THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE (1961)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Though I saw most of the sci-fi flicks of the fifties and sixties on commercial TV, I only came across a YouTube copy of this item recently. ALIVE is one of many movies on the theme of "mad science transforms ordinary man into superhuman." Like THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN, main character Eddie Candell is transformed by accidental exposure to an atomic test.

Eddie's a gangster of indeterminate history, but he's sent to prison for a murder he didn't commit by mob-boss Damon (Anthony Caruso). His former girlfriend Linda (Debra Paget) ends up in Damon's bed, but another woman, Carla (Elaine Stewart), genuinely loves Eddie and waits for him while he's in prison. Hungry for vengeance, Eddie breaks out, trespasses on the testing ground, and the atomic blast causes him to assimilate the steel molecules of a nearby tower. Eddie soon learns that he's invulnerable to gunfire, making him uniquely suited to be Damon's nemesis.

I don't recognize most of the other credits of the three credited writers, not even those of Michael Pate, best known as an actor in films like CURSE OF THE UNDEAD. Director Allan Dwan had a much longer resume of movies dating back to the silent era, but ALIVE was his last rodeo. Dwan later described this sci-fi mellerdrama as an unpleasant shoot, not least because he had a meager budget and only limited sets on which to shoot. Nevertheless, ALIVE tells its simple story efficiently enough. I particularly like the scene in which a resident scientific expert explains Eddie's new power to some dumbfounded cops with the visual aid of a "steel watermelon," also a creation of the atomic blast.

Said scientist is given some nice gravitas by Tudor Owen, and Stewart emotes nicely as the lovelorn Carla. Paget and Caruso just deliver their lines reasonably well, and Caruso has a nice moment directing his hoods to spring an electrical trap on Eddie. But Ron Randell provides the linchpin in terms of acting, and though the script isn't anything special, he put a lot of intensity into his character of a shady guy motivated almost entirely by vengeance. He's compelling enough that, even though the pursuing cops do the right thing in hunting him down, he retains the better part of the viewer's sympathy when he's finally destroyed. Dwan might not have liked ALIVE, but other directors have ended their careers on much worse movies.

LEGO DC SUPER HEROES: THE FLASH (2018)

 

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

As I may be the world's greatest despiser of JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE FLASHPOINT PARADOX-- and not much more sanguine about the comic-book plot that birthed it-- I may not be the best audience for even a Lego Flash flick with a time-travel theme. Obviously, this production is not burdened with pretentious doom-and-gloom, since all the Lego movies keep things light. But still, for me The Flash works best having contemporary adventures against evil aliens and dastardly super-villains, not messing around with time-paradoxes.

Though this movie doesn't sport the "Justice League" banner, much of the story revolves around Flash's place in the League. The short version: Professor Zoom, an evildoer from Earth's far future, forms a massive hate for 20th-century super-speedster The Flash, and devotes his life to ruining the hero's life. The first part of Zoom's plan involves subjecting Flash to a series of "deja vu" experiences, and later he takes over Flash's role as Earth's favorite speed-hero, as well as making the rest of the Justice League look bad. 

As is often the case with the Lego movies, the main plot is fleshed out with one or more subplots. Here, one involves the induction of the size-altering Atom into the League, and in deference to his debut here, he gets a fair-sized amount of attention (such as his shrinking down to atom-size to change the makeup of the Joker's laughing gas). In addition, there's a pointless interpolation of a "League of Super-Pets," consisting mostly of Superman's Krypto, Batman's Bat-Hound, and Aquaman's sea-horse Storm. 

A tangential plotline involves Flash solving his problems by appealing to two of DC's wizard-types, Doctor Fate (given a voice like Berry Gordy for some reason) and Zatanna. They tell Flash that he was given his power by "The Speed Force," as if it were some metaphysical entity. That may well be current DC canon, but this sort of notion is a little abstruse for a comedy-oriented cartoon.

LEGO FLASH is fairly ordinary of its type; not too good, not too bad, not too-- FLASH-y.

CANARY BLACK (2024)

 

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

Despite sporting a name that sounds similar to a DC Comics heroine, the name "Canary Black" refers to a computer file, and the heroine seeking to obtain said file is kickass intelligence agent Avery Graves (Kate Beckinsale).

This is a fast-paced thrill-ride of the movie with some slight sociological myth-content. Immediately after completing an assignment for her agency, one that proves how kickass she is, Avery's husband David is kidnapped by schemers unknown. To recover his living body, she must betray her agency and hand over the file to the blackmailers,

Up to the 60-minute mark, CANARY seems like any decent action-espionage flick, not unlike a lot of the 1990s output from NuImage. However, the script takes a turn into science-fiction with the revelation that the file is actually a viral bomb, capable of shutting down the Internet in any designated country. The villain (Goran Kostic) has a speech in which he derides the U.S. for having invented the virus as a weapon against computer hacking, but by any other name, he's still a black-hearted evildoer. Indeed, once he's got the virus, he beams a blackmail message to the UN while he wears a concealing black helmet. So we're not that far from the world of superheroes, after all.

Beckinsale's character is simple but evocative, and both production values and fight-choreography prove strong. So this CANARY sings its one song pretty well. 

LEGO DC SUPER HEROES: JUSTICE LEAGUE-- ATTACK OF THE LEGION OF DOOM (2015)

 

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

In marked contrast to the same year's BIZARRO LEAGUE Lego-flick, the Legoverse's first introduction of the Legion of Doom (as conceived by the SUPERFRIENDS cartoon of the 1970s) is a good parody of a "straight" Justice League story with several funny moments-- though at least one joke involving "the New 52" will only make sense to comics insiders.

I don't remember what if any status "Lego Cyborg" had in earlier installments, but here he's the new kid in the League, and eager to prove himself. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor, having suffered more humiliating defeats since the League came into existence, decides to forge his Legion of Doom. After a pretty funny "obstacle course" to determine which villains get to join, Luthor's lineup includes Gorilla Grodd, The Cheetah, Captain Cold, Sinestro, and Black Manta. Three Bat-foes are rejected for one reason or another-- The Joker, The Penguin and The Man-Bat. Also, a Flash-villain, The Trickster, has a separate encounter with the League, which is mainly worth mentioning because he's voiced by Mark Hamill, who portrayed a live-action version of the evildoer on the 1990 FLASH show. Trickster's main function in the script is to unleash a trick that Cyborg falls for, thus making him look bad in front of his buddies.

Luthor's first mission for the Legion is to raid a government facility, and despite their being forced to flee the League, the villains escape with an alien who was being held prisoner in the facility. (This prisoner is alluded to in BIZARRO's coda, though the actual continuity doesn't track.) Irritated by his internment, the alien decided to help the Legion, but only because Luthor claims that the Legion is devoted to justice. I don't know Luthor knew that this ET had powers that could help the Legion's next scheme-- getting the League exiled from Earth-- but I can give the writers a pass, given that this is a good intro for the Lego version of The Martian Manhunter.

There's a running gag in which Flash and Green Lantern keep trying to one-up each other, and a subplot showing that Darkseid has been funneling weapons to Luthor. After the Legion's defeat, Darkseid contacts a new potential ally, doubtlessly Brainiac, who then appears in COSMIC CLASH. To date CLASH is the last of the Lego-flicks to sport the "Justice League" banner, though technically two later movies, spotlighting the Flash and Aquaman, make considerable use of the League's presence. The fight-scenes combine a decent mix of comedy and adventure, and in the end, Cyborg gets to have his day in the sun. Thus DOOM stacks up as one of the more entertaining of the series.

LEGO DC SUPER HEROES: JUSTICE LEAGUE- vs. BIZARRO LEAGUE (2015)

 

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

Given that all of the Lego versions of standard DC heroes are goofy (some would say "bizarre") takes on said characters, there's not a lot of ground to be gained by creating Bizarros of the Justice League.

The one exception to this statement is that in the opening scenes, the script does get across one psychological trope with regard to the Man of Steel. When Bizarro-Superman shows up in Metropolis and begins wreaking havoc with his blunders, Superman is embarrassed that the locals think the Moron of Steel is somehow related to him. Thus, when the hero finds a way to distract Bizarro by sending him to another planet, Superman's not doing it purely to protect humanity, but to sweep a mortifying subject under the rug.

The script then burns up a little time having the Lego League contend with four Lego-villains, giving the movie the chance to introduce its cubical versions of Guy Gardner ("alternate Green Lantern") and Plastic Man (probably not the best choice of a hero to be Lego-ized).  

Shortly thereafter, Bizarro returns to Earth and invades Luthor's laboratory, stealing his duplicator ray. When members of the League follow, Bizarro uses the duplicator ray to create Bizarro versions of Batman, Guy Gardner, Wonder Woman, and Cyborg, whom he then takes back to his newly adopted "Bizarro World." When the heroes follow, they learn that the world to which Superman exiled Bizarro is now under attack by the forces of Darkseid. After various reversals, the League repulses Darkseid, saving both Earth and Bizarro World.

There's one good fan-pleasing moment: Superman's body gets riddled by kryptonite radiation, but Bizarro, invulnerable to that influence because he's artificial, dispels the poison with his super-breath. But the rest of the film lacks the comic timing found in the better Lego-DC outings. 

There's a coda that foreshadows events of the same year's LEGION OF DOOM effort, though the coda itself doesn't blend in with the continuity of that story.

GHASTLY PRINCE ENMA, BURNING UP! (2011)

 

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

*SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*

I hadn't heard of Go Nagai's manga "Dororon Enma-kun" or any of its reboots until stumbling across this subtitled 2011 series on streaming, mostly derived from the 1973 original. Since most of the other Nagai works I'd encountered didn't seem as well-organized as GHASTLY, I read the '73 manga online, only to find that it was like a lot of other Nagai productions. tons of transgressive scenes of sex and violence, with an insubstantial plot that pooped out at the conclusion. Therefore I credit the writer-director of the anime series, Yoshitano Yonetari, with having firmed up the weaker aspects of the source material.

Nagai still deserves high marks for the inventiveness of the basic scenario. In the Hell of Japanese belief, the ruler King Enma becomes irate that certain demons have escaped his domain to wreak havoc on humanity. Caring more about his proprietary rights over his subjects than about human suffering, the monarch assigns his nephew Prince Enma to corral the escapees. To this end the king gives Enma a fire-staff weapon and three helpers. Two are just minor figures, a kappa-spirit named Kapeuru and a living hat named Chapeujie, while the third is a powerful snow-woman, Princess Yuki. Enma and Yuki have a thing for one another, though Yuki plays hard to get while Enma is an unswerving perv, always ready to peep on her or feel her up. (The Yuki of the original manga is not nearly as forceful as the one in the 2011 anime, since 2011 Enma frequently gets his ass kicked for his molestations.)

The early episodes are very "monster-of-the-week," as the four-person "Demon Squad" begins the task of tracking down various vicious demons. In the manga they get aid from a human boy, but in Yonetani their aide is a human girl, Harumi, who's frequently grossed out by the licentiousness and irresponsibility of these "good demons." Many of the fugitive demons also inflict absurd curses on humanity, like making them unable to stay on the feet, or causing a "fattitude plague" in which almost everyone on Earth becomes fat enough to roll along like a beachball. 

One structuring addition by Yonetari is that he interpolates a character from one of the ENMA reboots, one who was originally a female version of Enma named Enpi. In the manga Enpi was much like another Enma character, Kekko Kamen, who went around semi-naked most of the time. Yonetani makes Enpi a separate character, the older sister of Enma, and gives her a quixotic mission. Enpi constantly undermines the Demon Squad's efforts because she wants to make the whole world "overflow with titillation and delight."

Another added wrinkle is that 2011 Enma, unlike the 1973 version, wears a piece of metal headgear called a "Fire Crown." A number of demons want to remove the crown for whatever reason. Enma doesn't remember the crown's purpose, except that his vanished mother and father gave it to him, but of course he's willing to burn to ashes anyone who tries to take his things.

The third and last improvement is that, while the manga-version of King Enma has no big plot in mind when the series commences, Yonetani's version is working hand in glove with the denizens of Heaven. Both parties need to power their realms with "psychowatts" derived from human beings, and the easiest way to gain that power is to bring about a major cataclysm that ends most of human life. This sort of chaotic apocalypse occurs in a lot of Nagai manga, though it's only suggested at the end of "Demon Prince Enma."

Yonetani manages to tie together Enpi, the Crown and the collaboration of Heaven and Hell in a pleasing way. Enpi eventually reveals that the siblings' parents created the crown to control Enma's lusfulness, which had become so pronounced that he apparently tried to sex up his sister. It's not clear why Enpi became more oriented on promoting disorder later on. Still, she's instrumental to showing how Enma can unleash the power of lust to rebound upon both angels and demons. Instead of bringing about humanity's destruction, the denizens of Heaven and Hell become so horny that they have a mass orgy. As it happens, the orgy unleashes so much energy that Heaven and Hell no longer need to kill people to get psychowatts for their realms, and so humanity gets to live.

So Yonetani succeeds in making all of the grossness and weirdness of the series' twelve episodes work together coherently, as well as giving the viewer all of Nagai's characteristic sex and violence. (At times the two get combined: in two separate episodes, the boobs of female characters become so large that they can be used as bludgeons.) All of this wackiness is given a serious undercurrent by the end theme song, which starts off singing, "Sooner or later, everybody's gotta die," but concludes with the life-affirming "We are still alive!"

  

DEATHSTROKE KNIGHTS AND DRAGONS (2020)

 

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

I could have copied for my illustration one of DEATHSTROKE's more violent scenes, but instead I chose this talking-head shot, to clarify how bland the animation style is when no one's being shot or stabbed. Possibly his blandness has something to do with the DTV's origins as a web-series prepared for a subdivision of the CW company.

I can't fault the script of Marc de Matteis in finding the most efficient way to boil down the relevant elements of the Deathstroke property so as to exclude his origins in the TEEN TITANS book. KNIGHTS contains most of the characters germane to the cosmos of Slade Wilson, a.k.a. the masked mercenary of the title: his estranged wife (and former combat-veteran) Adeline, his son Joseph, his daughter (by another mother) Rose, and his assistant Wintergreen. In the comics Deathstroke works for the criminal cabal H.I.V.E. rather than fighting against them-- at least in early narratives-- but since KNIGHTS is in effect independent of DC continuity, this change is not important. De Matteis creates a new villain (as far as I know) named the Jackal who's one of Deathstroke's opponents, and he throws in a couple of stooges who are funhouse-mirror versions of their DC-counterparts, Lady Shiva and The Bronze Tiger.

The big problem is that the film-script emulates Marv Wolfman's Deathstroke-of-the-comics far too well-- which may be a selling point for some viewers, but which was a turnoff for me. In the comics Deathstroke originated as a TITANS villain in his early-1980s appearance, though he enjoyed a starring DC series from 1991 to 1996. Conceptually the character followed closely in the footsteps of hyperviolent crusaders like Wolverine and Punisher, in being utterly unrestrained in terms of striking his enemies with unrestrained violence. This approach would not have been extraordinary if Deathstroke had remained an unregenerate evildoer. However, even in the mercenary's first appearance, Marv Wolfman sent mixed signals. Deathstroke was merciless, and yet he possessed some vague nobility. He was a mercenary who killed people for pay, but he had some code of professionalism that supposedly distinguished him from the average assassin. 

These mixed signals, Marc de Matteis produces impeccably for KNIGHTS-- but they don't make Deathstroke as compelling a character as either Wolverine or Punisher at their respective bests. Slade Wilson becomes the costumed Deathstroke as the result of a military experiment, and he uses the powers he gained from the experiment-- rapid healing, super-fast reflexes-- to become a mercenary. At the same time that he's a ruthless mercenary, he's also a family man, marrying Adeline and spawning young Joseph-- though during some foreign-based adventure, he also sleeps with another woman, who gives birth to an older female, Rose. These movie-characters have next to nothing in common with the comics-originals, for their purpose is the same as Adeline's here: to give Slade Wilson grief for his past sins. Yet the script is spongy on the subject of what those sins were, aside from sleeping around.

KNIGHTS tries to make Deathstroke sympathetic in that in one exploit, he's seen confronting one of his targets, but informs the guy that he's just killed the man who ordered the target's death and now demands that the target pay Deathstroke for the hit. This is meant to suggest that Deathstroke somehow manages to make his murders serve an altruistic purpose. Frankly, this is so phony that when The Jackal takes the contrary position in one monologue-- to the effect that there's no real meaning in violence beyond the acquisition of power-- the villain sounds more authentic than the hero ever does.

The characterizations of the supporting characters are no better; they come on stage, air their grievances, and press their attacks on long-suffering Deathstroke. There's a lot of competently executed violence, but without a protagonist whose violent obsession feels roughly justified-- again, paging the Punisher-- the violence alone is likely to make some viewers want to go watch a PUNISHER movie instead.