What Killed The Dinosaurs? This Movie!
As Hollywood continued checking off the most notorious rogues to inhabit Gotham City, they found themselves enlisting Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman and Jeep Swenson to inhabit the roles of Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy and Bane, respectively.
Knowing the star Arnie was at the time, it’s no surprise that he served as the primary antagonist and even earned top billing. And despite borrowing heavily from Batman: The Animated Series’ “Heart of Ice” episode, it was hard to take the matter of a terminal Nora Fries seriously given the otherwise campy nature of the movie. Still, we got to see the Governator channel his inner James Lipton and put his character under the microscope on the bonus features like a true thespian.
It may be only me, but him and his ice puns are about the only things that make this entry enjoyable for me and are why I still include this in Batman movie marathons. If you’re not the Arnold fan that I am, I can understand why you’d leave it out. Hey, at least he landed the role and not Hulk Hogan (who was considered).
As for Poison Ivy, I really don’t have much to say about her aside from it being odd that she’d throw herself at a man. Personally, Thurman’s not who I would’ve cast, but her performance wasn’t all that bad. Maybe she was just in the wrong movie.
Bane, however, is where the ball was really dropped. I think Schumacher and company took one look at him and said, “he’s big and muscular, so he must be dumb, right?” Fortunately, the genius mercenary, who, in the comics, deduced Batman’s true identity and broke his back, was redeemed much further down the road with The Dark Knight Rises. But, in 1997, we had to settle for this brain dead beefcake. If anyone had any sense, they’d have cast Arnold as an intelligent Bane and gone from there.
