I've covered quite a few Batman Forever mugs on 1995batman.com but only just recently bought my first Batman & Robin mug and what a beauty it is.
Applause have captured George Clooney's likeness really well. It's a huge improvement on the previous attempts. I can't wait to track down the others now.
By the way, now that The Flash movie is out and most people have seen it - despite what you may think of the film as a whole - wasn't it nice to see Clooney back as Bruce Wayne at the end?
And so we reach the last remaining figure I needed to get for the Funko/Schumacher Batman figures. The Mighty Mr Freeze.
As with all Funkos the attention to detail is perfect. They've really captured the likeness really well. If you like Funkos and like Arnie's Mr Freeze this is well worth getting and eminently affordable (which not a lot of toys are!).
As I mention in the video Funko have had a tough time recently and these aren't as plentiful in shops anymore so if you want one I wouldn't wait too long.
As for my sidenote about McFarlane making some Schumacher figures in the future, I seem to have willed this into being!
McFarlane Toys have just yesterday announced they will be making a line of Batman & Robin figures as well as an Ultimate 6 Pack of all the Movies Batmen (Keaton, Kilmer, Clooney, Bale, Affleck and Pattinson).
See my posts on www.1995batman.com here and here.
Henchmen are an essential element of many Batman stories. Who can forget Jack Napier's "number one guy" Bob the goon? (Who got a figure from the Toybiz line). Or Two Face's hulking henchmen with their neon Tommy guns? (Who didn't get a figure but maybe show have).
Of course the Batman & Robin movie had the ultra silly idea to give Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mr Freeze a "hockey team from hell". And we did at least get one figure named Frostbite. I'm not 100% sure he's meant to be the same character as Frosty (the henchman who get frozen by Freeze for interrupting the movie).
Anyway, it's a decent sculpt. He's got his mask down and has this weird backpack/luge/armour thing that folds in lots of different directions. I've got to admit this one had me puzzled. There's no instructions for how this works.
But anyway, you can either fire the hockey sticks or put them in his hands as weapons. And that's enough for me. I'm glad we got a henchman and maybe if I get bored I'll buy a few of them, paint them slightly different colours and build a little army.
One of the notable things about Kenner was their thriftiness. They'd often pad out toyline with existing molds. Robin Hood Prince of Thieves for instance used Hawkman and Robin (from Super Powers), a villain from Robocop and a Gamorean Guard.
Rather than be annoyed at this, I always admired their ingenuity and appreciated them trying to maximise the amount of figures in a toyline.
When it came time to do the Batman & Robin toyline, they did reuse a few molds from the Batman Forever line. In most cases it just required a swap of a Kilmer head to a Clooney one.
Neon Armour Batman is a typical example. I think ultimately it's a downgrade but still a relatively fun figure with some cool snap on armour.
This was a really fun pick up and very appropriate given that I'm spending all my spare money on Batman merchandise. What a great way to save.
I've seen similar piggy banks for Star Wars - talking Darth Vader etc but didn't know they'd made one for Batman & Robin. I think you'll agree it's fun to see Batman swishing around and hear all phrases from George Clooney.
The dialogue is stilted though - like they took a bunch of takes and edited them. It does sound like Clooney though which is good. I know some recent talking Ben Affleck Batman figures sounded nothing like him.
One thing I didn't bring up in the video is this is Danny Elfman's Batman theme. It's a shame they didn't use Elliot Goldenthal's theme. Maybe it was easier to re-licence Elfman's.
Of all the vehicles in Batman & Robin I think the Redbird cycle was my favourite. It was sleek, it had a little bit of colour and Robin looked cool riding it.
Thankfully Kenner translated the bike to toy form very faithfully. The bike looks great and has the usual extra play features. A missile on the front, trip bars either side and most bizarrely a rocket underneath the bike (surely this should come out the back).
The way Robin rides the bike is the only let down. I shouldn't be surprised - Kenner used this design a lot. The Street Racer Batman bike for Batman Forever worked the same, as did The Shadow movie bike.
Anyway the figure that comes with the bike looks great. It's a rework on the Battle Glacier Robin figure (the one with the snowmobile) painted yellow and black. The colour scheme reminds me of the mid 90s Nightwing costume which was also pretty great.
It's weird that considering how toyetic the Batman & Robin movie was that some elements of the film didn't become toys.
Mr Freeze's Freezemobile seems like an obvious candidate for a toy but sadly the closest we came was this Deluxe Ice Terror Mr Freeze that came with this three wheeled dragster.
It's a big step down. I know Kenner had a few of these three wheel vehicles across their various Batman toylines but I never felt they worked. They always felt really weedy compared to the massive batmobile and batbikes.
There's an attempt to make the vehicle more interesting by giving it the ability to transform but again, for me, it's very lacklustre. It just turns into a slightly lower, longer dragster. Why not make it turn into a plane or a sled?
The figure itself is okay. An interesting attempt at giving Mr Freeze a suit with lots of cooling pipes. I appreciate them trying to make a more colourful Mr Freeze.
