Batman & Robin (1997)

Batman & Robin is a 1997 American superhero film based on the DC Comics characters Batman and Robin. It is the fourth and final installment of Warner Bros.' initial Batman film series. The film was directed by Tim Burton and written by Akiva Goldsman. It stars Patrick Stewart, Michael Keaton, Pat Corley, Nicole Kidman, Richard Roundtree, George Clooney, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Batman & Robin tells the story of Batman and Robin trying to prevent a corrupt theme park mogul named Grant Walker from freezing all humankind to death to build his own city titled Oceania while struggling to keep their partnership together.

Plot Summary
There is a gravestone in a cemetery in the dead of winter that resembles a cross and is revealed to be in a glass dome with snow coming down from it. A strang, armored man (Patrick Stewart) is seen observing the glass dome in his hand, promising a "best served cold" revenge against the "monster" for taking her from him. The strange armored man tells his associates to begin the operation and then, an armored vehicle attacks the GothCorp installation in question. When the Batmobile arrives, a freeze ray from the van creates a sheet of ice that causes the car to spin out of control and crashes. Batman and Robin exit the car and engages the thieves. Their ringleader appears, a man in a strange suit of armor calling himself Mr. Freeze. He fires his freeze gun at Batman but misses and accidentally hits Robin in the legs, before managing to freeze Batman. Freeze then leaves with his goons. Batman manages to shatter the ice on himself and is forced to take care of the Robin, who is dying of hypothermia, rather than pursue Freeze. At GothCorp, a businessman named Ferris Boyle (George Clooney), who is attempting to flee from the company. Freeze confronts Boyle after slaughtering all of the security guards and begins freezing him slowly from the legs up. Boyle pleaded for his life with Mr. Freeze telling Boyle that he longed to see the look of pain and suffering on his face. Boyle becomes shocked and identifies Mr. Freeze as Victor. Boyle continued to beg, however, Mr. Freeze slowly froze Boyle to death and then left.

After using a special bath to revive Robin and melt the ice sheet on his legs, Batman, who has himself developed a cold from the encounter is visited by his close friend and bodyguard Lucius Fox. Lucius recovers footage from Gothcorp that provides an explanation as to why Freeze wanted Boyle to die. Mr. Freeze was once a man named Victor Fries, a doctor working A Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist and two-time Olympic decathlete obsessed with curing his wife Nora from MacGregor's Syndrome, a disease that was slowly killing her. In order to prevent Nora from dying, Fries put her into a cryogenic stasis so he can search for a cure. Suddenly, Boyle and a pair of security guards burst in. Victor protests this intrusion but Boyle says that Fries's funding has been cut and he is using company equipment without authorization. He orders his guards to disconnect the equipment, despite Fries's horrified objections that Nora will die if they do so. In a panic, Fries seizes one of the guard's guns and orders them to stay back. Scared, Boyle attempts to reason with Fries. Fries lowers the gun... and then Boyle kicks him in the chest, sending him crashing back onto a table of chemicals, which fill the room with vapor. As Boyle and his guards flee the room, Fries drags a hand over his wife's tank, calling her name as they are both cryogenically frozen.

Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson later attend a party hosted by millionaire Grant Walker with Lucius as a chauffeur. Bruce and Dick flirt with socialites Julie Madison and Helena Bullock, the Assistant District Attorney, and daughter of police Commissioner Eddie Bullock, respectively. Helena and her father were engaged in a deep heated argument since Bullock started a relationship with a woman named Pamela Isely. Helena objected to their relationship since Pamela was Helena's exact age and young enough to be Bullock's daughter. Bullock dismisses Helena's concerns. Isley notices the time and says she has to run. Before leaving, she grabs Bullock and plants a deep kiss on him. Bullock, a little flushed, announces that he's proposed to her. Surprised, Helena reminds him that they only met a week ago. Bullock assures Helena that Isley's the one... then he passes out and goes face-first into the desert. Bruce laughs initially, but when Bullock does not move, he realizes something is wrong.

Bullock is rushed to the hospital and put into a coma. Bullock's right-hand man Charlie is notified and the GCPD rush to the hospital. The doctors report that he has been poisoned, and they cannot stop the process without the antidote. Helena places a guard outside his room and orders Charlie to find out who did this. Bruce speaks with the doctor, who doubts Bullock was food poisoned but knows that the poison will kill him soon. Bruce discreetly lifts a sample of Bullock's blood from the hospital and returns to the Batcave. An analysis reveals that the poison was extracted from a rare plant, the Wild Thorny Rose. Batman says they can use the same extract to create an antidote, but Alfred reports that the rose is extinct, meaning that Bullock is likely doomed. As Lucius watches over Bullock in the hospital, Isley comes running to him. He offers some words of comfort, but she breaks down. Lucius walks her to her car and she leans in to kiss him, which Lucius turns into a hug. Suddenly suspicious, he remembers the huge kiss Isley planted on Bullock just before he passed out. As he drives home, he contacts Dick and asks him to check Isley's background.

Dick reports that Pamela Isley holds a Ph.D. in botany and is employed by a cosmetics company as a chemist working on perfumes. She also offers a weekly lecture series at the university on rare and extinct plant species. Both he, Bruce, and Lucius reach the obvious conclusion that Isley is responsible for the poisoning. Bruce and Dick start to have a problem in their crime-fighting relationship with Bruce not wanting Dick to be out on the field after Freeze almost killed him. Ivy later kills a man for mistreating several plants.

Batman, going alone, goes to confront Isley at a greenhouse where she has a laboratory. When he enters, he is seized and held prisoner by a gigantic Venus Fly-trap, large enough to engulf him. Isley appears in a green costume and calling herself "Poison Ivy". She admits that she did poison Bullock since she was contracted to by Grant Walker. While the flytrap's branches hold Batman's head steady, Ivy applies a coating of the poison to her lips, then gives him a kiss. He spits immediately but is already feeling its effects while Ivy mockingly holds up a bottle of the antidote she developed. A strange woman arrives dressed in costume and calling herself Bat-Girl. Bat-Girl frees Batman and attacks, with Ivy fighting her with a sharp knife while Batman uses an ax in the greenhouse to kill the plant. In the struggle, an overhead lamp is broken and falls to the floor, beginning a fire. Bat-Girl lets Ivy die in the fire and escapes with Batman while acquiring the antidote.

Later, Bullock is recovering in the hospital because of the antidote administered to him by Batman. Bullock wakes up to Charlie his colleagues, and his illegitimate daughter Selina Kyle, who came all the way from Rome, Italy, to see him. They are all grateful that Bullock is alive. Helena was spending time practicing her archery rather than spending time with her father. Helena is actually Bat-Girl. For years, Eddie Bullock sent his legitimate daughter overseas to the finest schools in Europe that money could buy. During her travels, she learned a couple of things one could not learn at boarding school. Bullock was never a corrupt cop, he only got the money from Helena's mother, Maria Panessa, a wealthy woman who came from Gotham's oldest crime families. Panessa and Bullock fell in the love and Panessa gave up her life of crime for her father. Helena has mastered various modes of combat, including ranged combat and hand-to-hand combat, armed and unarmed due to being inspired to take the law into her own hands by Batman since the legal system that Helena spent years studying to be a lawyer has not always worked. Helena was upset when Batman scolded her for letting this Poison Ivy die because Helena felt that Gotham didn't need moral cancers like her. Helena is excellent in her archery. If anyone has her skills, they would be hired as assassins for the mafia. However, Helena is interested in justice, not power. Batman stood in Helena's line of fire and caught one of the arrows she was firing. Batman has deduced that Helena was Bat-Girl and warns to stay off the streets before vanishing without a trace. Helena refuses since she has been known to never let anyone stand in her way.

Mr. Freeze is revealed to have been hiding in an abandoned warehouse with his thugs. Mr. Freeze then gets abducted by a large, powerful robot, that picks him up and places him inside a compartment in its chest, then leaves as easily as it came. As it turns out, Grant Walker sent the robot and has the robot take Mr. Freeze to him in Oceania, located on an artificial island a short distance out to sea from Gotham City. There Walker releases Freeze and explains that he has studied Freeze's work closely. Walker says that Freeze's condition has slowed his aging process so much that he's practically immortal. Walker, who is elderly and in failing health, wants Freeze to duplicate the accident that caused his condition, and "freeze" Walker into immortality so he can continue his work. Freeze refuses to believe that his condition is not fit for anyone. Walker reveals his trump card: Nora Fries, who is still alive and still in suspended animation in her cryo-tube. Freeze believed his wife perished in the accident, but Walker explains he was a major investor in GothCorp, and managed to salvage Nora's tube and hire scientists to look after her suspended state. Freeze agrees to help Walker in exchange for the technology to restore his wife.

In his hospital, Bullock gets approached by Batman, who explains that Pamela Isely tried to kill him and that Grant Walker contracted her to do so. Bullock then decides to explain everything to Batman. Years ago, Bullock was obsessed with catching Batman but then decided to become his ally feeling that true justice can also come from outside the law. Bullock explains that Grant Walker had a daughter named Candy Walker, a Gotham City model. In 1989, Candy and her fellow model, Amanda Keeler, were killed by the Joker's Smylex. This has then prompted Walker to build a city called Oceania for people that Walker believes to be worthy to live there. Batman then begins to believe that the daughter of Walker's daughter has traumatized him, however, Bullock explains that Walker was always a "nut" before his daughter was killed by the Joker. In 1989, Candy went to Bullock to help emancipate her from Walker since her father had an unhealthy obsession with her. According to Candy, Walker had sexual thoughts toward his daughter that a father should never have. Candy was in the process of being emancipated from her father, however, she never got to complete her plans because of her being killed by the Joker. Bullock then explains that Walker only wanted him dead since he felt threatened by Candy seeing him a lot. Batman then leaves to deal with Walker. Unknown to the two men, Helena listened in on the whole conservation. Elsewhere, Dick is upset that Bruce is not trusting him that much. Lucius tells Dick that when the best thing to do is disobey Bruce since he would sometimes do that despite being a loyal friend.

Batman goes to Oceania in the Batboat while in radio contact with Lucius and while Robin and Bat-Girl are going their separate ways to get there. Walker realizes that Batman is coming and fires missiles at him. Batman manages to eject and make his way there. When Batman arrives, he discovers Robin and Bat-Girl there, upsetting him. Batman then reluctantly decides to let them help and admits that the only reason he didn't want Robin out on the field was that he was afraid of losing him. The three vigilantes watch Walker explain to his followers that using Victor Fries' work at Gothcorp, he has established a cannon-sized version of a cold gun to freeze Gotham, and then the rest of the world, as he believes it is too corrupt and cruel to survive because of the death of his daughter. Oceania will serve as a utopia for those whom Walker believes worthy to live there. Before they can act, however, Batman, Robin, and Bat-Girl are captured.

Freeze successfully duplicates the accident, "freezing" Walker, and places him in a cybernetic suit similar to Freeze's own. Exhilarated, Walker prepares for his strike on Gotham. Freeze disclaims any further interest, saying their deal is finished and he is returning to his wife. As Freeze gazes at Nora's capsule, Batman, who is being held prisoner nearby, appeals to Freeze, saying that Nora would despise him for helping Walker kill so many innocent people. Freeze agrees and releases the trio. All three of them attack Walker's command center. Batman fights Walker while Freeze, Robin, and Bat-Girl deal with his robots. Batman and Walker are fighting with Batman admitting to Walker that what he is doing is pathetic. Walker then demands to know why that is. Freeze then sets the cannon's main power core to overload. A chain reaction begins that slowly engulfs Oceania in ice and kill everyone there. Batman tells Walker the truth about how his daughter wanted nothing to do with her father anymore because of his mental condition. Disillusioned, Walker hands Batman his cold gun and goes on his knees begging to be killed. Batman then freezes Walker with the cold gun. Batman, Robin, and Bat-Girl urge Freeze to evacuate with them, however, Freeze refuses and leaves. To drive his point home, he freezes Robin below the neck, forcing Batman to save his partner rather than go after Freeze. As they escape the island, the ice tears through the main power core and it explodes.

Walker is trapped in a block of ice and tries to escape. However, he cannot move, even with his cybernetic strength. As he realizes where he is, and that his new immortality has trapped him there forever, he lets out a scream that no one can hear.

After Bullock comes out of the hospital and as Dick is recovering at Wayne Manor, Dick asks Bruce why he let him and Helena help destroy Oceania. Bruce then tells Robin that he knew they would handle it. Bruce, Dick, and Lucius decide to let Helena be a part of their team. Lucius asks Bruce whether they'll ever see Mr. Freeze again. Bruce reflects that, if Freeze really is immortal, it's very possible that they will. Another block of ice drifts by icebergs in Arctic waters. Inside an air bubble within, Freeze kneels solemnly before his wife's capsule and reaches out to her hand.

Cast

 * Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne/Batman
 * Richard Roundtree as Lucius Fox
 * Pat Corley as Commissioner Eddie Bullock
 * Jennifer Jason Leigh as Helena Bullock/Bat-Girl
 * Joe Morton as Charlie
 * Marlon Wayans as Dick Grayson/Robin
 * Patrick Stewart as Victor Fries/Freeze
 * Nicole Kidman as Pamela IslyPoison Ivy
 * George Clooney as Ferris Boyle
 * Daniel O'Herlihy as Grant Walker
 * Elle Macpherson as Julie Madison
 * John Ingle as the Doctor
 * Vendela Kirsebom as Nora Fries