News: Hot Toys releases promo photos for Batman & Robin figures

Well, the title says it all. Hot Toys just released these promo shots of the forthcoming Batman & Robin figures. 

Got to say these look pretty perfect. Love that we're getting so many gadgets and interchangeable jaws for Batman. 

Robin feels a microscopic step down from the Forever version. The face just doesn't quite feel right.

Will definitely be getting both of these regardless.

Neon Knight Forever audiobook - read by Drew Griffin

Once again Drew Griffin has provided us with another audiobook. This it's time it's Tomasz Zaglewski's Neon Knight Forever book that charts the evolution of how Joel Schumacher's Batman duology has been perceived by fans and critics over the last 30 years. 

Check out my review here.

Also if you enjoy this recording, I'm excited to say Tomasz's book is coming out in paperback in June 2025 - just in time for the 30th anniversary of Batman Forever. 

Pre-order your copy here for UK or here for US.

New audiobook for the Batman & Robin movie

Joel Schumacher's two Batman films are incredibly special to me but... there's only so many times I can watch them. I try to leave it to just once a year so that it always feels like special event.

I love find other ways to experience them - looking at toys and other merchandise. One of my favourite things for Batman Forever is the audiobook read by Rene Auberjonois, based on the novelisation by Peter David. 

It's a three hour abridged version of the novelisation but it has lots of extra details as well as Auberjonois' great reading style.

Back in 1997, for Batman & Robin, they only did a short 30 minute radio play adaptation of the film that was really cheesy and over the top (which is saying something given the film it's based on). Jan Michael Friedman's slightly more mature novelisation - which has lot of fun extra details and scenes - was never recorded... 

...until now.

Recently, fan of this website Drew Griffin has dedicated a ton of time and effort recording a 6+ hour reading of the book with music. It's a great book and Drew does a fantastic job reading it. I can't thank him enough for doing this and giving us all a new way to experience the film.

What are you waiting for? Start listening now.

News: Hot Toys is making Batman & Robin 1/6 scale figures (... no seriously)!

Even though we got those Batman Forever figures from Hot Toys a few years back, I really didn't think they would also do ones for the 1997 follow up Batman & Robin. I assumed the negative reputation that has dogged the film for years would mean that Hot Toys would think they financially unviable.

Turns out I was wrong, these two prototypes were just unveiled today! I've got to say, I'm glad I was wrong.

These are just prototypes at the moment and if you remember those Batman Forever prototypes were shown at toy fairs for at least a year before they hit retail shelves so you probably have some time to save up your pennies.

Looking at the initial designs, I think they look great. Chris' hair looks a little too light brown and I know some people would prefer them to have more of a blue hue but overall, stunning. I wonder if they'll come with add on ice patches like the McFarlane figures.

I imagine they will have similar issues to the Forever figures (ie. the rubber suits crease awkwardly when you bend the arm or legs) but I can live with that.

Here's hoping they consider an Alicia Silverstone Batgirl figure down the line. Seems like a shame to miss her out.

Batman Forever + Batman & Robin merchandise for sale!

No, I haven't lost my mind and decided to sell my collection. Don't worry. It's going nowhere.

I have though been in touch with a fellow Batman collector called Laurent.

He is very active on Instagram and is selling a TON of Batman merchandise - from the movies, cartoons, comics.

Most interesting to readers of this blog, he has a big collection of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin merchandise.

Here are a couple of photos below show some of what he has available. Some really rare pieces. He also has a lot of carded figures too. Check his Instagram page out here - give him and follow and maybe strike up a deal.

And here's some individual posts about some of the items for a closer look. 

Batman Forever stuff:

Riddler resin kit https://www.instagram.com/p/C4TtEyQsLCT/?img_index=1

Socks https://www.instagram.com/p/ClPPcQOMX7P/

Various CDs https://www.instagram.com/p/ClMv4ysMO5a/ https://www.instagram.com/p/ClKHS7-szf2/ 

Inflatable pop bag https://www.instagram.com/p/ClKHS7-szf2/ 

Bubble bath https://www.instagram.com/p/Cjn3TAzMGkn/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Cjn3vZss9uI/ 

Batman & Robin stuff: 

WBSS portraits https://www.instagram.com/p/C2lCtTwsYuD/?img_index=1

 WBSS paper bag https://www.instagram.com/p/CjtMo-hMxQ0/?img_index=1

 Batman study kit https://www.instagram.com/p/CjisZfBsR--/?img_index=1

 Torchlight https://www.instagram.com/p/CjgZQ0xsKRj/?img_index=1

 Fruit snacks https://www.instagram.com/p/Cjdx05TsCV6/

Batman & Robin Merchandise Review - Robin figure from McFarlane

Third in the McFarlane Batman & Robin wave is Chris O'Donnell's Robin. 

It's a pretty great figure. The likeness isn't as perfect as Poison Ivy but I think it's a solid effort. The pouty lips and big jawline are there.

I love that they added some accessories for this one. There are two ice pieces that can go over his head and arm so you can recreate the part of the movie where Mr Freeze blasts him with his freeze ray. That's a neat touch.

Hopefully if this line sells well, we'll get an Ice Suit Robin in the near future. If not, I'll just have to buy a duplicate and get out the old Chrome paint.

Batman & Robin Merchandise Review - Batgirl figure from McFarlane

I've finally tracked down all four of the recent McFarlane Batman & Robin figures and they are glorious. I still can't quite believe they are real and not a dream.

I'm not a big collector of modern figures. I mostly buy vintage stuff from the 90s so forgive me if I don't have the knowledge to compare how these are to other modern figures.

Anyway, first off is the Alicia Silverstone Batgirl. Apart from the matt black colour (why not blue, like the movie?) I don't have much to critique.

The face could have been slightly better. Certainly adding a little black mole on his cheek help with the likeness.

The most surprising element I like is actually the molded plastic cape. I usually hate these things but this one is really well done, the ripple on the cape really give it a realism.

I'll put the Mr Freeze bits to one side and build him at the end.

Anyway, goes with out saying. If you read this blog you should buy this figure. Who knows, they sell enough we may get a Batmobile to go with it!

Batman & Robin Merchandise Review - 5 Diecast Vehicle Set from Kenner

Diecast vehicles are never my favourite things to collect but I had to pick this Batman & Robin set because it was going cheap on eBay.

It contains 4 of the vehicles seen in the film - the Batmobile, Bathammer, Redbird cycle and Mr Freeze's Freezemobile. All at various scales.

Sadly Batgirl's ice cycle doesn't get a look in. Instead we're given an exclusive Mr Freeze's Thugmobile - which I'm fairly certain is a repaint from another line.

Anyway, these are fun but not essential. The accuracy is pretty loose and the paintwork isn't great. But if you want to put in the time with your own painting skills they might be worth it.

Batman & Robin Merchandise Review - George Clooney Batman figure from McFarlane

Thanks to an extremely generous fan I have the George Clooney Batman figure from the McFarlane Ultimate Batman Collection to review.

If you are a fan of the movie Batman & Robin this is the figure you've been waiting for. The sculpt is really spot on. Maybe not as much as the Val Kilmer one but it's recognizably Clooney's face. All the details are there - yep, even the nipples.

Articulation is excellent. The only one I didn't need is the neck. They should have kept it like the movie suit and not have him able to turn his head. 

The figure is also available as a solo release (as part of a 4 figure wave (with bonus build a Figure Mr Freeze). That one comes with a plastic cape. This one has the cloth cape which is nicer.

Anyway, what are you doing reading this review. Get out there and buy one. If this sells well, maybe we'll get a Batmobile!

Book Review: Neon Knight Forever: The Legacy of Joel Schumacher’s Batman Duology by Tomasz Zaglewski

Review by Neil Rickatson

I have to preface this review and state that I am acknowledged twice within the text of this book. I will do my best to stay as impartial as possible. 

In today’s world everyone is very quick to compartmentalise every aspect of their life. Turn everything into a binary 0 or 1. Nothing is immune. I can’t throw a virtual rock on the internet without hitting “That’s the worst movie I ever saw” or “That’s the best movie I ever saw.” There is little room for any sort of nuance. And inevitably we end up with a handful of great movies that everyone universally agrees are great, and the rest go in a pile to the side to be left untouched.

Logic dictates that only this first pile of great movies should be written about when actually I find much more satisfaction in looking at the other pile. For years, the Schumacher Batman movies have been dragged through the mud. On release Batman Forever was seen as a slick but empty exercise in commercial filmmaking. Batman & Robin by contrast was seen as an excessive, noisy, exhausting hollow product. Comic book fans, in particular, turned to the internet and railed against both films for multiple reasons: their deviation from the comics, their humorous take on the material and their style choices. 

And here’s the thing that bothered me. They didn’t let up. At all. No one was allowed to get a word in edgeways. So the narrative has been the Schumacher movies sucked, they have zero value and they should be talked about as briefly as possible. 

Thankfully time is a healer. After almost 30 years, Professor Tomasz Żaglewski (from the Institute of Cultural Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland) has taken the task of looking at both films and trying to find what their legacy is. To be clear this is not a book about the making of the films (though a little bit of that is covered here and there) but a book that examines how people thought about Schumacher’s Batman duology then and how they think about them now. 

Here is a quick overview of the topics covered:- 

Part 1 talks about the place of the Schumacher films in Batman fandom. How they are seen as being “wrong” because they did not have a dark and serious tone. How they were also out of step with where the character was in the comics at the time. It also talks about how difficult it is to pin down any kind of definitive Batman portrayal (very true) and looks at some of the various versions of Batman over the years. Some were familiar to me such as Dark Knight and Camp Knight. Others were new terms I hadn’t seen before Cute Knight, Toy Knight, Dad Knight! 

Part 2 looks in more detail at the elements around the movie. Joel Schumacher (often seen as a generic journeyman director) is viewed with a fresh lens. Seen as a director who kept coming back to “trespasser” characters and stories. There is also a look at the shift from Burton's version of Batman to Schumacher's version. Were they their own thing or was Schumacher attempting to tie both universes together? 

Part 3 looks at some of the talking points around the films. The figures (which some people thought were disappointing because you couldn't get a figure that looked like they did in the film). The video games which are not beloved due to their frustratingly clunky controls. And finally… the bat nipples that featured in both films and what an overblown fuss they caused. 

The final part looks at how the duology has shifted in terms of public perception over the years. How the films were not well reviewed at the time and B&R, in particular, had a disappointing (but not disastrous) box office. To today where the films enjoy a small and loyal fandom (this is where I come in - which was surreal to read). And finally ends by talking about the online push for an extended cut of Batman Forever. 

All in all, this is a great, very knowledgeable book with a fantastic grasp of the subject. Tomasz is – I believe from the introduction – sympathetic to Schumacher’s aims and picks through both Batman movies, finding all sorts of interesting and varied subject matter. He draws on all areas of prior Batman expertise – such as Will Brooker, William Uricchio and Roberta E. Pearson. 

I must confess the whole book even made me look at both Batman Forever and Batman & Robin with renewed respect. I particularly enjoyed the second part of the book which dealt with Joel. I recently have been going through all of Schumacher’s filmography and was delighted to be shown this idea in Neon Knight Forever that there is this unified “trespasser” theme that runs through many of his films (one of his last movies was even called Trespass – how did I miss that). There’s this thinking that Tim Burton was “the artist”, and Joel was a “studio shill” but the book makes great pains to remind us that Joel did have thematic elements that interested him and with these two Batman films he did have a vision – to make a “living comic book”. It might not have been beloved by everyone but there was thought put behind it all. He was not the toy and cartoon and merchandise-obsessed man that a lot of people think he was. 

The book also reminded me of various little moments that I’d filed away and forgotten or outright missed. Such as how, even though the continuity is sketchy at best, Batman & Robin is designed to be a progression from the Burton films. Joel wanted to evolve the character of Bruce Wayne to be in a different place from the beginning of the franchise. I also chuckled at some of the old reviews and comments about both films. Gene Siskel’s review of B&R as a “a sniggering, exhausting, overproduced extravaganza that has virtually all of the humanity pounded out of it in the name of an endless parade of stunt sequences”. In some ways he’s not wrong, there’s times I watch and feel the same way (other times I just go with it and enjoy the "extravaganza" and "endless parade of stunt sequences"). 

The book also compares - or rather brings up comparisons of - Batman & Robin to recent films such as Thor: Love and Thunder and Birds of Prey. The former (which I haven’t seen yet) is an interesting comparison because the Marvel Cinematic Universe for many years has been a success juggernaut yet even I was aware that online fans had roundly eviscerated the fourth Thor movie in similar ways to B&R. Criticising it’s campy, playful, comedic tone. Neon Knight Forever begins by citing MCU boss Kevin Feige talking (in 2009) about B&R being a watermark that “demanded a new way of doing things. It created the opportunity to do X-Men and Spider-Man, adaptations that respected the source material and adaptations that were not campy.” Interesting to see that 14 years later Feige is producing a new campy, comedic superhero movie that goes against these earlier words. Perhaps camp is a necessary outlet that must be brought out every few years – a sort of cyclical event – if nothing else for a bit of variety. Perhaps there is a limit to the public’s appetite for dark, serious superhero movies. Maybe we can't keep telling the same story, with the same tone over and over again.

There really isn’t much I can criticise the book about. I would have loved for it to be a little bit longer. I also would have loved to have seen the book cover a little more on the online reaction to Batman & Robin circa 1997 - I feel it was a watershed moment when the internet started to become infinitely more important in terms of film criticism than newspapers/journals/TV. It democratised film criticism for better and for worse. Ain’t It Cool News’ review of Batman & Robin which drew comparisons of the audience feeling like “survivors of Hiroshima” was - I feel - a lightning rod for comic book fans and set the tone for the next few decades of online film reviews. 

But maybe that’s for part 2. I certainly feel there’s more to be discussed about both these films. And hopefully now Tomasz has broken the seal, others will come forward to give Schumacher’s duology their own analysis. 

I thank Tomasz for writing such an eloquent book, it has given me much to think about and I urge anyone with a passing interest in Batman Forever and/or Batman & Robin to buy a copy.

Click here for a link to Neon Knight Forever

Batman & Robin Merchandise Review - Bane figure from Kenner

If you are more interested in a traditional Bane figure this is the one for you.

Sadly Kenner didn't make him look much like his actual appearance in the film with those sickly green arms and massive skull button on his chest. I guess this was another case of making figures before the costumes were made.

The design seems to be based very much on the comic version (designed by Graham Nolan). I enjoy the little accessories he comes with - the massive metal glove and the weird axe on a rope. Even if you don't like this movie, this is still a good Bane figure to get if you like the character. He fits in quite nicely with the Legends of Batman figures (which didn't get a Bane figure in the line).

Batman & Robin Merchandise Review - Brain vs Brawn figures from Kenner

Very fun two pack of figures here. 

You get a completely chrome Batman which looks fantastic in the light but the real treasure is the bonkers Bane figure. Kenner really went all out on this - coming up with a really fun concept whereby Bane has been seemingly surgically altered to be half made of see through ice and half covered in mutated plant vines. 

As I say in the video, I can't help but be reminded of Jason X even though that film came out 5 years later. This Bane is a definite highlight of the line.

Batman & Robin Merchandise Review - Deluxe Ice Terror Mr Freeze figure from Kenner

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.

Batman & Robin Merchandise Review - Collectable discs from Kelloggs

Quick break from action figures this week to have a look at a weird cereal tie-in with Batman & Robin - these foam discs. At first glance I thought these were Pogs but given there's no hard plastic "slammer" I think they're just a novel alternative to trading cards. These are really easy to find on eBay. Get them if you really want but don't expect them to be a future family heirloom.

Batman & Robin Merchandise Review - Deluxe Blast Wing Batman figure from Kenner

Hope you all had a good Christmas. Back to the Kenner reviews. This week we're looking at Blast Wing Batman - one of the six deluxe figures. 

It's a good Batman figure with a silver paint job and a typically giant backpack with spring out wings. Unlike previous figures that had spring out wings this one focuses more on the wings making a chopping motion. 

The backpack can also double as a hover board (which a lot of other accessories in this toyline could do). It's a nice attempt at adding some versatility but it's still only a middling figure in my view. Not bad but not great either.

Batman & Robin Merchandise Review - Razor Skate Robin figure from Kenner

The suit up sequences were key elements of Schumacher's Batman movies so it's no surprise that Kenner made a couple of figures for both Batman Forever and Batman & Robin that allowed kids to dress up their figures.

Interestingly Razor Skate Robin - a companion figure to Battle Gear Bruce Wayne - goes for a very different approach than Batman Forever's Quick Change Dick Grayson. That figure had a colour changing mask while this one opts for a chunky visor that covers most of Dick's face. 

I think on balance this works best. Robin's mask is so tiny it would be too easily lost if it was smaller. What I can't figure out is why Kenner never tried to do a retractable head like the Batman/Bruce Wayne figures had.

Anyway, I like this figure a lot. For me it's a must have from the line. 

Batman & Robin Merchandise Review - Ambush Assault Batman figure from Kenner

Given that Batman fights Mr Freeze in the film most of Kenner's figures were based around ice or heat. Far fewer were based around him battling Poison Ivy. 

Ambush Attack Batman is one of those rare exceptions. Batman is in some nifty looking green gear (so presumably he's fighting Poison Ivy). The cape pivots at the back of the waist allowing the whole thing to swing up and point two missiles forward.

This is a fun one, I like the cape missile thing - I've not seen that before - but this is maybe not a massively essential purchase... unless you're making a plant themed Batman figure collection and need something to go with Jungle Tracker Batman from the Batman Returns line.

Batman & Robin Merchandise Review - Jungle Venom Poison Ivy figure from Kenner

Sadly Poison Ivy was not best represented in the Kenner action figure line and only received two figures (despite being a major villain). 

The main one was Jungle Venom Poison Ivy - a generic representation of Uma Thurman in a plain green bodysuit. It's a little disappointing. The accessories are kind of fun though. The vines are good at tangling up other figures and the water cannon (a typical Kenner play feature) fits the character's green fingered tendencies. 

I maybe prefer the other Ivy figure (Evil Entrapment Poison Ivy - part of a two pack with Robin) but this figure does have the better accessories. Get either. Get both.

External link: Toy Armada podcast with Aaron Archer

This week I thought it would be a good idea to highlight this great podcast called The Toy Armada. The show is hosted by "Protoman" and features Aaron Archer as its co-host.

Aaron was a toy designer at Kenner and Hasbro for many years starting in 1995 and has some great insights and behind the scenes stories. This episode he covers his work on Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. Give it a listen and subscribe for more episodes.

Behind the Scenes: Mr Freeze make-up transformation

This week we're looking at the make-up transformation of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The combined efforts of make up artist Jeff Dawn, assistant Jim Kail, and hairstylist Peter Tothpal.

I've got to admit the bald cap was pretty seamless on Arnie. Interesting to note the wall of Arnie mouths on the wall. I believe these were applied to Arnie's stunt doubles so that they would closely resemble him.