Batman and Robin: Deep Freeze

Wow... just... wow! Music Ed has accomplished something truly great here by turning easily the worst Batman movie into a coherent and even enjoyable experience. It felt very much like watching a live action version of B:TAS.

While I'm typically not a fan of watching a black and white version of a current movie (Fury Road is an all-time favorite movie of mine but I can't watch the silver and chrome version because I feel it mutes so much of what makes that movie great), it fits the tone of this edit perfectly. Pair that with the rescores which especially helped to elevate the tone of this edit. I never knew how great the scores from the Arkham games were.

There really is a ton to love here. The complete expulsion of Bane is done masterfully and you would never know for a second that he was there if you've never seen the film. An editor after my own heart, I love that a lot of dialogue is cut out during fight scenes (biggest example being Batgirl vs Poison Ivy). I've always felt this gives a much greater intensity. The redone opening credits are great and cutting back and forth helps eliminate a lot of garbage.

There are some very minor gripes but I feel you can find that with most any edit. While I adore the rescores, there were two moments where it shifts back to the regular score that feel awkward (opening when Batman and Robin are chasing Freeze down the tunnel, Climax when the gang is leaving Poison Ivy's layer/shots of the Observatory with Freeze) and there are a handful of shots that look either visibly slowed down or noticeably cropped. Again, these are minor and only distracting for a moment but those are where the knocks on A/V editing come from.

This edit should without a doubt replace the original for anyone lucky enough to watch it. It's really not even a fair fight. Great job on taking a near impossible task and running with it!

Who knew I would ever watch BATMAN AND ROBIN again, never mind enjoy it?

BATMAN AND ROBIN: DEEP FREEZE is a fantastic edit, full stop. Music Ed gives the film an entirely new feel by removing dozens and dozens of lame jokes, adding new score sourced from the Arkham video game series, and applying a black and white colour grade.

Only a select few one-liners remain - the ones that are important for communicating plot and character, and a few that are legitimately clever. The new music works great, too. The Arkham music is recognizably “Batman” without really feeling dated in any sense, so it fits the movie well, and it blends perfectly with the original score cues that are left in. The movie’s infamous neon toy commercial sheen is removed, and the stylish lighting and gothic set design is allowed to shine instead.

Initially, I thought perhaps the editor had brightened the picture too much, but it’s honestly better for the picture to be slightly too bright, rather than too dark. The brightness ensures that none of the picture’s detail gets obscured by the black and white colour grade, and it has a fun effect: the movie now feels old-fashioned in a way it never did before, as the artifice of the sets and costumes and special effects comes alive. It feels fake, but in the best way possible.

Combine that old-fashioned feeling with the cast’s broad, 1960s Batman style acting, and suddenly I’m watching a long-lost campy Batman adventure that lands somewhere between Tim Burton and Adam West, while also feeling like something new entirely.

The editor’s choices are savvy throughout. The opening sequence in the museum is streamlined, and the entire episode onboard Mr. Freeze’s rocket is removed. You don’t even notice that it’s gone. All of the terrible scenes in South America with the mad scientist character are cut, and so is the entire Bane character, who is irrelevant to the story. The character of Pamela Isley gets a perfect introduction, and we don’t miss the explanations regarding her superpowers. She’s Poison Ivy, she’s a supervillain, get used to it.

I could go on, but suffice to say, this is pretty much everything you would want in an edit of BATMAN AND ROBIN.

The middle part of the movie is restructured extensively. I tried to keep track of all the scene shuffling, but I couldn’t, and it all played smoothly anyway. Everything clicks neatly into place and all of the character and theme development continues naturally, which is impressive. (On this note, I would enjoy reading the editor’s full list of cuts and changes, just so I can appreciate the work done even more.)

There are only a few choices that didn’t work for me.

The first is the removal of Pamela Isley convincing Commissioner Gordon to hand over the keys to the police station so she can steal the Bat signal. This is an important scene because it would establish definitively for the viewer that Pam and Poison Ivy are the same person. (Of course, we’ve all seen the movie, so we know this, but otherwise I don’t think it’s obvious until now.) This scene is also where Bruce observes who Poison Ivy is and how her love dust works. It feels strange later when Bruce knows this info without any explanation. The scene would also help break up a string of several scenes that nearly turn the movie into something you might reasonably call BATMAN AND ROBIN: MACGREGOR'S SYNDROME. I understand that seeing how Poison Ivy acquires the Bat signal isn’t important, and perhaps it doesn’t make sense for Julie to still be dating Bruce at this point, but I think the movie misses the scene for the reasons given.

The second choice is the editor keeping Mr. Freeze shouting “It’s time to feast!” right before he activates the giant freeze gun, simply because it doesn’t make much sense without the previous line about revenge being a dish best served cold. This isn’t a big deal, though, especially considering all of the other well-judged trims to dialogue.

The third is maybe more of a personal preference, but I didn’t feel the final shot of Freeze landed emotionally. The shot is obviously transplanted from a previous scene. The situation is the same, with Freeze sitting on his prison bed and gazing forlornly at an ice sculpted miniature of his wife. Even the supposedly dead guards from before are standing in the room. It’s all too gloomy - the scene would work better if it showed Freeze continuing his research in Arkham, as Batman stated earlier, but sadly there’s no footage showing that.

I apologize for running so long in this review! This is an editor at the top of his game, and DEEP FREEZE is one of the best fan edits I’ve seen in a long time. I got a chill watching it. Is Music Ed a gardener? Because he’s very good at cutting and trimming. This movie used to leave me cold, now it doesn’t. Insert plant pun. Ice pun. Trees. Winter. Okay I'll stop now.

I admit that my expectations for this edit were high ever since I saw the thread for it in the FE.org forums, and I'm happy to say that this edit met my expectations and even gave me a few welcome surprises I didn't expect!

For starters, I love and respect the black-and-white aesthetic this edit went for. It did a lot to give this edit a film-noir feel that made me think of some of my favorite Batman comics, from The Long Halloween to Hush. Of course, this is an edit of Batman & Robin, so just to clarify, this still isn't a whodunnit. It is limited to the source material we all know (and most likely, hate). But the decision to make it black-and-white really does a good job of keeping this one in line with the atmosphere we all associate with Batman.

But even if I were to brush aside the B&W, and focus on the edit itself, I'm still impressed with what's been done to fix this movie. Yes, the sillier, more cartoonish moments have been reduced here (at least, as much as can be done to reduce it), but what caught me by surprise is Bruce Wayne's character arc as well as the theme of trust. It's enough to make this edit required viewing for any future faneditor! I'm also going to repeat dwight-fry's sentiments down below on how warm the bond with the good guys is in this edit. I loved this aspect of the group, and I'm glad that this edit highlights it.

The choice to place the focus on Mr. Freeze was a surprising one, but looking back, I'm glad MusicEd went with it. Mr. Freeze is arguably my favorite Batman villain because his issues are the most sympathetic of the lot. He isn't some deranged sociopath or a guy trying to cause trouble via riddles. He's just trying to save his wife. And I appreciate seeing more of that aspect (and less of those ice puns) in this edit. Sure, it would be better if Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't cast in the role, but it's a solid improvement, and the best it can possibly be.

Of course, this is still an edit of Batman & Robin, and as hard as it tries, some moments of campiness are going to be there no matter what. The worst scene I can think of is when Poison Ivy lies to Freeze about Batman killing his wife. A lot of the saturday morning cartoon logic in that scene is still pretty bad. But I don't think it can be removed, since it takes the plot from point A to point B. With that said, though, MusicEd made the right decision to treat it like something from The Animated Series, and it helped to make most of the remaining silliness easier to swallow.

I have very few complaints about this edit, and considering the source material, that's some high praise coming from me. Batman & Robin: Deep Freeze is a miracle in fan editing, and one I intend to see again!

Musiced has made us believe in the same way Donner enabled us to have faith in a man who could fly. Here, a Bat has earned it's wings!

Deep Freeze is a tidy, focused 90 minute forraye into the themes of lust, loss, age, vulnerability, teamwork, and family. It feels very much, through the use of the atmospheric and gothic filtering and editorial course corrections, like a natural end point for the Batman of '89 in his middle age if he had allowed himself to be more open. The performances are more dialled in, their stories make sense, there is strategy to the cuts that sees Freeze at his absolute, with Ivy helping his arc along. Ivy isn't forgotten in the crosshairs either.

The choice of music also brings the film more in touch with the earlier Burton movies without being beholden to them, and the scores bring out the more humane and sombre touches, bringing to life every character action, reaction and motivation.

It's often said you can't polish a turd, but somehow Musiced has manged to thaw our hearts and made us reevaluate this little popsicle Batman and Robin can be made ideal in an unideal world, which means there's hope for the rest of us.

This film has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. You put it on, I'll watch it and laugh my ass off at how bad it is and at the ice puns or really any of the corny jokes in it.

That being said, this is truly great edit and the definitive way to watch this film. Despite the limitations, so much of the corny fluffy is cut out and you get a solid movie that pays a great homage to Batman the Animated Series. The music choices are superb and honestly the opening I love with the music choice and cuts. The changes and focusing the story more on the tragic story of Mr. Freeze and Alfred's disease, make this film much more dramatic, focused, and even serious in tone that make it stand out. Sure, this film still has its issues and is not going to be anywhere near the quality of even Batman Forever. But you have quite a solid movie here that I highly recommend to any fans of the animated series or even Batman for that matter.