If there are two movies that can be designated as pivotal to the current superhero boom that’s been rolling on for 20+ years, Bryan Singer’s X-Men and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man state a good case. However, if you want to view it through a different lens, then it might actually be Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin and Stephen Norrington’s Blade.
The former was instantly greeted as one of the worst blockbusters the world had ever seen, with Schumacher delivering a sequel that’s technically part of the timeline established by Tim Burton only eight years previously, but completely unrecognizable on every conceivable level due to its status as a garish, neon-lit, and nipple-heavy shambles.
Savaged by critics, shunned by fans, and disowned by George Clooney for a quarter of a century, many thought the big budget comic book adaptation was toast as a viable source of revenue, until Wesley Snipes came along the following year to remind audiences that superheroes can be cool, composed, and kick all sorts of ass when the movies aren’t irredeemably awful.
Even now, rewatching Batman & Robin can be a painful experience, and we can only assume that Clooney’s surprise cameo at the end of The Flash has been the catalyst behind its unlikely resurgence, with FlixPatrol naming the notorious disaster as one of the most-watched features on iTunes so far this week.
Remember, this is the same timeline that featured Michael Keaton’s eccentric Gothic brilliance, which is still insane when you think you about it and see how far the Dark Knight fell in less than a decade.
