Joel Schumacher's "Batman" films, if you want to call them that, are just flat out bad. "Batman Forever" had its moments, I guess, but I would not go so far as to call it a good movie. It's slightly above average at best. "Batman and Robin" may be the worst big-budget movie that a Hollywood studio has ever produced. I dare someone to find a worse big-budget movie.

Where to begin...

Part of what makes these movies so awful is that they reek of corporate manipulation. It's almost impossible to differentiate the marketing of these movies and everything that went wrong with these movies. I remember the advertising for these movies being everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. But whereas the merchandise for the first Batman film felt more fulfilled from the demand side, I'd say that the merchandise seemed to be coming from the supply side. It was Warner Brother shoving these really gaudy products down people's throats.

And even worse, the products were just awful. The products all had that awful color scheme that the movie had. It was all neon purple and neon green. It was like the movie threw up all over every shopping mall from Maine to California.

I place most of the blame for these movies on the studios who should have known better. You could tell that these movies were concocted in the boardroom.

Joel Schumacher deserves some blame as well, but I pull this quote from IMDB. In the "Batman and Robin" commentary, Joel Schumacher admits the following:

"...he says that he was under pressure from toy companies and Warner Brothers management to deliver a family-friendly film and admits he went too far in that direction, but takes full responsibility for the end result and, at one point during the interviews, flat-out apologizes to fans that were disappointed."

I've also read that Joel Schumacher is one of the few openly gay directors in Hollywood. So in some kind of weird way, when you view these movies from a gay perspective, they're almost campy masterpieces. I mean, it's the campy 60's tv show on steroids. In some ways, they're the most faithful tv to movie adaptation in history.

Sigh. It's intellectually hard to defend these films.

Kilmer was okay. He didn't really bring much to the movie, but he wasn't the problem in the third movie. But you can't say the same for George Clooney. I'm not saying he had a lot to work with, but his line delivery certainly didn't help. Makes me shudder just thinking about. I mean, his Batman is so bad, I think Christian Bale deserves to be knighted for his portrayal.

The villains were pretty bad. I thought Jim Carrey was pretty okay as the Riddler. Tommy Lee Jones' Two Face ugh...it makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

Oh, Robin was in these movies as well. Just shows you how forgettable he is.

I don't even want to talk about Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze, Uma Thurman's Poison Ivy, and Alicia Silverstone's Batgirl. I think of those characters in these movies and all I hear is the sound of a dental drill in my head.

You know you're in fucked up territory when Alfred's the most interesting part of a Batman movie, as he was in "Batman and Robin."

These trailers, especially the "Batman and Robin trailer, really show you why these movies suck.