THE STORY OF DRUNKEN MASTER (1979)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

In 1978 Jackie Chan catapulted to worldwide fame thanks to his breakthrough hit DRUNKEN MASTER, in which his protagonist, despite initial reluctance, learns the "drunken fist" style of his master Beggar So (Simon Yuen) and so conquers his enemy.

Since this film-- also known as DRUNKEN FIST BOXING-- cast Yuen in a role with the same name and appearance, there's not much question that he was selected to coast on the fame of the Jackie Chan film. But maybe the producers feared some legal reprisal if they followed the template too closely, for there's only a minute or so of drunken boxing, and that comes at the very end, from a supporting character.

The main characters are a brother and sister, Chi Wai (Casanova Wong) and Gam Fa (Yeung Pan Pan, who are perpetually training under their aged master Beggar So. I think Chi runs a pawn shop while Gam performs an acrobatic act at a local saloon, so they don't have any heroic motives for their training. So is seen imbibing wine a few times but not teaching any drunk-fu. 

However, So has an enemy from an earlier encounter, a nasty martial arts master named Bill Chan. Chan wants to humiliate So by attacking his students, and one of Chan's pupils wants to get busy with Gam. So most of the film concerns a series of peripatetic conflicts, though not that many full-fledged battles. One comic scene, for example, involves Gam "accidentally" inflicting small injuries on her unwanted suitor. However, because the suitor has money, Gam's dick of a father encourages her to marry him. 

The meandering plot is of no consequence, and the only good fighter by my reckoning is the athletic Yeung Pan Pan. The actress never had a major breakout success in old-style kung fu films, but became somewhat better known in the Hong Kong "girls with guns" genre. The minute or so of drunk-fighting comes courtesy of a third So-student, Ah Chong, who drinks So's wine and briefly confounds Bill Chan in the big end-fight-- though Gam and Chi are the ones who earn the real victory. A couple of times fighters use weighted ribbons or belts as weapons, but there's no uncanny effect and so they register only as naturalistic.

HEY, THERE, IT'S YOGI BEAR! (1964)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

I saw this YOGI BEAR movie in general release, just as I did THE MAN CALLED FLINTSTONE, but even as a kid, I had more pleasant memories of the latter cartoon-film. I knew both franchises from their TV incarnations, but I don't remember having a lot of regard for Yogi in any version. He was pleasant, "comfy-couch" entertainment, historically significant for being Hanna-Barbera's first breakout TV character, far more recognizable than Huckleberry Hound or Ruff 'n Reddy.

I'm not going to relate the plot at all. Like many of the TV episodes, the movie's action hinges on the vaguely parental relationship between the impulsive "not as smart as he thinks he is" bruin and Ranger Smith, the voice of authority in Jellystone Park. There's a subplot in which Cindy Bear hopes to tame Yogi's wastrel ways and mold him into a proper boyfriend. But no one will be surprised to learn that though Yogi does reciprocate Cindy's feelings, nothing about the status quo changes-- though it certainly COULD have, since the TV cartoon had ended two years previous. Oh, and Yogi's perennial sidekick Boo Boo is in there, but he only gets to do a few slapstick-routines. In short, Yogi's scheming tendencies cause Cindy to get sent from the park to a zoo, but on the way she ends up forced to perform in a cheapjack circus. Yogi rescues her and then he himself must be corralled back at Jellystone.

There are only two interesting facets of the picayune story. One is the movie's only good musical number, a jazzy little ditty called "St. Louis," which I still recall enjoying from my kid-viewing. The other is that HEY THERE includes an embryonic version of Dick Dastardly and Muttley of WACKY RACES fame, in the form of the crooked circus-owner Grifter Chizzling and his dog Mugger. Voice actor Don Messick had done one or two "snickering dog" characters prior to HEY THERE. Yet it seems to me that the credited writers for this film-- one Warren Foster as well as the titular producers Hanna and Barbera-- really came up with the winning combination of characters. Of course, no one would remember Grifter and Mugger if they hadn't been recycled into two far superior comic villains. But that's what makes, uh, cartoon races.

SPIDER-MAN; ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (2023)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

Unlike the majority of moviegoers, I found INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE rather predictable, so I didn't bother to see the sequel in the theater. Ironically, aside from one giant demerit, ACROSS is a much more entertaining film than INTO. I notice that though there's one writer who worked on both scripts, there were two new scripters involved with ACROSS-- which has much funnier dialogue, for one thing. (An early scene, in which Spider-Gwen fights a variant Vulture, includes some humorous stuff about the subjectivity of art that may be intended to comment on the movie's own status.) There was still far too much of Miles' family, but at least even they had a few laugh-lines.

Though Miles Morales gets the lion's share of attention once again, there's more focus on his interaction with Spider-Gwen, while most of the other Spider-variants play subordinate roles, including the most virtue-signally one, "Jessica Drew as Black Pregnant Spider-Woman." The confusion of continuities from INTO continues here, but with a greater sense of consequence. Spider-Gwen, Miles learns, has been inducted into a dimension-spanning "Spider Society" oriented on preventing temporary abnormalities. Trouble is, to ride herd on the right running of time, they must sometimes let innocents die. 

The whole "preservation of time" trope is nothing new, and ACROSS' script doesn't bring that much conviction to the theme. But the action is much better executed this time, once more supporting the dictum that animated superheroes will always be able to do things that their live-action "variants" cannot. And nothing proves this better than the villain. Whereas INTO was boring in its choice of providing variations of the most famous Spider-foes, ACROSS took a fairly minor rogue, The Spot (Jonathan Schwartzmann) and made him a visual delight.

Those who have seen the film will easily guess the "big demerit" I mentioned: it's a Part One without having advertised as much. I tend to doubt that there's enough of a story here to justify a Part Two, and I think it likely that the filmmakers just got intoxicated with all the neat things they could do with crazy-ass Spider-continuities. Or maybe they realized that in the last couple of years, the only superhero franchises that have remained strong have been those of Batman and Spider-Man-- and they want to reap what rewards they can from the Spider-franchise, lest even that one go the way of all celluloid.

SUPERMAN: BRAINIAC ATTACKS (2006)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*

This DTV animated film used a number of the same voice actors from SUPERMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES, but it's not "in continuity" with that show. Like the live-action film of the same year, it presumes that Superman has been tilting with Lex Luthor for some time and, additionally, that both of them have encountered Brainiac in previous incursions. 

Perhaps because the writers, unlike the director of ATTACKS, had not worked on the aforementioned series, they were able to tap into an aspect of the Superman mythology that the TV show neglected. And that aspect had nothing to do with the Man of Steel's rogues' gallery, but with his on-again, off-again involvement with ace reporter Lois Lane, a subject the teleseries tended to avoid.

Happily, though the DTV was released to profit from the same-year debut of Bryan Singer's problematic SUPERMAN RETURNS, the script here sticks to the classic triangle-conflict. Lois is gaga over the Man of Steel, but can't see Clark Kent for dust. Clark wants Lois to love the Smallville part of him, not just the Kryptonian heritage, and much of his conflict revolves around trying to decide if he'll confess his true nature.

Luthor, ever motivated by envy and spite, seeks to one-up the superhero with a new defensive satellite-system. The system backfires when Brainiac makes a return visit to Earth and takes control of it, forcing Superman to fight both the computer-criminal and Luthor's machines. After the Man of Steel bashes Brainiac to bits, Luthor manages to swipe one of the evildoer's components. Later he reconstitutes Brainiac with the idea of having the knowledge-hungry machine kill off Superman and promote the idea that Luthor has become humankind's new savior. 

Of course things don't go well for Luthor's plan, and in the crossfire between Brainiac and Superman, Lois is bombarded by deadly radiation. Thus the hero's main goal shifts from the protection of humanity to finding a cure for one human, which necessitates his entering the Phantom Zone.

The Zone sequence is too short and underdeveloped, but once Superman's back in the real world, the animators go all out in showing the three-way battle between the invulnerable hero, the computer in a huge battle-mecha, and Luthor in a mechanical battle-suit. I can't be sure, but I got the sense that the animators were trying to come up with action-scenes good enough to rival the best from the old Fleischer cartoons of the forties, with far more attention to kineticism than one sees in other Superman DTV films.

To the writers' credit, the melodrama of the triangle is played out nicely without upsetting the status quo-- and no, of course Lois does not die. Perry White and Jimmy Olsen both provide above-average support-scenes, with Jimmy distinguishing himself by managing to defeat (though not exactly out-fight) Luthor's female guard-dog Mercy Graves. ATTACKS stands as one of the better efforts in the world of Superman cartoons.

SEVEN NUNS IN KANSAS CITY (1972)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Getting the phenomenality matters attended to first: in the opening scenes two prospectors are riding on their mules, and the mules talk to each other. I think the miners understand them, but the sequence is so short I rate it just a minor deviation from consensual reality.

As for the rest of this comedy-western-- right in the tradition of the knockabout slapstick flicks that the Italians prize so much-- the real puzzle is not, why is it bad, but why isn't it bad in the usual way?

Knockabout comedies only require a loose, often goofy premise that provides ample opportunities for various heroes and villains to get into big honking fights. A toss-off flick like THE STORY OF KARATE, FISTS AND BEANS may be formally bad, but it was bad in the way its audience wanted it to be bad, and so that's an accomplishment of sorts.

NUNS has the simple premise. After one of the old sourdoughs gets killed in what is supposed to a funny manner, the other discovers gold and makes a map of the location. Somehow two separate outlaw gangs start looking for the map. I forget how the crooks get the idea that two roving cowboys-- coded gay, because they wear pastel-colored shirts-- possess the desired item. The rhinestone cowboys go on the run. All of this setup is standard for this type of film.

Up to the first big slapstick set-piece, the film has been slow, but not without incident. The gay guys seek sanctuary in a Catholic convent, inhabited by something like a dozen nuns. One outlaw gang follows their quarry into the convent, and a fight erupts between the outlaws and the nuns. Apart from the usual comedy antics, like hitting the outlaws with clubs and fruits, the nuns are fairly beefy women and use their fists pretty well. The fight lasts about six minutes, which might some sort of record for female-male fights, at least in Italian cinema. 

And then the gay guys run off, the outlaws chase them, and seven of the nuns give pursuit-- and nothing happens.

Or rather, most of the same things happen, lots of shots of people riding around, one or two scenes of people shooting at each other, and no more slapstick combat. That's what I mean about the film not being bad in a way its prospective audience would have wanted, because it looks like a knockabout comedy, but it barely is one. Oh, and the two swish-kabobs end up dressing like women and joining a dance-hall to escape their pursuers, The End.

Calling them "swish-kabobs" is specifically directed to the types the actors portray, for the two cowboys are swish-types all the way, possessed of no other characteristics. Yet, while one might expect a 1973 comedy to toss out a lot of demeaning jokes, NUNS really does not do that, any more than it makes the two guys-- the default stars of the show-- admirable in any way either. It's the most neutral depiction of gay characters I've ever seen.

Though production values look reasonably high, I knew none of the actors. I theorize, for what little it matters, that director Marcello Zeani-- who has only one other credit on IMDB-- was just handed a certain amount of money with which to take a crew to the Italian countryside and shoot enough footage to make a quickie release. And if it weren't for the ambivalent blessings of streaming TV, this mostly dull farrago would never have crossed my path.

THE HERMAN-HENRY CARTOONS (1944-46)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

On broadcast TV, I had never seen the Famous Studios character of Herman the Mouse except in shorts where he tormented his partner-in-enmity Katnip the Cat, and even as  a kid I didn't have a high opinion of them. But it was a (very minor) revelation when I learned today that Herman made his 1944 debut partnered with a far more obscure continuing character, Henry the Henpecked Rooster.

HENPECKED ROOSTER sets up the standard Tough Wife scenario. Henry's a small, scrawny rooster, and his much bigger wife Chicken Pie can easily bully him into doing her home-chores. Then Herman the Mouse sashays in, and the Tough Wife screams for her hubby to get rid of the revolting rodent. Henry catches Herman in a cage (an important detail not here, but in the NEXT cartoon), but Herman talks fast, convincing Henry that he can rule the roost (heh) if he keeps Herman around and keeps Chicken Pie at arm's length. Once Chicken Pie figures out what's going on, she writes a letter to a "Mrs. Mouse." Minutes later, while Herman and Henry are celebrating their victory, Mrs. Mouse shows up and drags Herman away to his own marital hell. Chicken Pie winds up to massacre Henry, but he escapes, and dons a mouse costume, scaring her again. Yet a hungry cat renders Henry's triumph nugatory.

SCRAPPILY MARRIED is almost a remake of HENPECKED, but this time Famous flashes a still showing Henry and Herman together in-frame, to indicate they're partners, though they seem to be meeting again for the first time. The main difference is that this time, Chicken Pie strikes back again the bonded males by dressing up in a cat costume. Herman sees through the charade and scares the Tough Wife away once more. But her next foray consists of getting a real cat to go after Herman. While Herman's busy with the feline, Chicken Pie once again almost massacres Henry. However, that mousetrap-cage is still around from the last cartoon, allowing Herman to entrap the cat and once more scare Chicken Pie away.

The final cartoon in the series, "Sudden Fried Chicken," is Herman and Henry's last original story. Herman sees a poster advertising a cash reward for anyone able to survive a full round with a burly boxing rooster, name of Hogan. The avaricious mouse thinks that if anyone's built up endurance to pain, it's Henry, and indeed, when Herman seeks out the happy couple's roots, he finds Chicken Pie slapping Henry around as usual (while making the expected jokes about her being a weak woman). Herman scares the Horrid Hen away and somehow talks Henry into getting into the ring, with the promise that if Henry wins, he'll be able to go around canoodling with hot chicks (meaning young hens this time). 

Boxer Hogan spends more than a minute of this seven-minute cartoon using Henry as a punching-bag. And as the laws of comedy dictate, it's only after Henry gets beat to a pulp that Herman finally pulls a cheat so that Hogan is knocked out. Nonetheless, Henry recovers in no time and the two friends celebrate with beer and skinny young hens. Then Chicken Pie shows up. Herman's presence scares her away, but from a distance she manages to knock him out of the room, so she can have some "alone time" with Henry. She spends far less time than Hogan did in slaughtering Henry with punches and clubbings, but she may be stronger than the boxer, because after her pummeling, the battered rooster ends up in the local hospital. While Herman visits him, the mouse brags about having clobbered Hogan-- who is of course in the next bed. Still, the short wraps up with Herman clobbering the boxer again, and the two buddies run off into the sunset. The duo may not be able to permanently cancel the power of a termagant wife, but at least they can get away from her.

"Sudden" was Henry's last rodeo, but Herman started getting solo cartoons the same year, 1946. And thus when the rotten rodent was teamed up with a prototypical version of Katnip (who had also appeared elsewhere) in 1947's NAUGHTY BUT MICE), this was a crossover of sorts-- which I'll discuss a little more in my "Crossover Madness" series.

THE ONE (2001)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*

A lot of modern film-critics hate the concept of multiverses as popularized by the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But seven years before IRON MAN, James Wong's THE ONE got there first-- sort of. Wong and writing-partner Glen Morgan, who'd done mostly TV episode work in the nineties, don't really use the concept of a multiverse as anything but a near-infinite hunting-ground for their villain Yulaw (Jet Li)-- and a way of motivating the evildoer's struggle against the hero (also Li).

The strucure of THE ONE is suspiciously similar to the franchise HIGHLANDER, which arguably became more noteworthy as a TV show than as a movie series. The immortals of that franchise went around killing one another in order to reap the power of those slain. In Yulaw's case, he has some metaphysical connection with every other doppelganger of himself in the multiverse, and when he jaunts to other dimensions and kills a version of himself there, his kung fu becomes more powerful. Dimension-protecting agents Rodecker and Funsch (Delroy Lindo, Jason Statham) finally track down Yulaw after he's killed 123 other self-reflections, and now there's only one left, Gabe Law of Los Angeles. Predictably, Yulaw gets free and invades the Earth-dimension.

There's a lot of running around and shooting until the film gets around between the Battle of the Two Lis, and Wong's direction is pedestrian, like the script. Wikipedia notes that the original star was projected to be Dwayne Johnson, and the substitution of Li in the two roles proves at least a moderate improvement. Because Li unlike Johnson is a martial performer, this obliged the script to distinguish the two foes on the basis of martial style, with Yulaw using aggressive, thrusting moves while Gabe uses more organic, cyclical stratagems. The film's ending stresses that Yulaw ends up in a hell of eternal battle while Gabe gets a new chance at love.

The film's most amusing moments are Jason Statham's scenes. Throughout the movie he painfully affects a neutral accent in place of his usual distinctive British lilt. He gets absolutely no chance to show off his own fighting skills in THE ONE, and even gets kicked around by Yulaw. This proves ironic since the two performers are situated as equal martial masters in the 2007 Statham-Li vehicle WAR. One year later, Statham broke out as a headliner in the first entry in the TRANSPORTER series, and I suspect THE ONE is one role he'd like to forget.

CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT, one of three films to emerge from the short-lived Fangoria Films production company, was also the third directorial effort from Tony Randel of HELLBOUND fame. Randel also co-wrote the screenplay though an author named Nicholas Falacci seems to have been responsible for the original story.

NIGHT is distinguished by a number of striking visual scenarios, some of which have strong mythopoeic content, but with too little story to weave them all together. Essentially, the concept is akin to Stephen King's 1975 'SALEM'S LOT, in which a small American town is overtaken by a vampire infestation, though the script for NIGHT is fuzzy about what brought the state of affairs about.

The proximate source of the infestation is Czakyr, a Rumanian vampire who somehow ended up in the Middle American town of Allberg. He had previously killed 400 victims, mostly kids, which makes me wonder if Falacci had read something about the real-life mass murderer Gilles de Rais. Many years previous he was either hiding in or caught in the crypt of a local church, and someone-- possibly a mysterious character played by Garrett Morris?-- somehow caused the church to get flooded, so that Czakyr became immobilized at the bottom of this "watery grave." However, two girls, Cindy and Lucy (Maya McLaughlin, Ami Dolenz) take it into their heads to go swimming in the flooded crypt one night, with references to the practice being a standard "rite of passage" for Allberg teens. Lucy drops her crucifix in the water and it sinks to strike and revive Czakyr. Lucy escapes the revived bloodsucker but he turns Cindy into one of the undead. Lucy goes into hiding while Czakyr implicitly vampirizes many though not everyone in the town, possibly with help from Cindy, who probably infects her mother Karen (Karen Black). 

In a neighboring town earnest young teacher Mark (Peter DeLuise) is seen counseling a young female student with a passion for horror stories. She's never seen again, after which Mark is summoned to Allberg by a Catholic priest named Father Frank (Evan McKenzie). Mark and Frank knew each other in seminary school, which Mark left to pursue teaching, but Frank more or less inducts Mark into becoming a full-time Van Helsing. Frank can't do it because he's got Karen and Cindy confined to a room, the latter submerged in a bath for some reason. So Mark is charged with locating Lucy. The young woman is the story's "virtuous Mina," the one that "Dracula" takes his time pursuing. She's also a virgin, which makes her desirable to Czakyr for some reason.

I'll pass over the other events of the story, because it's mostly lots of running around and vamp-stabbing until the climax, in which Mark manages to slay the king-vampire largely by dumb luck. The script, in addition to failing to explains lots of hows and wherefores, suffers from many jarring tonal changes, mostly from injecting lame moments of humor. I suspect Randel and his collaborators were told to yuk things up to court the perceived Fangoria audience, but there's no way to know. Morris' character, seemingly a delirious drunk, becomes one of the defenders of Allberg, and in the wrapup he suddenly sheds his alkie persona and becomes a well-dressed mover and shaker-- I guess because someone thought that was funny.

The mythicity of NIGHT probably wouldn't have been more than fair even without all the bad jokes, though. There's an interesting parallel between the vampire-lord who wants to turn Lucy (note the name) into his vampire bride, and Mark, who, while becoming her protector, is also incorrectly pegged, twice, as her boyfriend. And in one of those two scenes, Lucy's expression suggests she thinks she could do worse. But the story might have been more solid had the main hero been Father Frank, who's deeply guilty about his own transgressions. It seems Karen was the wife of Frank's now deceased brother, and that the two of them slept together while Frank's sibling was still alive. Thus Frank, a paternal priest, becomes a substitute husband/father to Karen and her daughter, and in a more ambitious scenario he might have been forced to atone for past sins by destroying a truly monstrous sinner. But Frank simply gets fanged by Vampire Karen and that's the end of the most interesting part of CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT.

CURSE OF THE DEMON (1957)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

It's been years since I read M.R. James' classic short ghost story "Casting the Runes," and I chose not to read it again before reviewing CURSE OF THE DEMON. But I remember enough of the story to state that the movie-script should be a prime example of how to expand a short story into a feature-film structure.

Of necessity, the James story merely sketches out the basic conflict. Black magician Karswell inflicts a supernatural curse on an unbelieving victim via a parchment bearing "runes," but this modern-day wizard becomes the target of the demonic forces he unleashes. Though the story has a slight touch of "maybe it was just coincidence Karswell died" ambivalence, few readers are likely to believe the rationalistic explanation.

Director Jacques Tourneur and writers Charles Bennett and Hal Chester upped the stakes of the original story, so that it become a pronounced struggle between the rationalistic, scientific view of the world and an endorsement of archaic supernaturalism. The movie's viewpoint character becomes an American debunker of the supernatural, Dr. John Holden (played by fifty-something Dana Andrews), and though this exigency was probably a move to court the American film market, it has the effect of making the conflict more global in nature. 

While Holden is flying to Britain to attend a conference of superstition-debunkers (or something like that), a British professor, one Harrington, perishes due to having irritated occultist Julian Karswell (Niall McGinnis) with negative press. In quick succession Holden, who has also criticized Karswell in print, meets both Karswell and Joanna (Peggy Cummins), the bereaved niece of Harrington. Both are believers in the occult, and Holden regards their ideas as childish and un-scientific.

Strictly speaking, Joanna's not necessary to the story, but she adds some tension, constantly trying to persuade Holden of the truth to prevent a repeat of her uncle's fate. The script adds other characters who are also focused upon helping Holden in spite of his rationalistic myopia, but the most consequential is Karswell's own mother, who is apparently aware of her son's iniquities and wishes to prevent another curse-crime.

I won't dilate on the many events that take place to convert Holden to the magical worldview, or on the strategy Holden uses to divert the curse back upon its author. But I'm often puzzled by the stories of back-stage quarrels about how explicit to make the magical threat. I understand that, as in the short story, the movie script wants some ambivalence so that an unwitting public will judge the deaths of the cursed men as mere coincidence. But to the viewing audience, the script is selling the idea that the occult is real, beginning with the opening shots of mystery-laden Stonehenge. DEMON would make absolutely no sense if the rationalistic explanation was as believable as the supernatural one. There are films that can get away with this, to be sure. But even if someone had excised the scenes of visible demons from the film, as director Tourneur reportedly wished, no viewer watching the film would have believed that Holden's rational worldview had in any way prevailed.

Andrews and Cummins are both good in their leading roles, but without doubt McGinnis gives the star turn here. The character in the short story is barely more than a stereotype, but the Karswell of DEMON is a more rounded character, displaying a childish pettiness that offsets his formidable magical skills. The only weakness in the script re: Karswell is that he's supposedly the head of some vaguely Satanic cult. Said cult is only talked about, and thus this proves an unnecessary distraction to the main struggle between science and magic.

NUDE ON THE MOON (1961)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I've yet to see a "nudie film" from the genre's heyday that's impressed me, but I suppose NUDE ON THE MOON at least stands out from the pack in being a memorably dumb idea.

I suspect NUDE was one of the last movies to depict two private citizens organizing and funding a moon-voyage out of their personal resources, as do older scientist Dr Nichols and his protege Jeff. There's a risible moment in which Jeff explains that he can fund the trip because his uncle left him three million dollars, though admittedly this would have meant a lot more in 1961 dollars. As a point of comparison, even the first issue of THE FANTASTIC FOUR, published in the same year as NUDE, had scientist Reed Richards construct a moon-vessel for the American military, which he and his friends promptly swiped to make sure Americans got to the lunar orb first.

But there are no political motives for the scientists to go moon-hopping; it's all about the research. Jeff is so into the project that he ignores the attentions of his brunette secretary Cathy.

The voyage is accomplished in jig time, and Jeff and Nichols find themselves on a moon full of verdant fields and, well, a colony of nudist males and females with antennae growing from their skulls. I think the antennae gave them all telepathic powers, though the brunette queen (played by one Marietta, the same actress playing Cathy) does all the communicating. Jeff and Nichols galumph around a while, studying the natives, but co-writer/co-director Doris Wishman supplies no conflict until it's time for the nutty astronauts to go home. Jeff's fallen in love with the Queen, so that Nichols has to drag him (non-violently of course) back to the ship. They go home without incident, with Jeff still bedazzled with the Queen. However, though Jeff wants to go back again, he becomes entranced with Cathy because she suggests a tie between earthly concerns and lunar fascination.

The one interesting note in the script is that a couple of times Nichols theorizes that they may have accidentally flown to some other planet, rather than the reportedly barren satellite of Earth. There's no pseudoscience offered to explain how this might have happened, probably because science had yet to theorize "black holes" into existence. But the one or two sociological touches in NUDE don't compensate for its being "bare" in terms of entertainment.

HIS NAME WAS HOLY GHOST (1972)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

In all likelihood HOLY GHOST (in Italian, the name of the featured character is "Spirito Santo") came about when star Gianni Garko got together with director Giuliano Camimeo in an attempt to duplicate the box-office success of the Sartana films. Garko had appeared as that gunfighter in all but the last of that five-film series, while Camimeo had directed all but the first one. At the very least, the attire of GHOST's hero-- I'll call him "Spirito" to avoid over-using the English term-- was a conscious distancing from the black-clad Sartana by having Spirito dress in dominantly white clothes. To be sure, there's a comedic moment where a character who appears to know Spirito from a previous acquaintance uses the name "Harold" for the hero. But since Spirito is a trickster, this could be as illusory as anything else about the protagonist.

Without delving too deeply into the complicated history of the Christian term "Holy Ghost," I would say its strongest connotation is that it is a holy power mediating between God in Heaven and the mortal body of Christ, and its separateness from Jesus is demonstrated in the dove that descends to Christ at his baptism. Camimeo of course was making a violent spaghetti western, not a meditation on Christian cosmology. But he and his scripters include a lot of religious allusions into GHOST, and one of the most notable is that much of the time Spirito walks around with a dove on his shoulder. (In a comic aside, he calls it a pigeon.)

Like Sartana, Spirito seems to be primarily a gambler, and he comes to the Mexican town Morelos because he won a gold mine off a poker-cheat whom Spirito had to kill-- *maybe* in self-defense. Yet when he makes his entry into Morelos, Camimeo exploits the impression that Spirito is a savior-figure. A detachment of cruel soldiers, working for the revolutionary General Ubarte, abuses the citizens of Morelos, and it just so happens that the twelve officers are seen seated a table in a clear parody of Da Vinci's "Last Supper." Spirito enters, claiming that the soldiers ought to be washing the peasants' feet, and blasts all the bad officers to hell.

He does so, however, with motives of greed, because he thinks the old rulers of Morelos can help him locate his new gold mine. He's told that Ubarte's authority is too strong to challenge. Spirito journeys to another city, where Ubarte administers his rule, and asks for permission to mine for gold. Ubarte informs the gringo stranger that the rumor of gold is just a "dream to make the nightmare of life easier" and denies his petition. Soon Ubarte learns that Spirito killed several of his men and sends an execution squad. Spirito uses a unique gimmick-- a series of mirrors sewn in the inner lining of his coat-- to blind the gunmen and then kill them.

A passionate young woman, Juana (Pilar Velasquez), sees Spirito as the leader of a revolution, though he shows no interest in such political affairs. He does ally himself with Juana's people with the goal of getting rid of Ubarte, and to that end he enlists the help of an old colleague, the burly Chicken (Chris Huerta). He still appears to be seeking information on the location of the mine, but by the latter part of the film it's evident Spirito is really focused on "mining" a store of gold in the hands of the corrupt Ubarte.

The Christian allusions become much less evident in the middle part of the film, but they ramp up in the last third when Spirito unveils his "Trojan horse" for penetrating Ubarte's defenses. Granted, the hero's summoning of a passel of prostitutes doesn't accord with Jesus's attempt to redeem harlots from their sinful ways. But the script for GHOST is nevertheless having fun by juxtaposing the high rhetoric of religion with all sorts of earthly pleasures. 

There is a lot of comedy in the film, including one impossible stratagem-- Chicken creates explosive eggs by feeding real hens dynamite-- but I'd still term GHOST a light-hearted adventure, because it's more about the invigoration of spectacular combat than humorous setups. The end scene depends in part upon the "Trojan prostitutes" smuggling in male rebels dressed as women. Yet the females clobber more soldier-boys than do the men, including Spirito. This more or less makes up for the fact that Juana, despite her fiery temper, is just another damsel in distress. Ubarte-- whose best line has him gloating that the peasants will never revolt without intellectuals to lead them-- is slain by Spirito. There's a last minute confrontation with some lesser villains who try ripping off Spirito's filthy lucre, which allows him one last "holy" trick. Like most spaghetti heroes, Spirito's main goal is monetary, to be the guy who gets the gold in the end. But indirectly, his selfishness redeems a whole city and puts at least some gold back into the building of a church. So, in what may be rare occurrence in Euro-westerns, good works are accomplished by the acts of a sinner.

STEEL (1997)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Though I hadn't seen STEEL since the nineties, and barely remembered it, I wanted to like it. I mean, I was fairly sure that it was at best mediocre. But I didn't get the sense that it was mediocre because it was slammed together by a bunch of Hollywood hacks coasting on a superhero project, like the Schumacher BATMANs, the second nineties TURTLES movie, and almost every MCU movie after AVENGERS ENDGAME.

Like most of the viewing public, I had no burning need to see an adaptation of DC's STEEL comics franchise. The character, introduced during the "Death of Superman" sequence, was good-hearted super-scientist John Henry Irons. Seeing a need for a new superhero in Metropolis, he formulated a suit of armor, a weaponized super-hammer, and a persona loosely based on the "John Henry" folklore character, calling himself "Steel." I never followed the DC title, and it was never overly popular, so that for the most part Steel's history is comprised of guest-star spots in other heroes' titles.

Yet I must admit that STEEL is at least true to its source material, and its opening signals the sort of flatly virtuous liberalism I've come to expect from the TV-work of writer-director Kenneth Johnson. I still esteem Johnson for the hours of enjoyment I derived from his FUGITIVE-themed reworking of THE INCREDIBLE HULK (even though said program was NOT true to its source). But with STEEL, I felt Johnson straining to find some way to make this minor superhero more significant than he was then, or could ever be.

Since STEEL the film has nothing to do with the Superman mythos, Johnson built up a minor motif from the comics-hero's origin. In the comic Irons faked his death to keep a weapon he engineered out of the wrong hands. In the movie script, Irons (Shaquille O'Neal) is an officer in the U.S. forces, seeking to perfect an energy weapon that will incapacitate victims without killing them. He works with a fellow engineer, Susan Sparks (Annabelle GIsh), and the two are prepared to demonstrate their device for the high command. But scheming officer Burke (Judd Nelson) alters the weapon's setting in some weird delusion that his alteration will reflect well on him. Instead the weapon blows up and puts Sparks in a wheelchair. Burke is discharged from the army but simply turns his talent for destruction to the private sector.

For some reason Irons also leaves the army, but his past follows him, as robbers use variations on his invention to pull holdups. Of course Burke is responsible, empowering minor thugs as an audition of his wares for dictators and terrorists. Irons decides to fight back as Steel, and he enlists both the wheelchair-bound Sparks and civilian scientist Uncle Joe (Richard Roundtree) to work as his backup. After Steel has various engagements with various thugs, he also falls afoul of the cops and other contrivances by Burke.

Surprisingly, even though O'Neal is clearly out of his depth in the acting department, he's not the movie's biggest shortcoming. Arguably, Judd Nelson, a proven actor, makes a lousy villain-role even worse with his mugging. The biggest problem, though, is the lack of decent FX. Even in the late nineties, the budget of $17 million was not enough to mount the sort of eye-popping visuals audiences had come to expect since the 1989 BATMAN. I speculate that Johnson, having honed his craft on TV budgets, had the notion that he could just skate his way into the big time on a wing and a prayer. (To be fair, he had directed the second SHORT CIRCUIT theatrical film on a budget similar to that of STEEL.) All of the action scenes look incredibly clunky, and the dialogue is not much better. Once in a while, a scene almost comes alive, as when Irons invades the space of a self-pitying Sparks and more or less forces her to join his merry band, which is of course exactly what she really needs. But there are no surprises in the pedestrian script, which seems to be begging audiences, "Love Me," rather than doing anything to earn that love. 

Could another writer have done something better with the Steel character by building on the folklore of John Henry, "the steel-drivin' man," rather than focusing on dull crap about weapons-brokers? Hard to say. Yet because there's something of a dopey good-heartedness about STEEL, it still wouldn't make my list of even the 100 worst superhero movies. (Worst five hundred-- yeah, probably.)

STARGIRL,SEASON TWO (2021)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

Late in Season Two, Shiv/Cindy (Meg DeLacy) asserts, "You have to do bad to fight evil." Given that's she's meant to stand as a dark reflection of linchpin hero Stargirl (Brec Bassinger), it's a given that Shiv will be proven wrong.

As it happens, one of the reasons for the downfall of the original Justice Society was because they bought into the logic of "the end justifies the means." Before the ISA-battle that took most of the heroes' lives, they encountered the menace of Eclipso, an incarnation of pure evil only able to operate on Earth through a human pawn. (The original comics-conception for Eclipso was sort of "what if Doctor Jekyll transformed into an insidious master villain every night?") The majority of the superheroes are faced with a relentless monster willing to kill all of the heroes' loved ones for spite, and become convinced that the only way to end the menace is to kill the monster's host. A minority of the heroes oppose the slaying of an innocent, including both Stargirl's stepfather Stripesy (Luke Wilson) and Doctor Mid-Nite, the crusader whom Beth Chapel (Anjelika Washington) takes as her model. 

As it happens, Season One concludes the battle of the New JSA with their ISA foes by causing two of the young heroes to confront their own "hearts of darkness." Hourman/Rick (Cameron Gellman) spends most of Season One obsessing about getting the chance to execute the killer of his parents, Solomon Grundy, only to find, given the chance to do so, that he can't murder a creature barely more than a trained animal. In contrast, Wildcat/Yolanda (Yvette Monreal) is faced the specter of her dead boyfriend, but, sensing that it's a trick, she claws open the throat of the illusion-maker, Brain Wave. Despite being fully justified by the exigencies of self-defense, Yolanda's guilt causes her to abandon her superheroic persona. Further, even members not confronted with the possibility of taking life, like Courtney and Beth, soon find their weaknesses exploited by Eclipso, whose power is unleashed by old foe Cindy Burman-- though Cindy too ends up getting betrayed by the evil being, and later becomes an ally to the Young JSA.

Though Stargirl, being the moral center of the team, does not give in to the logic of committing evil to stop evil, she does find herself using darkness against darkness. The Shade (Jonathan Cake)-- a former member of the ISA, though not one guilty of murdering the older heroes-- returns to Blue Valley. Though his power like Eclipso's makes copious use of darkness, he returns with the purpose of neutralizing an evil far greater than anything of which he's capable. And just as Stargirl must accept a villain's aid to destroy a greater villain-- well, the aid of two villains, counting Shiv-- Rick reaps an indirect reward for having spared Solomon Grundy.

Two other heroes return from the past. One is the original Starman, whose presence raises Courtney's concerns that he may reclaim the cosmic staff with which she bonded. Another is the aforementioned Doctor Mid-Nite, who was not slain in the JSA's last battle but was preserved in a nightmare-filled limbo-land-- and to a lesser extent, Beth worries about the hero's possible desire to reclaim his mantle. And another teen hero makes the scene: the daughter of the original Green Lantern-- though she's somewhat shoehorned into this narrative to make way for her greater role in Season Three. 

Though all of the soap opera elements are well done, Season Two's best aspect is its ability to concoct terrifying scenarios to torment almost all of the main characters-- even Pat, whose protectiveness toward his children is rooted in his maltreatment by his own father. Happily, there is some humor to leaven the mix. Season One's subplot about Mike Dugan wanting to be a member of the Young JSA-- easily that season's lamest element-- is redeemed when Mike and his friend Jakeem gain joint control of an unpredictable genie, The Thunderbolt. (There's also a killer joke involving Beth and her parents in the last episode.) There's also a short-lived "Young ISA" subplot, in which Shiv recruits Artemis and the son of The Fiddler for revenge on the clean teens. 

Of the performers this time, Jonathan Cake, shall we say, takes the cake, while Bassinger, Monreal, Wilson and Gellman contribute equally strong performances. Prior to any Season Three re-watch, I tend to think Season Two will prove the cream of this short-lived crop.

MIRACLE IN MILAN (1951)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

The DVD commentary for MIRACLE IN MILAN strives to convince listeners that director Vittorio di Sica didn't stray from his neo-realist ideology when he made MILAN in between two of his most fiercely naturalistic works, BICYCLE THIEVES and UMBERTO D. I agree with this point of view, though not for exactly the same reasons the commentary gives.

The protagonist of MILAN is a true "nature's nobleman," since as an infant he's found in a cabbage patch. (I didn't know the Italians had those old wives' tales about where babies come from...) He's named Toto and adopted by a virtuous old woman, Lolotta, who raises him in a humble shack during his earliest years. Lolotta passes during Toto's childhood and he spends the rest of a cheerful childhood in an orphanage within a shanty town not far from Milan. 

As an adult, Toto (Francesco Golisano) comes to know everyone in his town, impressing them with his kindness and empathy. Everyone in the shanty town is technically a squatter, since rich people in Milan own the land, but their squatting is tolerated because the land seems worthless. Ironically, when the townsfolk are indulging in a fertility ritual, that of erecting a maypole, they accidentally strike oil. The owner, Mobbi by name, then enlists the police to evict the squatters, who have absolutely nowhere to go.

Fortuitously, the spirit of Lolotta has never ceased to watch over her adopted son. She sends to Toto a magical, wish-granting dove just as the police move in. Suddenly Toto finds that he can make wishes that come true, and he communicates to his neighbors that they too can make wishes. Thus the shanty dwellers bring about miracles, like their being able to blow away tear gas with puffs of breath. Not surprisingly, Mobbi and the police retreat in confusion.

However, all the townsfolk begin to want more than the bare survival of their daily existences. They besiege Toto with requests for money, clothing, radios, all the trinkets of conspicuous consumption. Toto himself asks for nothing, but he's too kind-hearted to refuse them. In effect, the townsfolk become just as greedy as the land-owner.

It's not said outright that Heaven becomes aware of these transgressions of natural law, but two angels descend to escort Lolotta's spirit back to the afterlife, and they take the magic dove with them. There's some confusion with a real dove, but the end result is that after some time Mobbi finds out that the town has no celestial protection, so he sends the cops to roust out the unwanted residents. However, Lolotta gets free once more, and through her power and Toto's innocent faith, the townsfolk escape imprisonment and fly up to what is presumably Paradise on an array of brooms.

Though MILAN contain many whimsical scenes-- cops suddenly bursting into song, for one-- I agree with the commentary that Di Sica, adapting a fabulous novel by one Cesare Zavattini, was guided by essentially socialist principles regarding the exploitation of the workers by a moneyed class. It's not entirely clear if the shanty townsfolk lose the favor of Heaven because they start getting as greedy as landowner Mobbi, but their actions certainly aren't viewed with any approbation. There also may be a parallel here with the Biblical account of Christ complaining when his audience almost overwhelms him with their attentions.

After the dove of holy grace is withdrawn, Toto himself becomes a sort of Christ-like interceptor for his sinful neighbors. Yet the final flourish of escape proves unsatisfying. The townsfolk certainly don't have any religious realization of their own folly; none of them have characters developed enough to make that strategy possible. So, in Christian terms, why do they deserve instant translation to a land "where good morning really means good morning?" I understand that Toto's faith saves them, but it seems like they're saved not by any merit of their own, but just because they're from an underprivileged class. And this is the sort of ideological strait-jacket that makes MILAN mostly an appealing curiosity, yet keeps it from ranking among the world's best films of fantasy.

And yet, 

FRANKENSTEIN GENERAL HOSPITAL (1988)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

Given that the two writers of this AIRPLANE-wannabe barely have any other credits on IMDB, and the director mostly did film editing until the 2000s, it's surprising that there are even a few cases of halfway decent humor in this HOSPITAL.

Though I don't doubt YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN was the writers' main inspiration, the style is more like AIRPLANE, with lots of incidental jokes having nothing to do with Matters Frankensteinian. Young fanatic Bob Frankenstein (Mark Blankfield) and his shorty assistant Iggy (Leslie Jordan) set up a concealed laboratory at a Los Angeles hospital where Frankenstein presumably works (though he's never seen treating patients). Bob plans to vindicate the experiments of his great-great-grandfather by building a brand new monster out of body parts filched from the hospital. 

To be sure, the rest of the hospital is just as zany. The hospital's manager Reutger suspects Bob is doing something weird, but he never does anything to find out what, merely confessing his problems to resident psychoanalyst Alice (Kathi Shower), who doubles as his dominatrix. A randy lady nurse ambushes men in the elevator, the doctor's lounge includes a stripper, and a candy-striper gives Bob a shiatzu message that almost breaks his neck. Everyone on staff giggles when they hear Bob mention his "secret experiment," and the laboratory itself always looks like a black-and-white movie, for Reasons.

One of the movie's most boring attempts at comedy is when Iggy duplicates the brain-stealing scene from the 1931 FRANKENSTEIN, which doesn't even result in giving the General Hospital Monster a fiendish personality. Lots of silly things occur to kill time until Bob brings his creation to life. Eventually the monster goes on a low-energy rampage, with just one good scene to redeem it, and Bob's plan is exposed to all. In one of the more AIRPLANE-ish scenes Reutger and Bob duel, respectively with a medieval sword and a whip-stock, but everything turns out OK in a conclusion completely stolen from YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN.

The one decent scene mentioned above involves the brutish monster stumbling across a hospital patient, a little blind girl. This schtick, combining the "little girl's death" scene from FRANKENSTEIN and the "blind old man" scenes from BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, is the only part of the movie someone might excerpt to make HOSPITAL appear like it might be funny.

BATMAN: ASSAULT ON ARKHAM (2014)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

ASSAULT comes very close to being a "Suicide Squad" movie in which Batman happens to guest-star, since he's absent for long stretches of the DTV film. But the Caped Crusader dominates the latter half of the story, and besides, his mission-- to find the Joker's dirty nuclear bomb before it destroys Gotham City-- is more important to the narrative than the muddled assignment given the Squad. The project is said to have been inspired by the success of a videogame series, BATMAN: ARKHAM, though I'd speculate that Warner Brothers might have wanted to inject the Squad into the mix because of projected plans for the 2016 live-action movie.

The original 1980s comics-series focused on the U.S. government's covert use of convicted super-villains for assorted black ops missions, and it was popular in part for having balanced the overall ruthlessness of the career criminals with elements of comedy and drama. Such elements are not to be found in Heath Corson's script. I once found myself thinking of Hobbes' phrase "the war of all against all." That's certainly a valid theme to pursue with this kind of "Dirty Dozen" concept, but without something like humor to leaven the mix, there's really no one to root for in the Squad sections of the film.

Six super-crooks make the cut of the black-ops boss Amanda Waller: Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, Black Spider, King Shark, and Killer Frost. The latter three are in my experience negligible characters, while the former three have had many strong character moments in the comics but are reduced to simple stereotypes here. They're assigned to make an "assault on Arkham" to recover an item left there by Batman's foe The Riddler, and of course not much about the mission goes smoothly. A major stumbling block is that although Harley has sworn off her love for the Joker at this point, she's brought into contact with the Clown Prince, and arouses his ire by admitting that she's slept with Deadshot. This sets up a final combat between Harley's two "suitors," though there's little resonance to the battle since there's no real romance involved. 

I can't fault Corson's script for lack of action, for there are almost no slow sections to ASSAULT. But there are so many action-scenes that they all begin to look the same after a while. There are a handful of clever lines, and some decent voice-work, with Troy Baker taking over the Joker from the much celebrated efforts of Mark Hamill, and another of Kevin Conroy's equally prized Batman performances. But should a viewer want action combined with decent character moments, the studio's later SUICIDE SQUAD': HELL TO PAY would be the way to go.

ANGEL (1984),. AVENGING ANGEL (1985), ANGEL III: THE FINAL CHAPTER (1988)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I decided to watch the three ANGEL films of the eighties mostly to see to what extent they fulfill my designated trope of "bizarre crimefighting," given that in all three films the protagonist functions with two identities; one respectable, the other out for vengeance.

With the first film-- which hit big box-office with its tagline "High school honor student by day, Hollywood hooker by night"-- the young prostitute is not a crimefighter as such. High schooler Molly Stewart (Donna Wilkes) pays for her private school education by turning tricks under the name "Angel" on the Hollywood Boulevard. Both her father and mother deserted Molly and so she became a pro to avoid being sent into the foster system, but she's picked up a "street family" consisting in part of former stuntman Kit Carson (Rory Calhoun) and lesbian apartment manager Solly (Susan Tyrrell). A little ways into the film, a protective cop named Andrews finds out her secret but merely tries to talk her into quitting the life.

So in this film Molly's double identity only becomes a sort of "crimefighting" after the fact. when a necrophiliac serial killer begins picking off prostitutes on the Boulevard, including a hooker friend of Molly's. Molly arms herself with a handgun but when she and her friends encounter the killer, it's actually Kit who does the shooting. So in the first film, Angel's qualifications as a vigilante avenger are pretty limited.

AVENGING ANGEL takes place a few years later. With some unspecified help from her new father-figure Andrews, Molly (now played by Betsy Russell) is taking law courses, though her status is vague. (One scene shows her actually litigating a case in court, though perhaps she was meant to be a paralegal.) Yet for whatever reason she's also become far more proficient with firearms. 

Andrews is slain by gangsters seeking to acquire all of the properties on the Boulevard (sort of a sleazy update of the Western trope of the Evil Banker foreclosing on Virtuous Ranchers). Molly decides to revive her Angel persona in order to go undercover and make contacts, calling upon both Kit and Solly in the process. When the mobsters try to rub out a witness to their crimes, Kit and Angel (her bare face hanging out and all) drive them away with blazing rifle-fire. This leads to more encounters between the virtuous vigilantes and the evil exploiters, the highlight of which is the climax. In this gleefully over-the-top sequence, the head mobster and his gunsels kidnap an infant in the care of Solly, in order to regain custody of the crime boss's son-- who is, unfortunately, dead. This leads to a macabre scene in which the heroes prop the body of the mobster's son in a wheelchair to simulate life. It doesn't work, but it does lead an entertaining game of "toss the helpless infant around." As in the first film, Calhoun and Tyrrell provide ample support to Russell's heroine, who seems much gutsier and more forthright than was the Wilkes incarnation.

Three years later for the filmmakers (but seven or more years later in the movie-universe), Molly (now played by Mitzi Kapture) has given up the bar for the life of a freelance photographer. There's no real semblance of a "street family" for Molly this time, though she does meet one or two old acquaintances. Though it's true, as some reviewers said, that the two films directed by Robert Vincent O'Neil are glossied-up versions of Boulevard existence, new writer-director Tom DeSimone provides an even more colorless mainstream effort, despite working in a white slavery ring tied to a porn film operation.

The initiating incident for Angel's second crusade is a little more interesting this time, though DeSimone could've done much better with the setup. Molly accidentally runs into the mother who deserted her years ago, and it just so happens the mother's involved in the aforementioned enterprise. Molly's Mom lasts only long enough to inform Molly that she's got a sister she never knew about, who's gotten roped into the porn-movie operation, and then Molly's Mom is knocked off for Reasons. Molly revives her Angel persona once more as a means of getting access to the operation, being interviewed by Queen Bee Nadine (Maud Adams). The heroine also recruits a couple of very forgettable male allies for her sting. Molly reveals the truth to her sister Michelle, and despite initial resistance, Michelle ends up finding out the awful truth before Molly comes to the rescue.

Though DeSimone had made some choice grindhouse movies with HELL NIGHT and REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS, everything in FINAL is very pedestrian. Whereas O'Neil never met a blood-squib he didn't like, there's very little gun-action here. Kapture is pretty but underwhelming in these days before her turn on the cable series SILK STALKINGS. There are only two decent scenes in the movie: Molly hoaxing a pimp into baring it all for prospective sex, only to kick him into the streets naked, and Molly impaling a villain with a cargo-hook. Despite having some talented performers, particularly Adams, his script gives them nearly nothing to do. There was a cable-made sequel in 1993 with yet another actress playing Molly, and going on my memories, I think it was probably on the same bland level as the DeSimone effort.

Though I'm not a fan of any of the movies in the series, researching their provenance did lead me to this excellent DVD review of the first three films, which also provided strong insight into the genesis of eighties "Striploitation" movies.

THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS (2021)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

For years the Wachowskis, co-creators and co-directors of the original MATRIX, resisted many overtures to return to their creation after the conclusion of its two sequels. This third sequel, eighteen years after their last collaboration, indicates that their initial instinct was a good one. 

I gave the original movie a high mythicity rating based on these criteria:

the Wachowskis produced a script layered with constant references to the symbolic/cultural realities in which humans exist in addition to their physical presences. The aforementioned name for the real-world human conclave is the same as that of a Jewish name for a paradisical city. Morpheus is the Greek god of sleep, while Trinity is the Christian term for the interlinked religious concepts of heavenly father, earthly Son and a spirit that in various ways mediates between those realms. Most famously, Morpheus offers Anderson a choice between two pills, one that will allow him to forget everything and return to the Matrix simulation, and the other which will enhance his understanding of his existence in both real and simulated worlds. And he glosses the pills with references to Lewis Carroll's ALICE IN WONDERLAND.

However, the two sequels concentrated on a superficial "ticking clock" menace to animate the heroes' journeys through cyberspace, and the Wachowskis seemed to forget a lot of the plot-threads they themselves put out there, such as Neo (Keanu Reeves) manifesting psychic powers in the real world in MATRIX RELOADED. The Wachowskis wound up MATRIX REVOLUTIONS with a neat bow, forging a rapprochement between the human world and that of the AI. But the fact that the filmmakers kept over-emphasizing the fate of Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) suggested to me that they weren't able to follow through on the promise of the first film.

RESURRECTIONS confirms as much, though technically only Lana Wachowski was involved here, both directing and co-writing. And once again, the main theme is that of "resurrection." Though both Neo and Trinity's mortal bodies died, they're apparently resurrected in the sixty years that take place between REVOLUTIONS and this story. I *think* the idea is that an evil program in the Matrix, the Analyst (Neil Patrick Harris), creates new AI programs for both Neo and Trinity, and that these forms are later able to transition into the real world by some unexplained X-factor. 

An ongoing energy crisis is responsible for the breakdown of the detente between humans and AI, but the Analyst is the power broker in the equation. There's some sort of great psychic energy generated by both the Neo and Trinity programs, but only when they're kept apart. (The Analyst must have been strongly influenced by the two sequels, since that's almost all they're about.) So the two programs are kept apart within the Matrix, believing themselves to have two separate existences, even though they "coincidentally" encounter one another from time to time, presumably to generate yet more psychic energy.

But in the real world, a hacker named Bugs (Jessica Henwick) unleashes a new version of Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), and what we soon get is a replay of the original film, in which Morpheus releases the slumbering tiger that is the real Neo from his mundane persona. Meanwhile, Agent Smith (now played by Jonathan Groff) has survived as well, as once again threatening both the human and machine worlds. There are copious battles of cyber-fu and crashing cars to fill in time before Neo and Trinity both assume their godlike forms and trash the Analyst's plans. The series ends, hopefully for good, on the reunited lovers planning to retool the Matrix into some form that will not be used to subvert human and AI will. I frankly don't remember if they managed to solve the real-world energy crisis.

By the way, Zion-- the city of human refugees that the two sequels labored so hard to protect-- did fall during the sixty years of Neo's down-time, but it was replaced by "Io." The movie didn't offer any reasons for naming this second city after one of Zeus's many conquests, though I suppose the key might be that the Greek myth-figure was the ancestress of various famous heroes. An aged Niobe (Jada Pinkett-Smith), whose myth-name didn't mean much either, is in charge of Io the city, but she's as dull here as she was in the other sequels.

RESURRECTIONS underperformed at the theatrical box office, so there's not a strong chance for another sequel. The best thing I can say about the movie is that its script hinted at some identity politics once or twice, but didn't go down that particular rabbit-hole. Oh, and all the "jokes" about the merchandising of the MATRIX franchise-- that is, the game that exists within the fictional reality of the Matrix proper-- are seriously lame.