Batman & Robin

At times Batman & Robin, the fourth installment in the franchise, aspires to the quality of the campy '60s TV show. It's got the bad puns, the tongue-in-cheek corniness, the gaudy colors, the screwy camera angles, the overall cheesiness. It's also got about a million times the budget, and yet it has no soul or personality. At times it endeavors to reprise the dark edge of Tim Burton's first film in the series -- but giving the tiresome Alfred (Michael Gough) a terminal disease confuses darkness with sentimentality. Batman & Robin is a cynical product stolidly unloaded by arch-hack director Joel Schumacher. A step down from the mediocre Batman Returns, it's a fitfully diverting waste of time.

George Clooney, the third Batman in four films, is inoffensive. As Robin, Chris O'Donnell is insufferable. And Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl is, well, clueless. Which leaves the villains and the set decor (the latter is the most ominous and Albert Speer-ish since the original). As Mr. Freeze, a human icicle with a gun that turns Gotham City into one big frozen-food section, Arnold Schwarzenegger is at best lukewarm ($20 million for this?). The real reason to see Batman & Robin is Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy. A mousy scientist transformed into a vampy plant with a kiss of death, she's the Catwoman's meow. Sultry and funny, she plays the part like a combination of Mae West and Ruth Buzzi -- and her seduction of the dynamic duo, turning them against each other, nicely highlights the homoerotic subtext. Batman & Robin is symptomatic of a vegetating concept, and that's its chief appeal. At the Campus, Harbour Mall, Lincoln Mall, Opera House, Showcase, Tri-Boro, Westerly and Woonsocket cinemas.

-- Peter Keough