In 1997, infamous director Joel Schumacher almost ruined comic books for everyone with the abomination that was “Batman & Robin.”

Not only is the film widely regarded as one of the worst comic book movies of all time, but it also takes the title for one of the worst movies — period. Starring George Clooney as the Dark Knight and Chris O’Donnell as Robin the Boy Wonder, this movie is a mess on just about every single level.

Plot-wise, the film deals with Batman and Robin’s fight against both Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman), but this glosses over so much absurdity. Over the course of this movie, a casual viewer will see the following things: a Batman-themed credit card, the former governor of California making incessant ice puns, enough homoerotic tension to fill “Top Gun” a thousand times over and other mind-boggling things.

While Schumacher’s other Batman film, “Batman Forever” was at least mildly entertaining in its badness, “Batman and Robin” is utterly intolerable. Its bright, flashy colors and sheer cheesiness make it a tough watch — especially now in the post-Christopher Nolan Batman world. It’s hard to pinpoint the biggest problem, but the easiest target is the acting.

Clooney, whose skill at playing suave badasses should have brought a nice performance, is so drearily apathetic about his role that, that he actually manages to be boring. The nicest thing to be said about the rest of the cast is that they aren’t boring, but some of them take a few steps too far in the opposite direction. Schwarzenegger, for instance, has never exactly been a nuanced actor, but his performance as Mr. Freeze is ludicrous. The writing doesn’t help as approximately half of his dialogue is puns based on the bottomless well of comedy that is ice. Some highlights include Schwarzenegger asking himself rhetorically, “What killed the dinosaurs? And then answering himself back, emphatically, “The Ice Age!” Reel it in a bit Arnold, please.

He is joined in his villainy by Thurman, whom you may recognize as a highly talented actress from excellent films like “Kill Bill,” “Pulp Fiction” and some other things Quentin Tarantino did not direct. But her performance here shows that even good actresses need good directors in order to succeed.

Thurman’s attempt at playing a sultry villainess is not only wildly out of place when compared to the actual character of Poison Ivy, but it’s also shockingly awful. Her line reads sound like she’s reciting off a teleprompter, and they’re riddled with cliches as well. When she is defeated in a fight she shouts “curses,” a line so tired that it will tempt the viewer to time travel back to 1997 and throttle the screenwriter for being such an idiot.

Thanks to the recent glut of actually good superhero movies, “Batman and Robin” continues to look more and more pitiful. Poorly acted, poorly directed and poorly shot, let’s just say there’s a reason George Clooney infamously released an apology for this travesty.