PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* MYTHICITY: (1) *poor* (2) *fair* FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy* CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological* I'd never seen either of these TV-specials before, despite their being separated by over thirty years of Scooby-history. HOLLYWOOD, timing out at 50 minutes, feels like Hanna-Barbera reaching into their bag of very outdated tricks to celebrate the Great Dane's tenth anniversary. This may be the only story in the franchise not to deal with the amateur sleuths investigating some sort of crime/mystery, and is more like an episode of YOGI BEAR or something where the main character gets a taste of moviemaking. In this world, Mystery Inc has become so famous for solving crimes that they've been given their own Saturday-morning TV show, in which they have adventures like in the actual show. But Shaggy gets the idea that his doggie buddy ought to expand his horizons. To that end he makes a bunch of amateur films showing Scooby acting out various roles from other familiar movies and tv shows-- HAPPY DAYS, SUPERMAN, SOUND OF MUSIC, CHARLIE'S ANGELS-- all to comic effect, though apparently Shaggy's not aware of the humor. He pitches these terrible flicks to his studio boss (rather than to the producer of the TV show that Scooby and his gang star in) and if this repetitive humor wasn't bad enough, the script throws in three or four mediocre songs. Fred, Daphne and Velma have nothing to do in the story but to try convincing their goony buddies not to ruin their sweet deal. Some of the jokes might work for grade-school viewers who don't realize how moldy the humor is. However, someone working on the script may have dropped an indirect comment on the Hanna-Barbera idea of contemporary humor. In a scene where Scooby visits the famous "concrete handprints" exhibit in front of Graumann's Chinese Theater in L.A., most of the names one can make out are extremely obscure actors from the thirties, like "Sally Eilers" and "Nat Pendleton." Since neither of the credited writers was much past thirty, I can only assume this was a concealed jape at the expense of Hanna and Barbera, who actually started making cartoon shorts in the 1930s.
As a complete contrast, SCOOBY DOO AND THE BEACH BEASTIE is a nicely plotted trifle that, at about half an hour, does nothing to overstay its welcome. The Scoobies take a trip to the beach to help Daphne's weird uncle Sandy (the always welcome Adam West), whose beachfront resort has been attacked by a variety of weird water-monsters. The mystery part of the story, and its inevitable "rational" conclusion, is de rigeur by this point. But the writers won points from me because they confined themselves to two quickie subplots. The lesser one involves the Great Dane giving all his attention to a girl-type dog and making Shaggy jealous for not palling around as usual. The better one plays off a conceit offered (I think) by one of the TV shows: that Fred had become obsessed with setting traps and now had to undergo "net withdrawal." Except everything at the beach reminds him of nets. I actually laughed at that one, something I can hardly ever say of a Scooby-show from any era.
PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* MYTHICITY: *fair* FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure* CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological* Aside from introducing a major subplot about the provenance of Hawkgirl upon Planet Earth-- something Season One didn't address adequately-- Season Two is much like its predecessor in structure, 14 stories, usually consisting of two episodes, though occasionally single or three-parters provided some narrative variety. I have the general recollection that the 3-season run of JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED provided better stories overall, but that remains to be seen. Again, mythicity-ratings for individual episodes signify good, fair or poor.
TWILIGHT (P)-- In my general review of SUPERMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, which brought the Kirby-Kreations of Apokolips and New Genesis, I wrote: "Many of the plots, particularly in the third season, emphasize the hero's encounters with the forces of Darkseid. Darkseid, unlike the rest of this Superman's fight-and-flee rogues' gallery, is a figure of Satanic majesty. Even when Superman defeats this villain physically, Darkseid remains in a sense unbeaten, living on as the virtual incarnation of evil. Yet this struggle too lacks the deeper resonance found in the "Fourth World" comics of Jack Kirby, from whence Darkseid springs. In contrast to Kirby, the producers of the Superman series apparently view evil as inhering mostly in mindless violence. Villains are never very clever in this world." The JUSTICE LEAGUE treatment of The New Gods cosmos is just more of the same, with the added touch that Superman, the only Leaguer who had previous contact with the Lord of Apokolips, bears the villain a sizable grudge. But when Darkseid tells the League that Brainiac is about to wipe out his world, the heroes have to respond like heroes-- and so they get trapped by the connivance of both villains. A few character moments for Orion and Highfather don't disguise the weaknesses of this tale. The title is a simplistic Wagner reference.
TABULA RASA (F) -- Luthor finds Amazo, an android left behind by the late Professor Ivo and manipulates the innocent artificial man into attacking the League with his limitless ability to imitate super-powers. It's mostly a big battle-story, with a few Frankensteinian touches.
ONLY A DREAM (F) -- The writers should have included a tip of the slouch hat to Wes Craven, as evil Doctor Destiny telepathically takes control of the heroes' dreams. Only two members remain awake to save their allies, and they're running on fumes.
MAID OF HONOR (F)-- This is one of the better Diana-centric episodes. Wonder Woman befriends an engaged young princess who's trying to live up her last days of pre-marital freedom. Then Wonder Woman and the rest of the Leaguers learn that the princess is supposed to marry Vandal Savage, who of course has the usual supervillain scheme in mind.
HEARTS AND MINDS (F)-- John Stewart gets center stage this time, and we learn that he had a fling with his Green Lantern trainer Katma Tui. This allows the writers to show some mild jealousy on the part of Hawkgirl, foregrounding the romantic relationship that she and the Lantern will enjoy later this season. Despero, a routine comic-book alien evildoer who happened to have three eyes, is revised into a cult-leader who's persuaded his entire world that he is the Second Coming of their sacred deity, partly because he was born with that third eye. The script contains the usual bromides about the excesses of cultish religions but says nothing new.
A BETTER WORLD (F)-- And here, as if by collaboration with Mark Waid, we have an alternate universe where things went to hell because Superman broke his code against killing. The result is that the Justice League of that world became The Authority-- I mean, the Justice Lords. Despite the Lords having brought their world under draconian control, they aren't happy with their accomplishments. Upon learning of the League's world, the six corrupted heroes (Flash having been slain by Luthor, whom Superman then killed) journey to League-world, imprison the real heroes, and begin a new campaign of conquest. There are some good character moments here for Superman, Batman, and the non-deceased Flash, an appearance by Doomsday (who talks this time out), and Regular Luthor redeeming himself-- temporarily.
ECLIPSED (P)-- Explorers accidentally release the demonic Eclipso, who proceeds to take control of most of the Leaguers with his power over their dark sides. Twenty years later, STARGIRL did the same story better.
THE TERROR WITHIN (F)-- Yes, I'll give this one a fair rating just for working in a salute to Marvel's Defenders, consisting of Doctor Fate (for Doc Strange), Solomon Grundy (for Hulk), and Aquaman (for Sub-Mariner). The main plot is a disposable "Lovecraftian-demon-getting-unleashed" plot, and it's not improved by shoehorning in the assertion that Hawkgirl's people once worshipped the demon.
SECRET SOCIETY (F)-- Luthor's Injustice Gang is remodeled as Gorilla Grodd's Secret Society, but the only thing "secret" about this assemblage of career super-villains is that Grodd is a lot sneakier about undermining the heroes with psychological techniques. The anthropoid antagonist uses his mind-control talents to aggravate many of the petty resentments the Leaguers harbor toward one another, making it tough for them to work together-- not unlike the ten or twelve times this sort of thing happened to the Avengers or the Fantastic Four. Surprisingly the pongid predator does not pick up on the concealed romantic feelings of Hawkgirl and Green Lantern, though I can guess why the writers did not go there. They did put some quasi-Nietzschean ideas in Grodd's mouth, which is a nice touch for what's still just three big battles between heroes and villains-- though "Society" does boast one of the best multi-character fights in both live-action and animation history.
HEREAFTER (G)-- I'm surprised that an episode featuring one of the many "Fake Deaths of Superman" proved to have such strong mythicity. Part of the credit lies in the writers' riffing on a famous Silver Age comics-story, "Superman Under a Red Sun," in which the hero is flung into a far-future Earth whose sun is now red, depriving the Kryptonian of his super-powers. In HEREAFTER, a battle with a cadre of villains brings about the Man of Steel's transposition into a similar future-world, while everyone back in 2003 thinks that their greatest hero is dead. But after wandering about the ruined world for a time, Superman is found by "the Last Immortal on Earth," the ever-persistent Vandal Savage. It seems one of Savage's world-conquering plans went awry and killed everyone else on the planet, so that he can only pass his time with pointless hobbies-- until he gets the idea to change history with the help of the Last Son of Krypton. This is one of the better time-travel stories in animation history, largely because of the byplay between the compassionate hero and the vaguely remorseful evildoer. And before the Leaguers learn that their friend is still alive, they have to endure the attempt of the raucous Lobo to take Superman's place in the hero-group. It doesn't really work to imagine Lobo hanging out with a bunch of do-gooders, but his presence does provide a few touches of needed humor.
WILD CARDS (F)-- Just because the Joker worked pretty well in the Injustice Gang, that doesn't mean he makes a good main opponent, not even when he's buttressed with a new version of those "wild cards" the Royal Flush Gang and with the even wilder Harley Quinn. Joker invades Las Vegas and challenges the League to uncover a series of bombs that will decimate the city, even though a lot of residents manage to flee. Of course, Batman gets the honor of taking down the Clown Prince, as well as manipulating Harley against him, while the others occupy themselves with the cannon fodder. Good basic action sequences and greater development of the Hawkgirl-GL romance make it all go down easily.
COMFORT AND JOY (F)-- The writers push themselves to do a sentimental Christmas episode, and though not everything works, it could have turned out much worse. The Hawkgirl-GL romance ramps up, in preparation for having John Stewart get the rug ripped out from under him.
STARCROSSED (F)-- And just like that, the writers drop the other shoe. Hawkgirl didn't just happen to land on Earth by accident as she maintained; she was sent to spy on Earth, and on the League, by her superiors in the Thanagarian military. The winged heroine went along with this plot in the false belief that her people merely planned to briefly control Earth in order to establish a beachhead against the Thanagarians' spacefaring enemies, the Gordanians. But when Hawkgirl learns that her people plan to destroy Earth for their own military advantage, she has to switch loyalties, even though her former friends deem her a traitor as well. There's lots of strong melodrama in this three-part season finale, but not that much myth beyond the standard "don't trust aliens bearing gifts" trope. The romance, not surprisingly, does endure into the run of JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED.
PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* MYTHICITY: *fair* FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure* CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological* The Wiki-article on this film mentioned that its producers originally intended, for whatever reason, not to credit Steve Moore, author of the graphic novel on which the movie was based. I've read none of Moore's works on the subject of the Greek hero, but since this Dwayne Johnson project spawned two imitations, THE LEGEND OF HERCULES and HERCULES REBORN, one might credit Moore with having brought these into being as well.
I didn't remember anything about my previous screening of this flick, but now I see why: the only thing HERCULES has going for it is a restrained performance by Johnson, in which he bulked up more than his usual weight and, more importantly, avoided any of his signature winks to the audience. This Hercules grew up as an orphan who became a great warrior due to his uncanny strength and his fighting-skills, and over time people began telling stories about his divine parentage and his slaying of giant monsters. Only one event in the myths strongly resembles the traditional narratives: while Hercules lived in Thebes with his wife and children under the rule of King Eurystheus, his family was slaughtered. He was accused of having slain them when he went mad, but all Hercules remembers is witnessing a spectre akin to the death-hound Cereberus. After that, Hercules became a full-time mercenary, leading an assortment of soldiers, some of whom are also based on legendary figures (Atalanta, Autolycus, Tydeus). Hercules comes to the defense of King Cotys (John Hurt), ruler of Thrace, against an invading force. But wait-- could it be that Cotys hasn't told the whole truth about the situation? Just like Hercules' memories of his family's slaughter may not be entirely correct?
Basically, 2014 HERCULES is constructed like a two-part mystery story, and neither mystery is interesting. The script tries to sell the idea that Hercules, after having been a mercenary who for years killed for whoever paid him the best, suddenly gets the Religion of Altruism and turns against Cotys and his secret ally. The secondary characters are no better, supplying nothing more than the marking of time. The battles are OK, but the most I can say is that they aren't as terrible as those in LEGEND. If I had to choose between the three, HERCULES REBORN seems the best just by virtue of having less pretension than the other two-- though I'd probably choose to view a half dozen Herc-flicks from the 1960s over any of these 2014 losers.
PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* MYTHICITY: *good* FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure* CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological* Despite BROTHERS' coming out at the end of the sixties peplum cycle, it's a decent little flick of its kind. Director/co-writer Roberto Mauri-- best known, perhaps unjustly, for the lively bad movie KONG ISLAND-- possibly took some elements from the 1961 MOLE MEN AGAINST THE SON OF HERCULES, such as an underground civilization, visually dominated by a gigantic mill and politically dominated by an immortal queen. However, Mauri didn't just copy from the next student but took his creation in some interesting mythic directions.
In a loosely Greek-seeming domain, Prince Akim (Anthony Steffen) and his fiancee Diana (Ursula Davis) attempt to consecrate their impending nuptials by building a temple to "the gods" near a mountainside, not far from the famed "Waterfall of the Gods." In this endeavor the royal couple are aided by two local strongmen, the titular Brothers Maciste, Elder Maciste (Richard Lloyd) and Younger Maciste (Tony Freeman). The script offers no clue as to why the name Maciste, usually applied to a mysterious hero able to appear in any era he pleases to dispense justice, is used by both of these men. Perhaps both brothers are by-blows of that time-traveling hero, after he made a romantic conquest in that era. However, the attempt to lay the foundations of the new temple-- an activity that archaic peoples often considered a perilous endeavor-- the side of the mountain caves in. This damages the temple and seems to be a bad omen. While the menfolk investigate what look like ancient ruins within the mountain, Akim sends Diana back to her father's palace. (It's a little obscure, but I think the region is within the scope of Diana's kingly father, while Akim is marrying into the family to unite his realm and hers).
However, as Diana drives her chariot back in the company of two guards, all of them are ambushed by men wearing leopard costumes. The attackers kill the guards and drag Diana into the mountain, going in through some different access point. Inside the mountain Diana sees a huge mill being pushed by slaves, more leopard men, and the ruling queen of the domain, Thaliade (Claudie Lange). After some minor chat, Thaliade offers Diana some liquid refreshment. Diana is then drugged into submission, and she's sent back to her father's palace to work Thalaide's will. The brothers follow Diana's trail to the waterfall, and Elder Maciste tells his younger sibling to inform Akim of their progress while he the Elder One enters the mountain through the waterfall. Leopard men attack Maciste and he beats them down, but he's caught in a metal cage whose bars he can't break. A ceiling studded with spikes descends to perforate Elder Maciste's deltoids, but just when the hero's about to collapse from holding off the death-trap, Thalaide turns it off remotely and he simply collapses from the strain. Slightly later Thalaide drugs him and makes Elder Maciste her new consort, which displeases her previous consort, formerly one of the leopard-men.
The mesmerized Diana appears at her dad's palace and uses a drug given her by the queen on Younger Maciste, sending him into a deep sleep. With that hero out of the way, Diana talks her fiancee into holding a parley with the ruler of the underground world, whom she claims speaks for the gods. She sells him a line about building the consecrating temple elsewhere, but this is apparently just a deception to get Akim to enter the queen's underground domain. Meanwhile back in the hidden world, Thaliade sets Elder Maciste to work turning the giant wheel, whose purpose, we later learn, generates a stream of water that confers immortality upon everyone in the hidden world. One of Thaliade's maidservants, Nila, takes a shine to Elder Maciste, gets him alone and makes love to him while expressing her desire to escape this twilight existence and enter the human world once more.
As it happens, this is also what Thaliade wants, though on her own terms. When Prince Akim ventures into her court as instructed by Diana, Thalaide relates her origins. She was once a mortal princess like Diana, but one of the gods spirited her away. She enjoyed her existence in the gods' world for a time, but Venus became jealous of Thaliade's beauty. The gods' solution to this conflict was to create the underground realm for Thaliade to dwell in, along with a huge retinue of maidservants and leopard-costumed guards, all made immortal by the streams of "immortality water" dispensed by the mill. However, for some unspecified reason, Thaliade can escape her velvet prison if she marries Akim-- which she proceeds to bring about, with the mind-controlled Diana coolly observing.
However, back at Diana's palace her father engages a sorceress to bring Younger Maciste out of his sleep-spell. The young hero rides to the waterfall, enters the hidden world and begins thrashing every leopard man he can find. Thaliade must interrupt her wedding, sending the elder brother to fight the younger one. Elder defeats Younger and binds him to the wheel for punishment. However, while Thaliade becomes preoccupied with the wedding once more, Nila steals an antidote, uses it on Elder Maciste and brings him out of his obedient stupor. The two brothers then join in wrecking the kingdom of Thaliade, she dies in one of her own traps, and apparently most of the queen's retinue, evil or not, perishes except for Nila. At the end Akim is reunited with Diana, Elder Maciste gets Nila, and Younger Maciste gets no nookie no how.
INVINCIBLE has some minor story flaws, such as the question of where Thalaide's retinue comes from, and why the guards dress like leopards. But there are some good mythic tropes here, arguably stronger than the ones in MOLE MEN. The emphasis upon the flowing water may remind one of the river Styx in the Greek underworld, though the Styx could confer healing, not immortality. The underground world should remind anyone of the underworld itself, though the denizens have simply put off death rather than actually having died. Most impressively, Thalaide's attempt to take Diana's place by usurping Diana's groom bears some resemblance to the Sumerian myth of Ishtar's descent to the underworld, wherein the goddess of sexual bounty loses her powers when she enters the domain of her sister Ereshkigal. The two narratives are not identical, since Ereshkigal does not have any means or intent to escape her death-realm. But there is a substitution motif in most versions of the Sumerian myth, where Ishtar can only escape her imprisonment if another entity takes her place. In addition, there's a suggestion that Thaliade's from another mortal generation than that of Akim and Diana, so she, more than a goddess might be, signifies a transgression of clan-boundaries; i.e., a "clansgression." Thus, even though INVINCIBLE seems to have fallen through the cracks in the annals of favored peplums, it deserves some serious reconsideration.
PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* MYTHICITY: *poor* FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure* CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological* I'd never heard of the popular nineties video game "Wing Commander" before hearing about this feature-film adaptation in 1999. I never caught the movie in any venue before streaming, and only completism justified seeing this box-office bomb at all.
Headliner Freddie Prinz Jr, playing COMMANDER's main hero Chris Blair, went on record as stating that when he signed on to the project, he really liked the script he was given-- but that the actual shooting script was "shit." There's surely more truth than poetry in that assertion. Even if I had not had Wikipedia at my disposal, I feel sure I would have noticed how the script for the theatrical release tosses out plot-threads and then summarily drops them like hot coals. One of the most obvious occurs in the first half hour. New pilots Blair and Marshall (Matthew Lillard), fresh from their training-school, show up at their space-station barracks to introduce themselves to their new crewmates. Immediately before this scene, Blair makes the mistake of sitting in a plane designated for another pilot, thus getting on the bad side of one of his superior officers, Commander Devereaux (Saffron Burrows). Then. when Blair and Marshall mention the incident to the other pilots, one of them, Forbes (Ginny Holder), claims that the designated pilot no longer exists and should not be spoken of. It's a nice scene of its kind-- and the existing script never follows up on the subject.
The main plotline is no better. We see nothing of this era's futuristic Earth-culture except the spacefaring military, and the entire film concerns the space-militia's attempt to beat back the hostile forces of the Kilrathi (catlike aliens only seen a couple of times in the movie). However, we hear a little bit about a group of early Earth explorers called "Pilgrims," but only because Blair is half-Pilgrim on his mother's side. The current human culture has some sort of bias against Pilgrims, for what reasons the viewer never knows, but a lot of people in Blair's new crew are prejudiced against him for his heritage-- though the script handles even this basic melodrama clumsily. The main purpose for the script to mention the heritage at all is because being half-Pilgrim has imbued Blair with mad piloting skills, enabling him to navigate through black holes and stuff like that.
There was also apparently a subplot about someone in the Earth-forces being a secret ally to the Kilrathi, but all of it was edited out. A lot of this crappy plotting might be bearable if at least the space-combat scenes were exciting, but director/co-writer may hold the record for Worst Space-Fights Ever. The only slight recompense for watching this turd was that the four principal actors did pretty well polishing it. Prinze, Burrows and Holder are as good as is possible, but Lillard makes the most of his second-banana character. Since he's probably going to forever known for playing and/or voicing Shaggy Rogers in the SCOOBY DOO franchise, it's refreshing to see him playing a largely straight role for once.
PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*, MYTHICITY: *fair* FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure* CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological* In my review of SAKURA KILLERS, I could only guess as to the connection of that film and this same year ninja-movie, and if asked could not have even proved which film came first. Happily, IMDB provided a link to the apparently archived site NINJAS ALL THE WAY DOWN, where site-runner CJ Lines not only reviewed the film here, he also tracked down and interviewed PHANTOM's writer-director Dusty Nelson, and recorded the interview for posterity here, on the site DEN OF GEEK. Nelson specifies that while he lived in Pittsburgh, he made contact with a company that had access to raw Taiwanese footage about ninjas and gangsters, and that he Nelson was asked to edit the footage and add in enough new scenes to cobble together a movie for VHS release. Once that task was accomplished, the same company rustled up enough capital for Nelson to write and direct WHITE PHANTOM. Nelson states that it was the idea of someone in the production company to link PHANTOM with SAKURA by using the same villains and one supporting character. Incidentally, Lines misremembers an IMDB detail: the site attributes the Taiwanese footage to a fellow named "Wang Yu," but does not claim that this is the same as international one-armed wonder "Jimmy Wang Yu."
So Nelson and his people went to Taiwan with three American actors-- star Jay Roberts Jr, leading lady Page Leong, and "name actor/supporting player" Bo Svenson-- and made PHANTOM. Svenson's character is some sort of Interpol-like commander who's supposed to be the same as SAKURA's Chuck Connors. The previous character was just named "The Colonel," while PHANTOM gives him the full name of "Colonel Slater." Slater's trying to get a lead on what the Sakura ninja-clan did with a stash of stolen plutonium. Though the Sakura clan is led by a mysterious man whose face is never seen, Slater tries to get intel from the clan leader's heir apparent Hanzo. The colonel blackmails an exotic dancer named Mei Lin (Leong) to get close to Hanzo and pump him for information, if she can manage to avoid getting pumped full of lead or anything else undesirable.
A wild card then deals himself in. Known only as "Willi" (Roberts), this duster-clad American seems content to bop around Taiwan (or whatever place in Asia Taiwan is pretending to be), playing basketball and boffing prostitutes. However, he keeps turning up and messing with Sakura gangsters when they shake down average citizens for protection money. When not confounding gangbangers with his laid-back martial talents-- sort of like a "drunk-fu" practitioner-- he pays court to Mei Lin. This infuriates Hanzo and aggravates both Slater and Mei Lin, though in time the dancer is won over by Willi's raffish charms. One scene suggests that Slater recognizes Willi from some previous contact, but the script is not consistent on this point. Hanzo complains to his dad about the "white ninja" interfering with Sakura's protection racket-- a term used long before Willi actually dons white ninja-gear-- and Masked Dad thinks Willi represents some extinct clan, implicitly one with which Sakura had issues. As I recall, everyone pretty much forgets about finding the plutonium stash.
Like most ninja-movies, the action is episodic until the narrative reaches the (pretty decent) end-fight between Willi and Hanzo. But Nelson works in a fair number of character-moments, mostly between Willi and Mei Lin-- so that there's some mild sadness when Mei Lin gets sacrificed by this war of ninja-clans. Roberts does credible kung-fu stunts-- a particular standout is the way he flummoxes a bouncer by pretending to "accidentally" block him or hit him-- and I liked that he's a bit of a rogue, not just a flat goodguy. I'm guessing that Roberts, who retired from filmmaking years ago, remembered his first big role fondly. In my review of one of his last movies, 1990's AFTERSHOCK, I noticed that Roberts' central character was named "Willi" like the hero in PHANTOM, and that a support-character is named "Colonel Slater." It seems likely to me that Roberts chatted up the scriptwriter and simply asked him to interpolate the names of two PHANTOM characters for AFTERSHOCK characters that originally had no connection. Since Roberts plays the two characters substantially the same, one could imagine that AFTERSHOCK tells the story of Willi and Slater after they survive a sci-fi apocalypse.
PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*, MYTHICITY: *poor* FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure* CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological* On IMDB I saw a number of reviews asserting that they found this Taiwanese ninja-flick "so bad it was good." All I can say is that SAKURA KILLERS didn't tickle my funnybone. Yes, it's an incompetent, low-budget movie with two charisma-free leads, and you see a lot of low-level ninja-tricks, one of which had a black-clad "Sakura killer" writhing on the ground like an earthworm. But the only slight asset of this pedestrian effort is that the fighting, while not noteworthy, is at least reasonably constant.
The Plot: black-clad ninjas, working for a Japanese crime ring named "Sakura," steal a videotape with a scientific secret on it. To protect freedom and democracy, a guy called the Colonel (Chuck Connors) calls upon two of his--agents? Allies? Guys he met in a bar? Whatever the standing of Sonny (Mike Kelly) and Dennis (George Nichols), in no time they're off to Japan (for which Taiwan is a stand-in) to find the criminal ninjas. But even though both guys have some martial training, they're also encouraged to find a master and train as ninjas, since it takes a ninja to beat a ninja. I don't know why, though. The very first time the guys ask a waitress about the Sakura organization, she sets a bunch of ninjas on their tails, and Sonny and Dennis beat the masked men handily.
Nevertheless, with equal ease the two goofs stumble across a ninja master and his cute daughter, and he puts them through some mild rigors. The result is that not only do Sonny and Dennis master all the ninja devices, they can quick-change into ninja costumes in the blink of an eye, with demon-masks covering their faces. Moreover, both the old man and his daughter help the guys fight their enemies, so they've really got it easy. KILLERS is barely an adequate time-killer, but it boasts two curiosities. One is that according to IMDB, American director Dusty Nelson recycled elements of this movie into the same-year WHITE PHANTOM, though none of those elements included Sonny or Dennis. The other slight distinction is that although Chuck Connors' scenes in the film only add up to about ten minutes, he gets the only decent scene when he blows away a couple of ninjas with a shotgun-- though of course a repeating rifle would have been more appropriate.
PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* MYTHICITY: *poor* FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure* CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological* AFTERSHOCK-- whose title seems like a reference to nothing at all-- may be rare among apocaflicks in also being a "first contact" story. And it's got kung fu also, so it's a first-contact chop-apocaflick! Also, it's got almost ten familiar faces spread throughout the movie, though some of the performers are in the story for only a handful of scenes, like Richard Lynch and Christopher (son of Robert) Mitchum.
Writer Michael Standing (who also has a small acting role in AFTERSHOCK) comes up with a basic concept that almost has satirical possibilities. What if all the societies of Earth fall into apocalyptic chaos thanks to a repressive military regime, and then a beneficent ET pays Earth a visit, having heard from our outer-space satellites that we're a happening kind of world? A writer with a head for satire might have come up with all sorts of little jabs at human mediocrity while the hero of the story tried to help the aggrieved alien phone home. But Standing had no such head. His idea of satire was to say that the repressive military faction, represented by enforcers John Saxon and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, likes to control subjects by somehow affixing "bar codes" to their persons. Stop me, I'm laughing.
At first AFTERSHOCK looks like it's going to be a "soldiers vs rebels" story. Saxon and his goons arrest two young guys, one of whom is a member of the rebel movement (Chuck Jeffreys) while the other, Willie (Jay Roberts Jr.), is a sort of rebel against the rebels. When the two guys break out of their confinement-- both of them doing so much kung-fu that it seems like they're going to be a salt-and-pepper team-- they also break out a young blonde woman named Sabina (Elizabeth Kaitan). Sabina is an alien visitor who, as I said, came with the idea of contacting a rational civilization, but she can't speak except by imitating the words of others. Naturally, there's no point in having an alien visitor who can't talk, so in jig time she assimilates enough Earth-lingo to communicate. In order to return to her own planet, Sabina desperately needs to return to the point where she first teleported to Earth. The nasty soldiers want to take Sabina into custody in order to profit from her advanced alien knowledge, so the good rebels largely put aside their own concerns to help out this sister from another planet.
With this setup out of the way, the last hour of the film is just one fight after another, and since Jeffreys' character disappears, most of the heroic action is performed by super-rebel Willie, who's just a bleeding altruist at heart. Roberts is nowhere near the best at either acting or fighting, but he's adequate for this sort of routine future-chopsocky. Kaitan provides okay humor support: her jokes aren't especially funny, but she sells the innocent-ET thing well enough. Most of the name performers just say their lines and collect their paychecks. However, the best acting comes from Chris de Rose, whom I at least had never heard of. He plays an "apprehender," a bounty hunter who goes looking for Willie and his alien charge at the behest of Bad John Saxon. But for reasons never very clear, he begins to feel like he wants to wash his hands of the military dictatorship. He turns on Saxon and makes possible Willie's triumph and Sabina's escape from Earth. A concluding curiosity: the name of the hero and that of the Chris Mitchum character, "Colonel Slater," both appeared for other characters in Roberts' first movie, the 1987 ninja-flick WHITE PHANTOM, though that film and AFTERSHOCK shared no personnel except Roberts.
PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* MYTHICITY: *fair* FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure* CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological* It's now over a year since I screened the first, over-two-hours part of Joe May's INDIAN TOMB. I rendered no firm opinion, since I hadn't seen the second part. Now that I have done so, and can consider the two parts together, I can say that although May's epic doesn't stand as one of the great silent films, it deserves to be regarded as a strong experiment with what I earlier called the "painterly" approach to cinema.
When last we left European innocents architect Herbert Rowland and his fiancee Irene, they were stuck in the palace of the Maharaja Ayan (Conrad Veidt). Rowland came to India in the belief that he had been hired to design a tomb for Ayan's dead wife Savitri, and Irene, worried that Rowland was in over his head, followed. After many long, brooding scenes on the massive edifices of Ayan's India, the Europeans learn that because of Savirti's adultery with an Englishman, Ayan plans to kill his wife and then entomb her. Rowland is torn between trying to flee with Irene and seeking to talk Ayan out of such an uncivilized enormity. However, though the innocents don't know it, Ayan has already undertaken murderous actions against the Englishman (Paul Richter). Part One ends on a cliffhanger as to whether he will survive the attacks of Ayan's soldiers. He does, but he's also captured and fed to some tigers. Rather a depressing outcome for a cliffhanger.
Rowland and Irene don't see this, but they're kept in the loop by Savitri's maid, and they consider making a run for it. Ayan, who has forbidden his people to talk with the Westerners, orders the maid to do a little dance for him at a celebration, and she's killed by a poisonous snake. This decides the two guests on taking their leave, and they take Savitri with them, I guess out of sheer decency, though that gesture guarantees that Ayan will pursue with all his resources.
In theory, one might think this is where the adventure gets going. However, whatever may have happened in Thea Von Harbou's original novel, or in Fritz Lang's scenario for the movie, Joe May flenses all of the excitement from the conflict with medium and long shots designed to place maximum emphasis upon the imposing buildings in the background. Rowland has a couple of lackluster fistfights with Indian guards, and then he, Irene, and Savitri depart in a boat. Maybe there was a scene left out somewhere, because when Ayan and his men show up on the quay, all the boats are floating out of reach. Did Rowland cut all the moorings? One minion dies by crocodile attack while trying to fetch a boat for his rajah. But it's only a minor delay. The three fugitives try to escape via a high mountain pass, but Ayan and his horde are right on their tail. Somehow Irene falls behind and Ayan captures her, demanding the return of Savitri for Irene's life. But Savitri has one last gambit to stay out of the hands of her husband-- one that causes Ayan far more pain than any physical assault could have.
Though the mystic yogi Ramigami barely appears in Part 2, I consider that the second section keeps the same phenomenality as the first, where the ascetic is shown performing literal miracles. But though director May acts as if the massive Indian sets are his movie's only attraction, Conrad Veidt sells his brooding, Byronic sinner with a set of larger-than-life gestures, and effectively steals the movie from the other performers. I don't make the Byron comparison lightly. I've no idea what Von Harbou's novel was like, but May turns its narrative into the movie-equivalent of one of those wordy verse-dramas from Romantic authors like Byron and Shelley, May's characters often seem like humanized ants, doomed to be forever dwarfed by the heaven-challenging edifices they have created. Only Ayan, "sympathetic villain" though he is, seems equal to the monumentalism, for his love for Savitri is so heartfelt that he's willing to kill for it. In marked contrast to many similar melodramas, Savitri never offers an excuse for her adulterous actions, like being betrayed or treated cruelly by her husband. One doesn't even know if she ever felt anything for Ayan, only that within the scope of the movie, another man holds her love. And Ayan can only seek to make her betrayal into a monument to his lost love-- which is what Rowland ends up completing for the rajah, before he and Irene go back to the safety of a very un-exotic Europe.
PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous* MYTHICITY: *fair* FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure* CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological* There had been a small handful of Justice League stories from Filmation Studios in the 1960s, followed by and the very compromised versions of the "Super Friends" franchise. But this 2001 series, following up on the respective continuities of the Batman and Superman TV shows of the 1990s, still feels like the first animated iteration of DC's Justice League. Unlike those nineties programs, LEAGUE had nearly no participation from writer-producer Paul Dini, so that this DC adaptation is dominantly the product of producer Bruce Timm. The first season is characterized by larger-than-life stories meant to spotlight not only the derring-do of the seven rotating members-- Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, J'onn J'onzz, Hawkgirl, and the John Stewart Green Lantern-- but also the complex backdrop of the DC Universe. Though characterization improved in the second LEAGUE season and the subsequent three seasons of JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED, it might be fairly argued that the "larger than life" approach was later translated to most if not all of the LEAGUE movies made for the DC Animated Franchise, resulting in a certain level of mediocrity there. In my ratings of individual episodes, "G" means "good mythicity," "F" means "fair," and "P" means "poor."
SECRET ORIGINS (F)-- To be sure, "larger than life" is the only way to go when assembling a team of seven unrelated heroes, and in truth the menace of alien invasion was the pretext for the Justice League's formation in the original 1960s comic. This time the ETs are a race of parasitic shapeshifters, given three-legged vehicles that are clear shout-outs to the tripods of H.G. Wells' Martians. But in this universe DC's Martians are the first people to be annihilated by the newcomers. The survival of last Martian J'onn J'onzz gives "Origins" a fair degree of emotional depth, while the backstories of other characters-- notably Hawkgirl, who'll get no real backstory this season-- are more circumscribed. Both seasons of LEAGUE will show a marked tendency to give Batman all the good lines while Superman goes begging for even one decent scene.
IN BLACKEST NIGHT (F)-- This story attempts, with only partial success, to squeeze an expansive JUSTICE LEAGUE story into two 20-minute episodes. In the comic the Hal Jordan Green Lantern is accused of having destroyed a world with his ring-power, while here it's John Stewart. The basic plot remains strong as the League seeks to clear the Lantern's name, but the villains, the android Manhunters, fail to prove as impressive as they were in the comics story.
THE ENEMY BELOW (P)-- Here the writers sought to incorporate a "meaner, leaner" version of Aquaman, more or less in line with what had happened to the Sea King in the comics. What the writers produced was largely a warmed-over version of a variety of Sub-Mariner stories, wherein some Atlantean schemer seeks to force Atlantis into a war with the surface world. In this case the schemer is Aquaman's brother (or half-brother?) Orm, and this may be the first time any story made him into an Atlantean, rather than a human seeking control over the realm of his hated sibling. There's a buildup to the Sea King losing a hand, which was also a big thing in the comics, and this version of his queen Mera has no powers, presumably because it would been extra trouble to explain.
INJUSTICE FOR ALL (F)-- This is an acceptable origin for the Injustice Gang, melded with a comics-story about Luthor getting poisoned by his use of kryptonite against his foe Superman. Still, the story throws a lot of villains at the audience without any rationale, and they don't have that much personal interactions with the heroes, just purely physical brawling. And there's a little too much of Batman outwitting everyone.
PARADISE LOST (P)-- This Wonder Woman-centric episode has the primary menace evolve on her home of Themiscyra, a home she deserted to serve humankind as a hero. The immediate menace is sorcerer Felix Faust, who has made a pact with the Greek God of Death to secure his release from Tartarus, which has to take place on the Amazon isle. I didn't care for portraying Hades as a garden-variety demon trying to escape his prison, and I think this basic idea may have stemmed from some comics-stories in which some myth-entity dwells beneath the island, but if so the writers botched the idea. Further, they loosely imply that Hades may have been the lover of Diana's mother Hippolyta, which implication needlessly complicates an already overwritten script.
WAR WORLD (P)-- Why does an episode that has all the makings to be "Superman-centric" capture so little of the hero's character? Superman and J'onn get captured by the minions of evil Mongul and are forced to fight in War World's gladiatorial games. Their rescuers Hawkgirl and Green Lantern get better character moments than either the Kryptonian or the Martian.
THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD (F)-- In the only first-season episode to which Paul Dini contributed, that grotty Gorilla Grodd, originally a foe of the comic-book Flash, debuts here as a menace to the whole Justice League. In this series the Flash is more an amiable goofus than the straight-arrow crusader of the comics, but at least Flash gets the finishing move to "his" old enemy. Grodd's world-conquest plan is unimpressive, but at least the concept of Gorilla City comes across intact.
FURY (F)-- Rogue Amazon Aresia wants to eliminate all men from Planet Earth, and she enlists the Injustice Gang to help her. Some good superhero brawls don't distract from the weaker aspects of the script, which sidelines the male Leaguers so that Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl get all the glory. Points for having Aresia beat up Batman.
LEGENDS (P)-- Does it really make sense for even a reinvented Justice League to make fun of the sort of uncomplicated, simon-pure heroes of the Golden Age, given that the Justice League of the early 1960s wasn't any less goody-good than their 1940s forbears? Anyway, some Leaguers get stuck in an alternate dimension which exists so that a fanatical fanboy can imagine his favorite heroes having wacky adventures. The New League, which got all its gravitas thanks to the influence of Stan Lee's Marvel, provides the cold water to wake the world up from its fannish dreams.
A KNIGHT OF SHADOWS (F)-- Alarums and excursions abound as the medieval menace of Morgaine Le Fay imperils the modern world and its costumed knights. Le Fay is pursued by Jason Blood, who in this iteration started as a mortal who betrayed King Arthur for Morgaine's sake. As punishment, Merlin bound the traitor to the body of a demon, or, as DC billed this Jack Kirby creation, "The Demon." In Kirby, the Demon was a hell-creature who assumed mortality at Merlin's behest, so the script here inverts that scenario. It's a decent episode but the subplot in which Morgaine almost subverts J'onn to her cause seems forced.
METAMORPHOSIS (G)-- The only high-mythicity episode of Season One profits from its model, the origin-story of Metamorpho from the comics. In my review of that origin, I argued that writer Bob Haney reworked the essential elements of Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST, where the hero contends with a magician and his brutish servant for the hand of the magician's daughter. In the comics, the brute Java channels the father's arguable inappropriate feelings for his grown daughter. Here, Simon Stagg not only wants to get rid of his daughter Sapphire's age-appropriate boyfriend Rex, he also finds a way to exploit Rex in good capitalistic fashion. In the comics Simon Stagg is just a pompous fool, but here he's the epitome of the nasty rich man, determined to have everything in his greedy grasp.
THE SAVAGE TIME (F)-- The League finds its way into an alternate Earth where the Allies have almost lost WWII thanks to the intervention of immortal villain Vandal Savage. Refighting WWII is always a popular superhero trope, and this one is decent though not outstanding. This version of Wonder Woman, who's never existed in any time but the 21st century, gets a meet-cute encounter with doughty Steve Trevor, so that in a sense he's still her "first." The comics-fan authors also find guest-spots for the best-known land soldiers in the DC (Sergeant Rock and Easy Company) and for those daredevil aerialists The Blackhawks, though technically these aviation aces made their bones fighting Nazis for Quality Comics, and were only acquired by DC after that company folded. The Leaguers succeed in defeating Savage's rewriting of history with no big surprises. For whatever reason, Easy Company doesn't fit into the JUSTICE LEAGUE world, but the Blackhawks worked just fine.
