I-MAN (1986)

 

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

I-MAN-- a name never used in the movie as such, though "indestructible man" pops up twice-- was an unsold pilot-film about the exploits of ordinary joe Jeffrey Wilder (Scott Bakula) after he's exposed to an extraterrestrial gas brought to Earth by astronauts. This TV-flick appeared on MAGICAL WORLD OF DISNEY, one of the last incarnations of the venerable WORLD OF DISNEY anthology-show to make it to the broadcast airwaves.

The most interesting thing about this failed pilot, aside from spotlighting Scott Bakula before his rise to fame, is that it posits a hero who has no offensive powers as such, only a passive invulnerability. The 1969 teleseries THE IMMORTAL was broadly similar in that it presented a protagonist whose only "super power" was that he never aged, never got sick, and could recuperate from injuries in jig time. However, the hero was at least a good basic brawler-- which can't be said for the character of Jeffrey Wilder.

Wilder is a widowed taxi-driver, with a teenaged son named Eric (Joey Cramer) and an eye for the ladies. He suffers critical injuries in an explosion involving an army transport with the aforementioned alien cargo, but he recovers almost immediately, his wounds healing over in seconds. He escapes the hospital and confides only in Eric (who, unbeknownst to both of them, was also affected in the same way by the same alien materials). However, a government agency, headed by genial spy-chief Bogosian (Herschel Bernardi), tracks down Wilder and obliges him to undergo some tests. Given that this is a fantasy, they allow him to go home when he pleases, but in no time, Bogosian is on Wilder's doorstep, imploring the help of The Indestructible Man.

After guilting Wilder into lending a hand, there's no time to give the cabbie even a crash-course in self-defense. He spends a few hours with an alleged trainer played by sometimes Frankenstein-actor John Bloom, but the trainer doesn't do more anything but bag on Wilder for being an amateur. Teamed up with a lady agent named Karen (Ellen Bry), the two of them seek to infiltrate the HQ of a madman named Holbrook (John Anderson), who has hijacked a laser-weapon system from the government and is using it to blackmail the country. Improbably, Eric is able to tag along with this twosome, and does a better job inflitrating the bad guy's compound, since Eric isn't caught and the two adults are.

There's a boring interlude in which Karen demonstrates Wilder's invulnerability to Holbrook in order to beguile the crazy criminal. Wilder and Karen exchange coy romantic moments. Holbrook's seductive daughter tries to exploit Wilder's "Don Juan heel" and gets punched out by Karen. Actually, Karen shows in one other scene that she has standard training in martial arts, while Wilder never distinguishes himself in that department. Only at the climax, when Holbrook's trying to drive his stolen laser by truck to his next attack-point, Wilder shows definite courage by dropping down onto the truck from a helicopter and derailing the villain's plans. Oh, and it's suggested his invulnerability might wane with lack of exposure to sunlight, but this is only thrown in to create a little suspense about whether Wilder might perish at the end. But the truck-stunt at least lifts him up to the level of one of the lesser combative heroes.

Though Anderson has played good villains elsewhere, he's got nearly nothing to work with, so Bakula's the only performer buoying up this weak attempt at a quasi-superhero. Aside from Bakula's lively performance, the best thing about it is that the pilot doesn't end on a cliffhanger.