Ivy’s deadly kiss. Granted, Ivy still gets the drop on them and only make it out alive when Batgirl intervenes, but the important thing is that Dick listened to Bruce and realized that in this instance, he needed to believe that his mentor was making the right call.
Why I Like This Batman & Robin Scene So Much
Because Dick Grayson doesn’t become Robin in Batman Forever until the third act, Batman & Robin is really the only live-action Batman movie since the film series launched in 1989 that properly explores the Dynamic Duo. The thing about partnerships is that the involved parties aren’t going to get along all the time. There will be differences in opinion and disagreements, but under all that needs to be a foundation of trust. Otherwise, the partnership just won’t work.
Batman & Robin is by no means a deep movie, but I do like how it makes an effort to show that the title protagonists aren’t a perfect crimefighting unit. But when push came to shove, they learned that there needs to be 100% trust between each other. Dick made Bruce realize that he can’t operate solely on the presumption that he knows best, and that there’ll times he needs to trust Dick enough for him to take lead. Then the time came for Bruce to dispense that same advice back to Dick while he was dealing with Poison Ivy’s manipulation. I can only hope that Bruce and Dick passed along this wisdom to Barbara Wilson once she officially joined the team as well.
So yes, this dramatic moment between George Clooney and Chris O’Donnell’s characters is a rare bright spot in Batman & Robin. I only wish it was in a better Batman movie, but hey, had this not been a critical and commercial disappointment, we wouldn’t have gotten Batman Begins, the first installment of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, seven years later. You gotta look for those silver linings!
In any case, now I’ll go back to looking forward to The Brave and the Bold’s eventual release. Among other things, it’s going to highlight a different kind of Batman and Robin dynamic in the DC Universe franchise through Bruce and his biological son Damian. Before that though, we’ll go back to following along with Robert Pattinson’s Bruce as he on his own when The Batman: Part II hits theaters on October 1, 2027.