Ranking Every DC Movie Villain From Worst To Best
30. Poison Ivy - Uma Thurman (Batman & Robin)
Much like Joel Schumacher's take on Mr Freeze, his adaptation of Poison Ivy was a pantomime joke, propped up by an attempt to copy an old, vastly more successful franchise performance.
The transformation of Uma Thurman in Batman & Robin from perpetually terrified, nerdy ecologist into spore-blowing sex kitten is pretty much a mirror of Michelle Pfeiffer's turn in Batman Returns. Only the former is stripped of the gothic context that helped explain the camp and the cartoon vibe is turned up to 11.
Her motivation - to wipe out humanity in favour of plant supremacy - is fine, but her approach (teaming up with a villain who freezes everything and kills organic life) seems ridiculously counter-productive. But then that's all you could expect from this sort of script.
Thurman is undoubtedly a talented actor, but here she's in unrestrained, grand-standing mode, feeling more like a villain out of Adam West's 1966 film than something released thirty years later. And the reimagining of her as Bane's master is just awful for both of them.
Check out Batman & Robin over at Amazon.