When it comes to crime fighting duos, there can only be one: Batman and Robin. Although featured in DC comics over the years, it probably wasn’t until the classic 1960’s Batman TV series, featuring Adam West as Bruce Wayne and Burt Ward as Dick Grayson, that the pair became a crime-fighting institution.

It’s curious then that Batman’s sidekick has been mainly missing from his big screen outings, with one exception, the two films directed by Joel Schumacher, with this second one even seeing a name check for the boy wonder in its title.

Gotham finds itself once again under attack, this time by new enemy Mr Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who is on a crime spree stealing all the diamonds in the city he can.

Learning of his intentions are Bruce Wayne (George Clooney) and his young ward Dick Grayson (Chris O’Donnell), AKA Batman and Robin. They protect the city and quickly put Mr Freeze out of action. Or so they think, as they aren’t aware of yet another foe, rising from the cracks in the pavement in the shapely form of Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman) who has her own evil agenda.

One of the most derided entries in the long-running franchise is Schumacher’s duo – both his films and his crime-fighting protagonists. And it’s easy to see why. His take is certainly more garish, with a camp kitsch visual style throughout, often resembling an underground German fetish party, with its warehouse settings and strobing neon lights. In that respect his films more than any of the others pay homage to the original TV show, which probably wasn’t what its audience was after at the time.

And although it’s probably the complete end of the spectrum to Christopher Nolan’s gritty trilogy, its cabaret approach to crime fighting has a certain charm today. The only thing it’s really missing is a big musical number, which you wouldn’t put past Schumacher contemplating at the time.

There is also a familiarity of having the dark knight and his trusty sidekick, and Clooney and O’Donnell don’t do anything wrong per se, only what’s asked of them, which is the real issue here; there’s no sense of menace with the one-liners flying left, right and centre, making it a more comical approach to fighting crime.

Its story and script might not be up to much 27 years later – but that was the case on release too – but it has to be said that there’s a pleasing spectacle to this entry, with no denying that this Batman and Robin put on a hellava show.