BATTLE SOLDIER (2013)

 

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

Wow, in no more than two days of searching superhero movies on Tubi, and I already found one even worse than SHINOBI GIRL-- THE MOVIE.

SHINOBI, as I said, had bad fights and bad acting, and so does BATTLE SOLDIER, filmed under the more high-falutin' title CAPTAIN BATTLE: LEGACY WAR. But SHINOBI had more comely women in its cast than does BATTLE, and BATTLE doesn't even take much visual advantage of potential fanservice in that regard.

Rather, it's the utterly humdrum story of Sam Battle (Cuyle Carvin), a modern-day commando who gets wounded in what is supposedly the Middle East (it looked like California to me). Sam's friend Brandon just happens to have an untested super-soldier in his possession, so he tries it out on Sam. Not only does Sam not die, he eventually gains ill-defined Captain America-type abilities. The officer in authority over Sam and Brandon witnesses this miracle, but for some reason he keeps mum and the two soldiers are able to get regular discharges and to return to the States.

Back in the U.S., Brandon discloses another secret: Sam's grandfather was a bonafide superhero, Captain Battle, during WWII. One might expect that Sam might decide of his accord to take up the superhero mantle simply because his hometown is now overrun with Neo-Nazi gangbangers. However, Sam is spared any such weighty decisions. The Nazis-- maybe seven or eight in all-- are under the command of a Nazi sorceress, The Necromancer, who kidnaps Brandon and his sister so that she can use the secret formula in cloning the Nazi High Command, starting with Heinrich Himmler. This of course spurs Sam to don his ancestor's costume, complete with eye-patch (though there's nothing wrong with either of Sam's eyes), and he's off on a justice crusade.

Under the right circumstances I might overlook bad filmmaking and acting if a low budget superhero was at least lively. But BATTLE is thus far the absolute pit of all cinematic fight-choreography I've seen, and that's unforgivable in an alleged action movie.

This groaner's only distinction is that there actually was a comic-book character named Captain Battle, published by Lev Gleason Comics during the war years, and the visual emulation of the character (presumably in public domain these days) is at least accurate. But there's absolutely nothing else to recommend this turd of a film.