“ | I am Nature's arm. Her spirit. Her will. Hell, I am Mother Nature and the time has come for plants to take back the world so rightfully ours because IT'S NOT NICE TO FOOL WITH MOTHER NATURE! | „ |
~ Poison Ivy's speech after her transformation. |
Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley, also known as Poison Ivy, is one of the two main antagonists (alongside Mr. Freeze) of the 1997 film Batman & Robin, the fourth installment of Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher's Batman film and comic series.
She formerly worked as a botanist under Dr. Jason Woodrue before he discovered his illegal operations of creating super-soldiers and selling them to criminals and dictators. After that, he tried to kill her by pushing chemicals on her, but instead of dying, the chemicals altered her body and transformed her into Poison Ivy.
She is portrayed by Uma Thurman.
Her Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Her Close To Being Pure Evil?[]
In General[]
- While she starts out with good intentions as a botanist who wants to protect plants from human cruelty, she subverts that eventually after becoming Poison Ivy. She burns down an entire lab full of plants, not caring to even get them to safety, she plans to freeze the entire planet which would kill all plants except for her own bio-engineered toxic plants and in her final scene, she is shown plucking the petals of a flower. Furthermore, she refers to herself as "Mother Nature" and even makes a comment about how it took God seven days to create Paradise and that she wants to see if she can do better which shows that she has a god complex and her actions are not to protect nature but rather to remake the world in her own image, so she can populate it only with creatures bio-engineered by her and to rule over it.
- While she lusts after Mr. Freeze and seems to like him to an extent, her feelings for him are not genuine because once she learns that he has a wife named Nora Fries, who is on life-support, Poison Ivy tries to murder her specifically because she knows it would break Freeze's heart, and then she manipulates him in his grief to try to freeze the whole planet. This shows that she doesn't care about Freeze's feelings and she just lusts after him because she views him as a worthy partner and as someone who could assist her in her goals.
- While the film has a campy tone and Poison Ivy herself acts in a very over the top manner, she is still treated as a serious threat and the story never portrays her as a joke. Her attempt to murder Nora and then manipulate Mr. Freeze to wipe out all life on the planet are portrayed as serious and as a legitimate threat.
- Even though she ends up in a disheveled and maddened state after being attacked by one of her giant flowers and is ultimately imprisoned as Mr. Freeze's cellmate, potentially for life, and Mr. Freeze vows to "make [her] life a living hell", this fate is not framed to elicit sympathy. Instead, it is portrayed as karmic justice and designed for audience satisfaction, given her earlier attempt to wipe out all life on Earth and her effort to kill Nora, which prompted Freeze's retaliation.
Batman & Robin[]
- When she arrives at Gotham's airport with her henchman Bane, she kills a businessman with a poison kiss, has Bane beat up ten security guards to the point they have to be hospitalized, and steals the businessman's limousine.
- She goes to meet with Bruce Wayne and demands from him to stop all business activities that damage the environment and even when she is told this would lead to the deaths of a lot of people, she still demands that it's an acceptable cost. When her proposal is rejected, she starts threatening the people around her about how the plants would eventually take over the world.
- She uses her pheromones to turn Robin and Batman against each other, so she can take them out more easily and remove the only thing which stands in her way.
- She breaks into Arkham Asylum to free Mr. Freeze, so he can help her with her plans and she kills two security guards with a poison kiss and has Bane attack another, so he can break in as well.
- She tries to murder Nora by unplugging her life support just because Poison Ivy lusts after Freeze and wants him all for herself.
- She lies to Freeze that Batman was the one who killed his wife to turn him against him and uses his grief to manipulate him into attempting to freeze all of Gotham and then the whole world to wipe out all life on the planet, so the two of them could rule together over Poison Ivy's bio-engineered toxic plants.
- She lures Robin to her lair and tries to kill him with a poison kiss. When that fails and Batman also shows up, she tries to get them both killed by her plants.
What Prevents Her From Being Pure Evil?[]
- She has moral agency issues because she suddenly changes her personality only after Dr. Woodrue pushes her into the toxic chemicals with which they were experimenting with, and she also comments about having a change of heart immediately afterwards.
- She is slightly tragic because she was once a well-intentioned botanist who wanted to save plants only to discover that her research has been used by Dr. Woodrue for his own criminal activities. Then, Dr. Woodrue attempts to kill Pamela by pushing her into the chemicals and she is transformed into Poison Ivy against her will and gains moral agency issues. However, her Freudian Excuse is only played for sympathy in the beginning and after her transformation into Poison Ivy, it's no longer mentioned in the story and she is not played for sympathy any more.
Trivia[]
- She and Ivy Pepper from Gotham are the only two versions of Poison Ivy to be Near Pure Evil.
- This is the first live-action portrayal of Poison Ivy.
External Links[]
- Poison Ivy on the Villains Wiki
- Poison Ivy on the Batman Wiki
[]
![]() | ||
Comics Other Earths Theatrical Movies Direct-to-video Movies Television Novelizations Video Games See Also |