What more can be said about the disastrous 1997 Batman & Robin film? If you are reading this, you have seen this film and for some reason you just wanted to revisit all of these terrible puns delivered by Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Ice Man, Mr. Freeze. After he was reinvented in Batman: The Animated Series he became one of Batman’s most complex and intriguing villains in the rouges gallery. Unfortunately, his portrayal in Batman & Robin will continued to be remembered for its massive bomb that led to the reboot Batman Begins and for all of the puns said by the Austrian body builder. So let’s take a minute to jump back into this batmobile crash of a film and check out some of these chillin puns.
Also Read: Batman Forever Schumacher Cut: 9 Reasons To Make You Want To See It!
The Ice Man cometh!
Starting with one of the first puns said in the movie, this one was said out of pure randomness. I mean, at least majority of them have some sort of usefulness or it’s a way to respond. This one just comes out of nowhere after he freezes police officers. We get it, you like ice and you have arrived. But is this something that is by any means intimidating? Can’t we just show up and freeze people? You don’t need to announce your arrival, you’re wearing a silver and blue armored suit and waving around a giant freezing gun. I think we understand what you’re all about.
You’re not sending ME to the COOLER!
After Batman crashes through the ceiling and lands on top of a dinosaur, he gives the most unintimidating and monotone “I’m Batman” used on screen. Then proceeds to recreate scenes from the Flinstones and slides down the dinosaurs back. He confronts has what appears to be a brief battle with Mr. Freeze, but we unsure exactly what is happening. Batman gets his gun, Freeze lifts up the gun with Batman throws him. And just to make sure Batman knows he means business, he tells him that he won’t be going back to the cooler. Dude, you literally live inside a cooler.
Stay cool, Birdboy.
After Mr. Freeze tries to escape the clutches of Batman and Robin, he slams a door on Batman as Robin chants “I got’em” and jumps at Freeze. Where to start with this scene? Why would Robin make the jump he did? What good will do for you? You are about ten feet from him, there is no way you can gather enough momentum to do anything to him. So of course Mr. Freeze does his thing and now Robin is a block of ice and getting the diamond with the line “Stay cool, Birdboy” and moments later says “I’ll kill ya next time” which I guess is a sound idea. Considering you’ve literally had about two or three chances to kill them and when you literally have Batman injured and Robin frozen. Yeah I guess another time would be better, now isn’t a perfect opportunity at all.
Alright everyone… Chill
During a bidding war between Batman and Robin over Poison Ivy. Mr. Freeze crashes the party by bulldozing his way into the party and start firing his freeze gun at the audience, freezing them in their tracks. But of course, this scene wouldn’t work at all without Mr. Freeze asking everyone to “chill” while he freezes all of them. This scene is one of the few times where is looks like Arnold is trying to hold back laughter during the shoot. He has a big smile on his face and is most likely holding back from bursting into laughter while he chants “chill” over and over.
Cool party!
After he “chills” everyone, Mr. Freeze manages to get a hold of the diamonds around Poison Ivys neck without turning her into “mulch” while Batman and Robin are fighting off another ambush by the hockey team from hell. Freeze hops back into his vehicle and instead of just quickly making his escape, it wouldn’t be a proper send off if he didn’t use one more pun in. So he gives credit to the party planners with his line “cool party” leaving us just upset that he said anything at all.
Allow me to break the ice
Even after being captured by Batman, and incarcerated at Arkham Asylum don’t think that this frosty villain is out of puns just yet. Escorted to his cell in what appears to be a refrigerator, he is released by two guards who have puns of their own. “Welcome Home Frost Face” as well as “You are the common cold, and we are the cure” but don’t worry folks, Mr. Freeze will not stand for anyone else to top his puns. He replies with “Allow me to break the ice, my name is Freeze.. Learn it well, for it is the chilling sound of your doom” oh man…. Give him the Oscar.
Adam and Evil!
Poison Ivy and Bane manage to get passed the incompetent Arkham Asylum guards and into Mr. Freezes cell to break him out. Earlier in the film, Ivy is shown removing the plug that powered the machine keeping Nora Fries alive. When Ivy returns to her hideout and finds that Victor has made himself at home, she tells him that Batman killed his wife. Now on a path of revenge, he and Ivy begin their monologue about their evil plans to freeze Gotham and rebuild the population with plants. Which makes no sense at all, plants and ice… doesn’t work. Seriously, who wrote this film?
Tonight, hell freezes over!
Now that Mr. Freezes plan is coming together and he takes control of the Wayne Enterprises telescope. After taking out the scientist who are watching over the machine, you might be asking yourself what Mr. Freeze could possibly do next. You are correct, he freezes the scientists and then follows it with more puns. But I guess this time “Hell freezes over” and just to top off this terrible line, Bane goes around the machine planting icicle looking bombs and grunting “Boooomb” every time he sets one down. Once again, the only redeeming thing from this movie has to be its failure which motivated Warner Bros to go through with Christopher Nolans Dark Knight Trilogy and reinventing Bane. Although, the standard wasn’t set very high to begin with.
Tonight’s forecast… a freeze is coming!
Not exactly sure what this one means either. But I guess this is the way you present yourself to your enemy. Now that Batman, Robin and Batgirl have arrived at the telescope, after their defeat of Poison Ivy. They prepare to stop this massive ice canon from freezing all of Gotham, the only thing standing between them are Mr. Freeze and Bane. Batman tries to disarm the canon, but of course Mr. Freeze pops up in view of a scope that enlarges his mouth, nose and eyes and decides that this might be a good a time as any to let Batman know what the forecast is.
Let’s kick some ice!
I wanted to save this one for last, because I think it’s just so brilliant. As if this was some way to try and keep this movie as clean as possible, they come up with this incredible replacement for the word “ass”. I am not even one hundred percent sure why he needs to use this. Something the director wanted to really emphasize is that they were making a “comic book” like all comic books are like this? But I guess since this movie came out in 1997 and it had been established that Batman was a dark and brooding character, it was important to revisit his campiness from Adam Wests 1966 Batman. Since that Batman really kicked Ice!
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