Batman and Robin: Deep Freeze

This is absolutely a fantastic fanedit, even without rating it on a curve for level-of-difficulty. Does it turn Batman & Robin into a good movie? Oh god no.

Does it make Batman & Robin watchable? Surprisingly: yes!

My thoughts on this film and exactly what the hell Joel Schumacher was doing with it are here: https://boxd.it/3qY4bl but suffice to say that it's one of the worst comic book movies of all time. When you wonder why people aren't raging in the streets at the sloppy efforts DC comes out with all the time now, it's probably in large part because we all know just how much worse it can get. This.

But we also know how much better it can be, like Batman: The Animated Series. Seeing that MusicEd's goal was to make this film more like that show was very intriguing to me...and he mostly pulls it off! I honestly NEVER would have drawn the comparison, but changing the movie to black and white showcases the intense lighting that Schumacher used, and actually gives this a rather appropriate, almost Gothic/expressionist look like often used in the animated series. The bizarre building architecture suddenly looks less like studio excess and more fitting to a weird, heightened 1940s aesthetic. Poison Ivy's entrance hearkens back to Fritz Lang's Metropolis and Mr. Freeze's tech looks like something from Lost In Space. The massive rescoring of the film places it more in tone with the series as well, as do the opening credits which I actually found really impressive... God help me, it almost all works!

That said, this is one of the worst scripts ever written, and a lot of the dialogue is still cringey. Despite all the cuts, Arnold speaks almost exclusively in bad puns, so many are still included, like “The iceman cometh!”, “Freeze in Hell, Batman!”, and “Adam and Eve-il…” <eyeroll> Clooney is still as horribly-miscast as him, Silverstone and O'Donnell's storylines are still underbaked and annoying more than fun, and there's honestly just a lot of really inconsistent acting here. The whole affair still has jarring tones at war with each other and plot pieces strung together on the thinnest of margins. It's written down to kids far more than the worst Batman cartoon.

My favorite exchange made me actually *guffaw* at the end, where Batman says-
"The satellites COULD be reconfigured but it would take a computer genius to --"
Robin: "I'm on it!"
Batgirl: "No, I'M on it!"

Ah, this movie is just full of geniuses. ;) However, as dumb as it is, it's a vast improvement over the theatrical version, something which was almost physically painful for me to watch even 5 minutes of at a time. Cutting Bane out of this film works amazingly well, as do most of the other plot alterations. The cuts do leave some slight logic gaps in the narrative, where it really feels like people (especially Batman) just suddenly know things or have decided things and we've missed that whole process off-screen. That said, I'm sure the original film wouldn't feel much different... more material would just raise more questions. It's a silly movie with very little logic to it, so what's here is actually a big improvement. Can't fault it for not being perfect.

If you're going to watch Batman & Robin, this is unequivocally the way to watch it. I still don't know that I'd recommend watching it at ALL, (a better choice would be to spend time with Kevin Conroy's work, the best Batman of all time...) but if you do, this is the way to do it.

Went into this edit completely blind, having never seen the original nor any idea of what it contained. Suffice it to say that there was little to indicate that a third of the runtime was missing, did not know that the character of Bane was ever included until I started reading these reviews!

Given the original’s reputation I was surprised at how watchable this edit was, only a few places where I think further tinkering might have benefitted: the rubber lips could probably be circumvented (not sure how cleanly this could be achieved) and the bike race scene dragged on a bit, maybe a different soundtrack here would help.

Using black and white definitely makes the visuals easier on the eyes, looking at mere stills of the original in colour is almost too much for me! Nothing seems amiss with either the audio or visual aspects, though perhaps a slight boost in contrast would improve the latter.

Thanks Ed for putting this together, don’t think I ever would have given Batman & Robin a go otherwise, along with the enhanced "Red Book Edition" I have two perfectly decent ways to complete the Burton/Schumacher saga. Again the question now is whether to give the original a chance!

Original film was not good. As such this was starting from a very low base, but has succeeded in making it enjoyable.
This was achieved by cutting unnecessary character time/lines.
Very much appreciated the switch to B&W, I think the film very much benefited from this.
Thank you for your efforts,

i loved this movie as a kid when it was released back in the 90's. definitely hasn't aged well, and i get the hatred for it over the years. In saying that, this was an interesting and new point of view. i like the B&W esthetic to it, the different scores i enjoyed too (the arkham city score especially) the editing was well done, getting rid of the filler and cheesy dialogue especially mr. freeze's ice puns and bane too. and the most important thing... NO BAT CREDIT CARD!!! hahaha
really the only thing i found hard to process was the beginning credits, maybe another watch will change that for me.
but all in all fantastic job on this!

This Edit is a great successor to Batman Forever Redbook addition, and I do believe that it's the best version of Batman & Robin that could exist, but unfortunately that still isn't a very good movie. I don't think there's much value to be gained from it except for seeing how different it is to the original.
The black and white recolour works well, and I think it was a great choice, but it's still clear in many places that the film wasn't meant for black and white and it did look a little crummy at times.
I was pleasantly surprised by how well the Arkham music fit in many parts of the film, and I think that that alone made for a great improvement of the tone, but there were one or two places where it didn't quite fit, hence the 9/10 on Audio.
None of the cuts were missed at all, I think every change is for the better, and the seamlessness of the edit was top-notch, but a good movie can't be made from thin air, and this edit is sadly dragged down by the lacklustre original.
Overall, I'd recommend this edit due to how infamous the original movie is just to see how this one's better, but unlike Redbook I don't think this edit would be worthwhile to anyone unfamiliar with the original, unless you just want to put something on for your kids for a while.