PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological* The slight improvement I saw in the fourth TERMINATOR film, TERMINATOR SALVATION, was not maintained when the franchise shifted to a new production company. The creators hired by that company then sought to extend the already muddled mythology into the idea of alternate timelines, which had been implied in the third movie in the series. This resulted in a summer blockbuster that made a lot of money-- at least partly due to Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to the role of "T-800 As Protector" that had resonated so well with nineties audiences-- but GENISYS also increased the franchise's reputation for being less a meditation on the evils of technology and more a funhouse mirror designed mostly to distract and disconcert. In fairness, part of the attraction of JUDGMENT DAY was that it reworked the pitiless, implacable image of the original Terminator into an almost-human protector to Young John Connor. The change of the formerly helpless Sarah Connor into a skilled master of combat was almost as extreme, but in that reworking, James Cameron managed to give emotional depth to his extension. Both the third and fourth films failed to formulate strong storylines, but they still had occasional flashes of said depth. GENISYS is the first TERMINATOR iteration I found to be almost completely without any emotional intensity, even though one of its key re-imaginings is that, for some reason never clarified, a T-800 (Schwarzenegger) travels back to the era when Sarah was a young girl and becomes her de factor father from then on (she calls him "Pops") after a T-1000 kills Sarah's parents.
Possibly there was some explanation for this anomaly that was lost in the shuffle, but in the future-world of Grownup John Connor (Jai Courtney), the events of the first TERMINATOR transpire just mostly as expected. But just before Kyle Reece (Jason Clarke) begins his time-trip, John Connor is attacked by an entity from the almost defeated Skynet. Somehow this creates an alternate timeline for time-traveler Reece, so that he journeys to the timeline where Grownup Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) has been raised by "Pops" to become a gun-toting badass. This Sarah is fully aware that she's supposed to mate with Kyle to produce John, but all of those emotional storms are lost when John, now mutated into some sort of Nano-Terminator, also travels to the time when the Terminating Trio are attempting to nullify Skynet-- although now that time is 2017, and Skynet is part of Genisys, a sort of glorified Iphone network. The many convolutions of the plot don't matter given that the film has no meaningful center. The "man is too dependent on machines" trope gets dusted off for another outing, and eventually, even in the midst of Things Blowing Up Good, Kyle and Sarah more or less get together. The two (unrelated) Clarkes do as well as they can with these limited roles, but ostensibly GENISYS was not a happy shoot, so that experience may have colored their performances. Arnold gets a fair number of decent lines, but nothing as memorable as his work in T2, while Courtney makes a bland villain. J.K. Simmons, playing an older version of a minor character from the 1984 film, provides a few light moments. Despite good box office, GENISYS failed to generate further iterations of this timeline and the franchise was again rebooted to 2019's DARK FATE, which I have not yet seen but for which I don't have high expectations.
PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological* This British B-movie taught me something. I'd seen the title "Escapement" listed in concordances, but I assumed it was a word made-up for the film. Instead, I learned that it's a term for a "linkage in mechanical watches and clocks." This fits director Montogomery Tully's dull outing far more than the overbaked American title, THE ELECTRONIC MONSTER, because as you watch ENGAGMENT, it is a lot like watching the slow mechanical progress of a clock-hand.
The viewpoint character (though not the movie's central character) is insurance investigator Jeff (Rod Cameron of G-MEN VS. THE BLACK DRAGON). Jeff's firm learns that a movie-star client has died in France, so in order to explore any angles that might invalidate paying on the client's death policy, Jeff flies to Cannes and begins nosing about. He talks to one of the late actor's girlfriends, who has oddly enough also dated two other persons who died in accidents recently. The girlfriend's implication in the overall situation is never explained, though it may have been in the source novel, which its author Charles Maine adapted for this movie. In any case, Jeff learns that before their deaths the victims had all received some radical new therapy at a psychological clinic. Head scientist Maxwell explains that he's invented a new application for the magnetic tape used (much later) in videotapes: the tape can record film-scenarios, and through some sort of computer-hookup Mawell can transmit those scenarios directly into patients' brains, for purpose of therapy. The viewer soon learns, though, that Maxwell's not in charge of the institution, for the owner is movie-producer Paul Zakon (Peter Illing), and Zakon is implicitly involved in the suspicious deaths.
Jeff makes no progress with Maxwell or Zakon, but he does when he meets one of the clinic's employees: his old flame Ruth (Mary Murphy). Sometime after Jeff and Ruth broke up, Ruth in her capacity as a professional dancer was hired to perform in some of Zakon's scenarios, which all look like surrealistic scenes from the tamer grindhouse films. (Not that we see many of these.) Ruth also tells Jeff that she's now engaged to Zakon. However, by the readiness seen as Ruth responds to Jeff's lovemaking, it's evident that Zakon was just a rebound engagement to the young woman. In due time Ruth becomes embroiled in Jeff's investigation.
The very vague implication is that Zakon's been trying to use computer-enhanced brainwashing to bilk his rich clients out of their fortunes, but the unstable process causes the clients to kill themselves. There are a lot of clunky talking-heads scenes, and one measly fight-scene as the intrepid insurance investigator keeps plugging away at the case-- though at least his personal involvement with Ruth justifies some of his ardor. Zakon tries to block the inquiry with murder and kidnapping, and one of Zakon's henchmen is said to have worked with the Nazi regime. I think he was the one briefly seen smoking a cigarette in a holder, a frequent visual trope signifying effete European evil. In the end Maxwell rebels against his puppet master and kills Zakon before destroying all of his machinery, so that Maxwell's invention can never again be used to wash brains. Jeff and Ruth are reunited.
I'm not likely to ever read Charles Maine's original novel, but since the author has been described as a thriller-writer who only used minor SF-elements in his works, I don't think I'm missing much. Most of Tully's oeuvre consisted of low budget crime thrillers, though at the end of his career he produced two somewhat better-budgeted SF-movies, THE TERRORNAUTS and BATTLE BENEATH THE EARTH. ESCAPEMENT mostly gets mention as one of the first "SF-brainwashing" movies, which is the only reason I give it a "fair" mythicity rating. But either of those later two films may be more entertaining if watched uncritically. Though the sympathetic viewpoint characters of TERRORNAUTS are the central figures of that film, in BATTLE it's the villain, much as Zakon is the central figure of ESCAPEMENT. Amusingly, one of the film's alternate titles is "Zex, the Electronic Fiend," which sounds like someone blended the word "sex" with the name "Zakon."
PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological* I recently finished reviewing the last couple of DESPICABLE ME films, concluding with the note that I wouldn't mind seeing an end to Felonious Gru's adventures. I had a similar feeling toward the idea of giving Gru's jabbering henchpersons their own feature in 2015. Even while admitting that these films weren't made for my age-group, I thought MINIONS was no more than competent formula comedy. That film ended with the intimation that the mustard-colored munchkins were finally going to hook up with their destined master Gru, still in his bitter grade-school years, but I could not have cared less. To my surprise, I found that I liked RISE the best of all the movies in the franchise. I suppose that some of my reaction stems from the script playing up the "seventies vibe" of Gru's youth, and nowhere is this better seen than in the villain-group Young Gru aspires to join: The Vicious Six. All six of these notorious super-villains constantly pull off major crimes that earns them Young Gru's adulation, as well as having punny names whose humor might require explanation to kids of a certain age. I myself didn't get the significance of the name given to the group's eldest member and leader, "Wild Knuckles." But whatever the meaning, Knuckles gets special treatment by his comrades, because in the midst of a major heist with the aim of conquering the world, the other five betray their leader. Knuckles survives the betrayal and plots vengeance. Meanwhile, the quintet put out the word that they need a new sixth so-- they can keep the same name??
The seventies vibe also helps sell the franchise's penchant for combining Lucas-and-Spielberg thrills with wacky humor, but I stress that even though the Minions are the headliners and have their share of funny scenes, RISE only works because Gru is a co-equal member of the starring cast. His outcast status from the normie world makes Gru hunger for validation from other outcasts, so when he's rejected from member-consideration because of his age, he steals the Five's world-conquering doohickey, hoping to impress them. The ruthless robbers want their gizmo back and are willing to pulverize a little kid to get it, while their renegade partner Knuckles also puts the snatch on Young Gru and subjects him to torture-- okay, a funny version of torture, but still. Nevertheless, through all adversities Gru never wavers from his desire to become a great villain, and eventually he impresses Knuckles enough that the elder-statesman criminal does forge a mentor-student relationship with the eight-year-old.
Of course, in a kids' film with a scattershot approach there's stuff that doesn't work well, such an extended sequence in which three Minions learn kung fu from an Asian acupuncturist (Michelle Yeoh). But the trio's newly acquired martial skills play an important role later, so the sequence justifies itself in the slam-bang finish. But RISE's best facet is giving audiences the chance to see Gru's early villainy unfettered by all of his adult self's later attempts to become a Square Citizen. Steve Carell provides yeoman rendering Gru's weird accent into a kid-voice, and four of the Vicious Six are embodied by talents made famous by action-movies and TV: Dolph Lundgren, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Lucy Lawless, and Danny Trejo. But while we might see Respectable Old Gru in theaters again, I suspect this is the final bow for Young Felonious.
PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological* This same-year sequel to ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT CAM GIRL might be considered a tiny improvement, to the extent that I smiled at one or two of the jokes. The main appeal remains director Jim Wynorski's attempt to out-bosom the oeuvre of Russ Meyer, with a side-dish of giantess-fetishism. 
One improvement is that the first film got the dull setup stuff out of the way. We find out that a couple of people who got giant-ized earlier have returned to normal size, but Beverly Wood (Ivy Smith) is still a fifty-foot freak, though the scientists who created the growth substance are still working on a cure. Last time Wynorski borrowed the main plot from 1958's ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN, right down to the infidelity angle. But this time he takes a leaf from the 1933 SON OF KONG, wherein promoter Carl Denham suffers numerous lawsuits because of the destruction Kong wrought. But here it's "Monstrous Beverly" who loses her shirt (so to speak) trying to make up for the damage she caused. Her boyfriend Mike gets her a job working construction, but a sleazy con artist talks Beverly into staging a catfight with another giantess for the cam-audience. 
It just so happens, though, that a warrior-woman from a planet of giantesses decides to descend to Earth and challenge Beverly to single combat. The new arrival's name is Spa-Zor (Kiersten Hall), and I confess I didn't catch the pun until one of the Earthwomen mispronounced it on purpose. Thus, the film culminates in a three-way fistfight between Spa-Zor, Beverly, and Beverly's intended opponent, "Anna Conda," though as a fight it's as bland as the one from the first film. The writer throws in a couple of SF-media jokes that don't land, one from STAR TREK and the other from THIS ISLAND EARTH, but I must admit the sex-humor involving "spelunking" provided the movie's one clever moment.
PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological* As much as I admire the Marv Wolfman-Gene Colan epic that I've termed THE FALL OF DRACULA, I never would have thought anyone would have selected it as the first feature-length adaptation of a Marvel story. After all, one reason Marvel allowed Wolfman and Colan to devote the last three years of TOMB OF DRACULA to the vampire lord's tragic demise was that the comic's sales had declined. Many comics-fans esteemed the feature, but who in the early eighties cared what comics-fans thought? This ninety-minute feature (give or take a few minutes) premiered on Japanese television first and appeared in American venues like cable and video stores a couple of years later. I speculate that Toei Studios weren't so much engrossed with the TOMB OF DRACULA iteration as with the possibility of forging profitable working arrangements with Marvel Comics. To be sure, the name of Dracula certainly commanded its share of attention among Japanese audiences, just as had the name of King Kong back in 1966, when Toei produced a version of the great ape's adventures for American television. It's of passing interest that the very next year after SOVEREIGN, Toei produced a TV-film that freely adapted Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN, supposedly "licensed by Marvel Entertainment," though I saw no resemblance between the TV-film and Marvel's 1970s take on the Monster. Apparently around the same time, Toei had something to do with the rather charmless 1981 SPIDER-MAN cartoon, so a relationship did develop, even though SOVEREIGN probably didn't contribute anything more than a "trial run." So how does SOVEREIGN rate next to the excellent source material? Well, apparently some literal-minded studio boss instructed writer Tadaaki Yamazaki to boil down almost everything in the last three-year run into ninety minutes, possibly trying to impress Marvel with Toei Studio's fidelity. Given that impossible task, Yamazaki deserves credit for a yeoman effort. Naturally he doesn't keep such franchise-characters as the Silver Surfer, who made a brief appearance in the long comics-arc, and though Dracula's daughter Lilith makes an appearance, someone renamed her "Layla" even though she keeps the same comic-book attire, and she's not said to be Drac's progeny, at least in the English dub. Yamazaki radically simplified the vampire-lord's origins from the comic as well. Dracula still starts out as the 16th-century warlord Vlad Tepes, a man who commits extreme cruelties to defend his country. But in SOVEREIGN, Vlad dies and Satan himself raises the warlord from death to become his agent of evil. In the comics-story Satan played a much less active role in Dracula's travails.
In FALL, Dracula wants to build a base of power, in part to better deal with his vampire-hunting enemies: the wheelchair-bound Quincy Harker (renamed "Hans" in the anime), Rachel Van Helsing, and Drac's distant relation Frank Drake. To this power-gathering end, Dracula finds his way to a Satanist cult, one which is about sacrifice a virgin bride to the demon, and he impersonates Satan in order to control the worshippers. Yamazaki brings in new motives: Dracula resents Satan's manipulations and intends to kill the devil's bride, named Dolores in the anime, just for spite. But after abducting Dolores, the vampire and the aborted sacrifice fall in love within mere minutes. The script does not dwell on what passes between them, but somehow the undead count begets a son on Dolores. I suppose nine months pass until the boy is born, though I'm not sure why Satan, pissed at having his bride stolen, is willing to wait that long for vengeance.
However much time goes by, things come to a head when the three vampire hunters overtake Dracula, while Satan instructs his followers to slay the vampire and his bride. Before Dracula can kill all the Satanists, one of them unleashes gunfire that kills the newborn. The distraught parents bury the unnamed child, but this time Heaven apparently intervenes. The babe is brought back to life, becoming a golden skinned adult who calls himself Janus, and he fights with Dracula in the name of Heaven. (A later section implies that Dolores brought Janus to life with some hidden power, but this doesn't affect the plot at all.) In the comic Janus' conflicts with Dracula go on for a while, but the script races on to the next high point: Dracula contending with Satan himself.
Satan plays his trump card and removes Dracula's powers, making him into an ordinary mortal. In this form the vampire hunters won't attack him, but Dracula is desperate to recover his lost status. In New York he tries to get Layla to bite him and re-vampirize him, but she kicks him to the curb. Drac travels to Transylvania seeking help from the other vampires there, but a new lord has arisen in the meantime, and a mortal Dracula has to fight him. Drac gets his powers back, but the vampire-hunters show up, and Harker sacrifices himself to destroy the vampire-lord for all time, The End.

Obviously SOVEREIGN has far too many plot-threads to give any of them proper development, and no one who didn't know the source-material would be able to navigate the flood of barely explained characters and incidents. But Yamazaki does succeed in one department: he, like Marv Wolfman, makes the monstrous central character both noble and ruthless in a compelling manner. The animators do a fine job translating the Colan images of the Count into limited movement as well-- though all of the other characters suffer by comparison, in terms of both art and writing. In the final analysis, this first feature adaptation of a Marvel comic must be judged a failure. But at least it's an interesting failure.
PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological* The Turkish film industry is renowned for producing knockoffs of Western franchises. the so-called "Turkish Star Wars" being a famous one, though not one I've seen. But the movie LION MAN-- currently on streaming under the blah title THE SWORD AND THE CLAW-- is a reasonably original take on Tarzan, but one where the future hero (Cuneyt Arkin) is raised from infanthood by a pride of lions. 
The place name "Byzantium" is tossed out at one point, so I guess the opening conflict takes place between Byzantine Christians and Muslims of that period. The Christians lose a rather ratty looking battle, and their representative lord Antuan (Yildririm Gencer) appears at the court of Suleiman Shah (also played by Arkin) to come to terms. Unbeknownst to Antuan, a lady of the Christian court, Princess Maria, finds Suleiman beguiling despite his being married to his own queen. Maria and Suleiman do the deed. Some time passes, during which Antuan lays plans for an assassination and the queen delivers a son to Suleiman. However, Antuan's assassins attack the shah at court and kill all his people, including the queen, which apparently paves the way for the Byzantines to conquer the country. However, one of the queen's servants gets away with the shah's infant son. This son is lost in the wild and gets raised by lions. Antuan tops off his triumph by marrying Maria, little suspecting that she has a Suleiman-bun in the oven. 
Twenty years later, the Byzantines exert a cruel hold upon the kingdom of Wherever It Is, and a resistance movement of Muslim nationals has arisen. Antar (Cebil Sahbaz), the grown son of Maria-- whom Antuan assumes to be his own progeny-- serves the Byzantine cause, and during a patrol he and his soldiers are attacked by rebels. For reasons I forget, Aslan the Lion Man intervenes to help the Byzantines. The two half-brothers exchange pleasantries, to the extent that Aslan can't speak human lingo. 
Living with the lions has conferred upon Aslan superhuman strength, at least on the level of a Maciste-movie, and the movie's highlight is seeing the hero attack people with his naked fingers poised like claws. Aslan's interference with the rebels cheeses off the daughter of the rebel leader, so she sets up an occasion to meet the wild man. When he drops his guard, she stabs Aslan-- and then belatedly sees that he possesses a royal birthmark, attesting to his true lineage. Soon Aslan joins the rebels and learns to speak and follow other human customs-- though surprisingly given the Tarzan influence, there's no romantic arc between Aslan and any female of his own species. 
Meanwhile, Maria finally confesses to Antuan that Antar is not the Byzantine's son. (Antar also possesses the birthmark of the shah's line, but I guess none of the Byzantines knew what it meant.) Antuan hurls Maria into durance vile and begins counter-attacking the rebels and their new ally. After various martial encounters, Antuan tries to nullify Aslan's claw-powers by pouring acid on his hands. However, a rebel blacksmith makes metal claw-hands for the hero, so that he becomes more powerful than before. Eventually Antar learns his true heritage and the half-brothers unite to destroy the "false father." Surprisingly, aside from avenging the death of Suleiman, the movie's main plot-thread is about the two siblings finding one another. LION MAN has a delirious concept, but at most turns it's undermined by the poverty of the production, resulting in bad fight-choreography beside which even an Italian knockabout comedy looks good. Some battle-scenes are even scored with a peculiar jaunty tune, rather than something more suitably adventurous. Arkin's the only performer who projects a little personality, though I can't say he overshadows even Gordon Scott, much less Johnny Weismuller.
PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological* Had the makers of this routine sleaze-flick wanted to choose a title that didn't bite the style of the NIGHT STALKER TV-franchise, they might have called their movie "Maverick Cop vs. Maniac Cop." But although MANIAC COP's Robert Z'dar plays the evil "stalker" of the title, that series didn't start until 1988, and indeed STALKER's main distinction is that it led to the hulking performer being cast as the undead lawman.
The star of the show, in any case, is Charles Napier in a rare turn as the hero of the story, J.J. Stryker, in almost every way a maverick cop in the "Dirty Harry" tradition: arrogant, anti-social (he's on the outs with the department for drunken binges), and dedicated to bringing back perps dead on arrival. Stryker departs from some maverick cops in that he does have a steady girlfriend, ex-hooker Rene (Michelle Reese), but they quarrel a lot because he's insecure about her past profession. Yet the script isn't interested in their dramatic potential, only in using Rene to give Stryker a personal motive to go after the villain, a serial killer who targets prostitutes. Because Rene keeps in contact with her pro friends, she becomes another target-- though the story is so episodic that Stryker doesn't cross the killer's trail for half the film. That first half is filled with various episodes in Stryker's crimefighting exploits, which serve to kill time but aren't very memorable. Stryker and his partner Charlie butt heads once with Julius, a pimp who brutally forces his whores to endanger themselves to make more money for him. The titular stalker (Z'dar) is one of the few unusual elements here. Chuck Sommers seems at first a garden-variety psycho, killing hookers so that he can paint their faces for ritualistic purposes. But Sommers' rituals have genuine magical effects. Viewers don't know if the murders really give Sommers immortality, but at the very least he becomes immune to gunfire. Pimp Julius finds this out the hard way as he and his henchmen try to take down the Stalker and he slaughters them all, ignoring their bullets (another presentiment of the MANIAC COP series). Sommers also kills Charlie and abducts Rene, so Stryker ignores departmental procedure to take down the fiend. The climax, which isn't as violent as I remembered, has Stryker and other cops bombard Sommers with small-arms gunfire, which he laughs off. Then for no clear reason the killer is apparently defeated when Stryker launches an explosive flare (?) and causes Sommers to fall into a smelting-vat. Before the credits roll, there's a quick suggestion that the Stalker may have survived, but patently there were no further adventures of the monstrous killer or his opponent. Apart from STALKER's role in giving Robert Z'dar his most celebrated role, the flick is mainly notable for the curiosity values of a maverick cop combatting a supernatural being and of seeing Charles Napier in a lead role. The director and the two credited writers mostly produced amiable junk with not much historical value, except that co-writer Don Edmonds gained some fame by directing the first two Nazi-sploitation "Ilsa the She Wolf" movies.