THE GLADIATOR (1986)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

Here's another bit of TV-ephemera whose genesis would probably be more interesting than the work itself. In 1984, Abel Ferrara had directed FEAR CITY, a movie with a vigilante trope loosely like that of this 1986 TV-movie. But THE GLADIATOR is a dull outing, and it doesn't even have the excuse of being a setup for a TV series.

Ken Wahl, about ten years ahead of his success on TV's WISEGUY, plays a car repairman named Rick. He's the sole support of his high-schooler brother Jeff, and insists that Jeff hit the books every night to keep his grades up. But one night, Jeff complains so much about the routine that Rick lets him practice driving Rick's truck on the street. Of course the one night Rick gets permissive is the wrong night. A car comes out of nowhere, slamming into the back of the truck Jeff's driving, and propels the car into oncoming traffic. Rick survives; Jeff does not.

Though the screenplay devotes a lot of time to Rick's grief, there's no insight into the protagonist's particular psychology. But when it's obvious that the cops (represented by Robert Culp) can do nothing about the mystery hit-and-run, eventually Rick armors his truck and outfits it with a grapnel-device that can snare other cars, and goes hunting the killer of his brother, using the radio-handle "The Gladiator."

FWIW, the story, originally by William (THE MIDNIGHT HOUR) Bleich, doesn't present the vigilante as incapable of error. In fact, the only potential romantic interest, a radio-journalist (Nancy Allen), certainly does not become the new hero's Lois Lane, for she,isn't one of the Gladiator's many fans. We see other innocents killed by the never-seen "Death Car Driver" (as he's billed in credits), and we also see that he's outfitted his vehicle with a drill-bit to attack tires. But only at the very end of GLADIATOR does Rick find his quarry-- by sheer luck, at that-- and he and his truck defeat the Death Car in a very underwhelming conclusion. I can't think that even enthusiasts of Ferrara would find much of significance here.

VENUS MEETS THE SON OF HERCULES (1962)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

The VENUS title is less representative of the actual movie than the Italian one, which translates as "Mars, God of War," but I'm using the English-language "Son of Hercules" name this time because it's more amusing. VENUS seems to be the only peplum on the resume of director/co-writer Marcello Baldi, though his two billed co-writers had considerable experience on other such fantasy-adventures. Nevertheless, Baldi produced a story that had a fair amount of potential, but missed the mark, possibly because of his inexperience with or disinterest in this subgenre.

Of course, since I watched an English-subtitled version, it's possible that the movie's biggest failing, that of exposition, is the result of someone cutting vital scenes. But I doubt it. VENUS just seems incoherent in too many scenes, ergo my "disinterest" remark.

A Greek city, Telbia, is besieged by invaders from Black Africa and in danger of being overthrown despite the best efforts of the ruler Antarus (Massimo Serrato). Then, as if heaven hears the desperate please of the Telbians, a single man in golden armor descends to Earth and routs the enemy forces. This warrior proves to be none other than Mars, God of War (Roger Browne), but he doesn't explain himself to the local bigwigs. He beholds enemy soldiers threatening a beautiful young vestal virgin named Daphne (Jocelyn Lane), and rescues her. Mars and Daphne exchange a few sentences and he runs off.

Now, though a lot of peplum-films may be bad overall, usually they're pretty good about explication, about explaining who's laying evil schemes and who's presenting noble resistance. But though Baldi finds time to establish that Antarus wants to seduce Daphne despite her consecration to Venus, he never establishes just why Mars decided to come to Earth. The broad implication is that he saw Daphne from afar and saved the city just for her benefit, though no one actually says this.

Instead, after various time-wasting scenes in which Antarus' mistress shows her jealousy of Daphne (though this "bad girl" never does anything truly evil), Mars seeks out Daphne at the Temple of Venus. Mars appears to still have godly powers, for he approaches the temple as an invisible man. But when he enters the shrine and encounters Daphne, he makes a vague statement about having surrendered his immortality. The poor girl barely has time to process all this when the other vestals learn that a man has trespassed upon their sacred grounds. Mars and Daphne try to hide, but suddenly phantom versions of Daphne manifest, confusing the war-god. These turn out to be sendings from Venus herself, and she spirits Mars away to her celestial palace. This puts Daphne in dutch, for Antarus is happy to condemn her for violating her virgin status.

Venus finally confronts the "son of Hercules," though she continues to keep the image of Daphne. It's not clear what relationship Venus and Mars have in this story, though one presumes that they've had sex, as in at least one famous myth-tale. She tries to seduce Mars in that form, and at least one online reviewer thought she succeeded, though I did not. However, as long as he's in Venus' palace, the mortal-ized Mars doesn't seem to be able to do anything to get free. Eventually Venus sends Mars back to Earth, some time after Daphne's been tormented in a closing wall-trap with spikes, and then condemned to be devoured by a monster plant. Mars finally crosses swords with Antarus and his men, but Daphne is accidentally slain. However, the actual father of Mars in myth, Zeus/Jupiter, takes pity on his son. The high god sends a heavenly chariot to Earth, transporting both Mars and the spirit of Daphne to Olympus, where one presumes they will become Olympian deities.

The poor execution of the story doesn't keep me from rating the movie "fair" in mythicity, since the basic idea seems to be that of a goddess manifesting through her worshiper, a frequent trope in Greek myth. The sequence of Mars held captive in Venus' chamber is well-handled, with Venus claiming to be "all women." It's just a shame that this is the movie's sole effective scene.

ASTERIX AND OBELIX: MISSION CLEOPATRA (2002)

 

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

This, the second live-action ASTERIX movie, adapted the comics album ASTERIX AND CLEOPATRA. The album was adapted into a 1968 animated film, reviewed here, and since I summed up the plot there, I won't repeat it here.

Like the albums, and like the previous live-action entry, the plot is kept thin so as to work in more jokes. The heroes, dull witted Obelix and clever Asterix, are once again essayed by Gerard Depardieu and Christian Clavier, although Clavier would be replaced by another actor for the third live-action outing. New writer-director Alain Chabat (who also essays the role of Julius Caesar) replaces the writer and the director from the first film, and if anything he piles on the jokes even more extravagantly than his predecessors. In fact, though in my review of the animated CLEOPATRA I said it was funnier than the album thanks to the use of animated action. But Chabat doesn't let live-action stand in the way of a gag. A notable scene (not in the album or cartoon) pits a hulking male warrior against a petite young girl who's taken the Gauls' magic strength-potion. The result is that she slams her opponent around and spins him over her head just like Popeye vanquishing Bluto.

That said, Asterix and Obelix are a bit like guest-stars in their own movie. Their "mission" is to help the Egyptian architect Edifis build in record time a grand new palace for Cleopatra, (Monica Bellucci). Yet this time the guys don't have any character-arcs of their own, aside from a very minor romantic dalliance for Asterix. (Perhaps this was to make up for Obelix getting a doomed romance in the first film.) The heroes' other main function is to protect the construction site against both the enemy of Edifis (rival architect Artifis) and the Gauls' usual antagonist Caesar. Even the most extensive fight-scene belongs to Edifis and Artifis, who both take the strength-potion and have a bout like something out of DRAGONBALL. I didn't follow how Edifis got hold of the potion, but the fight is one of the movie's high points.

One curious thing about the subtitled version of MISSION that I saw on streaming is that sometimes one can make out the French actors uttering different proper names than the names used by the captions. In one sense this sort of thing happened when the first albums were translated into English, where the French name for the Gauls' druid friend, Panoramix, was changed to "Getafix" for the English speaking audience. Similarly, both Edifis and Artifis have different names in French than in the English subtitles. This quirk isn't bad in itself, but sometimes it makes it hard to look up what actor played what character, going purely by subtitles.

I also commented in my review of the cartoon film that both album and animated flick avoided the adult relationship of the historical Caesar and Cleopatra. But MISSION, though it's mostly clean fun, throws in a quick shot of the two rulers starting to get in on in Cleo's new palace, which was also a pleasant, and reasonably funny, surprise.

ASTERIX AND OBELIX VS. CAESAR (1999)

 

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

This film (which I'll abbreviate as CAESAR) is the first of the successful live-action adaptations of ASTERIX,drawing from at least five of the popular Franco-Belgian comics albums. Naturally the first movie in this series introduces the basic setup: a small village in Roman-ruled Gaul proves able to repulse all the efforts of Caesar's legions to extort taxes and fealty. The druid of the possibly-unnamed village has created a potion that can endow those who drink it with super-strength and durability, and if attacked, all of the barbarian Gauls have but to drink the potion and become powerhouses that can devastate everything in their path. But for most incursions, usually only the village's two foremost warriors are necessary: the short-statured Asterix (Christian Clavier) and the brobdingnagian Obelix (Gerard Depardieu). 

The story's very episodic but the core of CAESAR's conflict is that Caesar's military leader Detritus (Oscar-winner Roberto Benigni) learns about the potion that gives the Gauls their powers, and launches strategies to steal the potion so that he can turn his Roman soldiers into powerhouses as well. The evil schemer succeeds in kidnapping the druid Getafix and taking him all the way back to Rome. Asterix and Obelix follow, but only Obelix's super-power remains stable because he fell into a potion-cauldron as a baby, while that of Asterix wears off once he's not imbibed the necessary chemicals.

CAESAR's high point takes place in a Roman arena. Asterix uses hypnotism to help the dull-witted Obelix impersonate a legionary in order to get them past the city gates. However, powerless Asterix is taken prisoner and forced to run a gamut of death-traps in the arena. Throughout his ordeals the Gaul can see his friend standing at the side of Detritus-- who, by the bye, has used his new power to overthrow Caesar. But Obelix doesn't recognize his buddy thanks to his being in a hypnotic haze. Eventually, though, the two friends are united and return to Gaul with the liberated Getafix. The druid then brews up a special potion so that the villagers get special powers that help them repel the next attack despite the fact that some Roman soldiers have super-strength now. I'll omit the nature of these special powers, but Detritus is defeated and Caesar reclaims his throne, pledging to leave the barbarians to their own devices-- at least for the time being.

It's a pleasant comedy, a little funnier than most of the animated adaptations, and there's a good subplot in which the lummox Obelix falls in love with a girl who's already got a fiancee. One of the oddest touches is that early in the film, the heroes torment one of the Romans by trying to make him sing "Ai yi yi yi, like the Frito Bandito," according to the subtitles. That Frito's spokesman was retired over twenty years before this movie was in production. So I don't know how the Frenchies knew about that bit of advertising ephemera, unless it had appeared in one of the comics albums.

THE MYSTERY OF THUG ISLAND (1964)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I've seen two or three of the Italian-made "Sandokan" films, adapting swashbuckling novels popular in Europe during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And I believe I may have seen this 1964 movie on television long ago. But until researching THUG I did not know-- if the information on TV Tropes is reliable-- that the novel from which THUG was adapted was something of a precursor to the Sandokan novels. Further, the main hero of that early novel, Indian tiger-hunter Tremal-Naik, became a support-character to the more popular serial adventurer Sandokan. I get some sense that maybe the author of the series may have later written Sandokan into the novel starring Tremal-Naik, but I can't be sure. Ironically, this film adaptation appeared in Italian theaters AFTER its director Luigi Capuano had already adapted two Sandokan-starring stories, and in those films, Tremal-Naik appears (though played by another actor) in his supporting role.

The main action deals with how Tremal-Naik, in his one starring story, meets his future wife Ada, who I believe may also appear as support-cast in the Sandokan corpus. The time of the story is not specified, but the British Raj fully controls India. In real-world history, British officers wiped out the organized gangs of robbers called Thuggee in the 1830s, so one may speculate that the events take place prior to that event.

Ada is, surprisingly, a white female, the daughter of widowed British army captain MacPherson (Peter Van Eyck of "Doctor Mabuse" fame). When Ada is still a little girl, she's stolen from her home by Souyadhana (Guy Madison), a Thuggee high priest. For unexplained reasons, Souyadhana has decided that his cult needs a woman to pose as the pure incarnation of their goddess Kali, and he thinks Ada fills his bill. He never confesses to having kidnapped Ada to gain revenge on the British generally or MacPherson specifically, nor does he hold any insidious plans for Ada when she grows to maturity and is played by Ingeborg Schoner. As far as I can tell, he just wants his own "white goddess." For Ada's part, she either forgets, or is brainwashed into forgetting, her old life. She is, however, aware that her skin is not the same color as the male Thugs and the one serving-girl she knows, and she only pays lip service to the Thuggee ideal of killing people for the love of Kali. 

MacPherson of course goes looking for his daughter, accompanied by Indian irregulars who have no higher opinion of the Thuggee than the Englishman does. They even arrive at the sanctuary of Souyadhana's cult on "Snakes Island," but the soldiers don't find the stranglers, because they occupy a cavern beneath the island's surface.

However, the Thuggee's choice of hideouts has one disadvantage: if you advertise that your place has snakes, you may get visits from snake hunters. Tremal-Naik (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart), having conveniently changed his profession from tiger-stalker to snake-catcher for the movie's benefit, lands on the island with a fellow hunter, and they begin looking for their serpentine quarry. 

Then Tremal-Naik stumbles across Ada when she emerges from the cult's caverns in order to bathe in a surface stream. The low-caste Indian and the army captain's daughter fall in love at first sight, but she flees back to the cavern, confused by her sudden onrush of feelings. The heroic hunter of course keeps looking for her-- and after that, the movie just proceeds from one action-scenario to another. The closest thing to a plot-development comes when Souyadhana gets the idea to set an enemy to kill an enemy, offering Tremal-Naik a chance to unite with Ada if he kills her officer-father. This doesn't happen, though there are no shortage of lively (but mostly bloodless) fight-scenes throughout THUG. When the high priest's cult seems doomed, the high priest floods the cavern, but all the good people survive. THUG ends with the planned marriage of Tremal-Naik and Ada, a thing with which seems unlikely given the usual 1830s attitudes to intermarriage between Indians and Europeans. 

I would have liked a little more detail about the beliefs of the Kali-worshipers, but at least they do seem an uncanny lot, thanks to some spooky theremin music. If one assumes that the Tremal-Naik of the 1895 novel gets as much action there as his cinematic counterpart, the character may be the first Indian combative hero in European pop fiction. He and Ada may even be the first example of an Indian-European romantic interaction that culminates in an established martial status.

BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, VOLUME TWO (1992-93)

 

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

Still working my way backward from newest to oldest of the 1990s Bat-series.

ETERNAL YOUTH (F)-- Bruce Wayne gets an invite from the Eternal Youth Health Spa, but he passes it along to his butler Alfred, who takes his similarly aged friend Maggie as his plus-one. The two don't come back as expected, so Batman investigates. Turns out Poison Ivy has turned her spa into a "Venus fly trap" for fatcats whom she thinks are bad for the environment. It's a novel scheme for the Plant Mistress, but it's hard to believe nobody else missed other rich people who went missing after attending the health clinic.

PERCHANCE TO DREAM (G)-- Bruce Wayne awakes to a world in which he's never been Batman, but he has the rudiments of what could be a happy life, engaged to Selina Kyle. But when Bruce sees some other Batman parading around Gotham, he's determined to get the bottom of the mind-game, even if everyone around thinks he's gone berserk. Turns out it's an old foe who wants the satisfaction of confining Batman to a delusional dream-world just because the Cowled Crusader deprived the villain of his own paradise. I suppose the idea of trumping Batman's righteousness is the only good motive for the villain to mind-game the captive Batman, instead of just killing the crusader. As for who the villain is, it's a good surprise, so I'll just keep the evildoer's identity under my hat.

THE CAPE AND COWL CONSPIRACY (P)-- This started as a gimmicky comics-tale and it's just as gimmicky as a cartoon episode. It's pretty unmemorable, but in theory I approve of giving Batman a fair share of crime stories with no bizarro villains involved.

ROBIN'S RECKONING, PTS 1-2 (F)-- When Robin is brought into contact with the man who killed his parents, can he resist the urge to take vigilante vengeance? Well, he pretty much has to, or he can't keep on being a hero in the Old DC Universe. (Much later, the "hero" Red Hood would murder assorted crooks but would pretty much be forgiven, but those were different times.) I rate the episodes "fair" for providing snapshots of the psychological bonding between Bruce Wayne and his youthful ward.

THE LAUGHING FISH (F)-- "Fish" adapts disparate parts of two separate Joker-stories from the comics and squeezes in Harley Quinn for good measure. The episode doesn't manage to sell the more atmospheric aspects of either original, but it's still a better than average look at the Joker's demented psyche. 

NIGHT OF THE NINJA (F)-- I believe this is the first time the TV show builds an episode around the process by which a young Bruce Wayne obtained the peerless martial skills that he needed to become Batman. In those days he incurred the enmity of a fellow student, Kyodai Ken, and now Ken has returned in the guise of a ninja, targeting the Wayne businesses. Though both Batman and Robin have brief encounters with the ninja, it's Bruce Wayne who gets the chance to decisively defeat Ken, with a little identity-guarding help from Robin. Good interplay between the Dynamic Duo.

CAT SCRATCH FEVER (F)-- Of course you know that right after a judge lets Selina Kyle off with probation, but specifies that she better not don the cat-costume again, Catwoman will soon prowl again. This time her own pet cat Isis is one of many felines abducted by rogue scientist Milo, who needs test subjects for a virus. Catwoman is sidelined by exposure to the virus, so Batman has to play a lone hand for the most part. The high point is the hero facing off an attack dog atop a frozen lake.

THE STRANGE SECRET OF BRUCE WAYNE (P)-- This episode is based on a two-part fan-favorite comic, in which the author revived the diabolical Hugo Strange for the first time since the early 1940s. However, the writers of SECRET blew off all the eccentric aspects of Strange's personality. Here he's just another mad scientist, who in this case is able to ferret out Batman's identity with the use of a mind-control machine. Guest-starring roles for Joker, Penguin and Two-Face aren't much compensation.

HEART OF STEEL PTS 1-2 (P)-- The supercomputer HARDAC plots to control Gotham City by replacing real people with android duplicates, and only Batman can take the perilous processor off-line. Barbara Gordon, not yet Batgirl, guest stars.

IF YOU'RE SO SMART, WHY AREN'T YOU RICH? (G)-- One of the biggest problems with the Riddler in comics is that his compulsion about leaving clues, however useful in stories, makes him look somewhat pathetic, despite his intellect. The BATMAN show dispenses with the riddle-compulsion. Now he's a game-programming genius who simply likes using riddles in his games, but he turns criminal after his boss cheats him of profits. This villain, Batman and Robin have to sweat to defeat as they seek to rescue Riddler's victim from a modern Minotaur's maze.

JOKER'S WILD (P)-- This is basically just another Joker episode, with the angle that a casino owner rather foolishly tries to honk off the Clown Prince so that Joker will create an opportunity for insurance fraud. Why the schemer thinks he can survive arousing the Joker's wrath goes unexplained.

TYGER TYGER (F)-- Did the producers really have to subject Catwoman to a virus in one episode, and then to a "Doctor Moreau" transformation about a month later? The "Moreau" of the tale, Doctor Dorian, comes up with a magical serum (one might as well call it magic) that can advance animals into humanoid forms, yet also devolve humans into carefully chosen animal-hybrids. In particular, Dorian transforms Selina Kyle into a literal cat-woman so that he can mate her with his tiger-derived humanoid Tygrus. This is the G-rated version of the potential "bestiality" experiment in the 1932 film adaptation of the Wells novel, ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, so of course nothing like that comes close to happening. But I give the writers points for dealing with the tragedy of the cat-humanoid after he loses Selina, and for correctly quoting the Blake poem that furnished the episode's title.

MOON OF THE WOLF (P)-- This adaptation of another well-regarded comics-story fails to equal both the atmosphere and the action-content of the original. As in the story, Professor Milo transforms his test subject Anthony Romulus (named now for one of the founders of Rome) into a being who can transform into a vicious werewolf. Batman manages to fight off the lycanthrope, but it escapes at the episode's end, suggesting that the producers considered bringing Romulus back for a second encounter.

DAY OF THE SAMURAI (G)-- Yoru, the sensei who originally trained both Bruce Wayne and the ninja Kyodai Ken, learns that his star pupil, a woman named Kairi, had been kidnapped by Ken. Ken wants as ransom a scroll depicting an arcane "death touch" maneuver, and so Yoru appeals to Bruce Wayne for help, knowing that Batman will intervene. However, Ken has figured out the equivalence of Wayne and Batman too. When Batman shows up with the ransom-scroll, Ken forces the crusader to rescue Kairi while Ken makes off with the scroll. Ken learns the death-touch technique and challenges the hero to a face-off. When they fight, Ken jabs Batman, who seems to perish, only to revive and continue fighting. In the end Ken allows himself to die in a fiery explosion (though the producers kept this fact ambiguous). The revelation of how Batman figures out how to guard against the fatal jab is as intriguing as the (probably fictional) menace of the death-touch itself.

TERROR IN THE SKY (F)-- Man-Bat flies again-- or does he? It's a mediocre follow-up to the show's excellent introduction of the leather-winged monster-man, but to be sure, the comics story on which this episode is based wasn't that hot either.

ALMOST GOT 'IM (G)-- Much like PERCHANCE TO DREAM, this tale concretizes the need of Gotham's rogues not just to kill Batman, but to outclass him through their use of insidiously involved death-traps. Five villains on the run from the law-- Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, Killer Croc, and Poison Ivy-- convene at a gin-joint to play poker. While they play, each relates a story about how each villain "almost got" Batman in a chosen trap. Naturally, a certain Bat deals himself into the action as well, and so do both Catwoman and Harley Quinn. Arguably this is the finest episode of the entire series, with pitch perfect voice-work and exquisitely timed dialogue, as well as a few darker elements that got past the censors. Batman's escapes are all clever, but I think the villains really outdid themselves with their traps, with Penguin's aviary plot taking top honors while Two-Face's "giant penny" strategy runs a close second.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER (F)-- Penguin gets out of prison, determined to give up jousting with the law once and for all. Unfortunately, his good intentions are undermined when wealthy Veronica Vreeland invites him to a high-society party as a joke. Offended when he finds out he's being played, Penguin returns to crime, abducting Veronica and one of her partygoers for ransom. Batman defeats his old foe once again, but surprisingly neglects to dress down the useless aristocrats who caused much of the mess. This could have been an outstanding Penguin episode except that the script doesn't go the extra mile in terms of delineating his character.

WHAT IS REALITY? (F)-- The new, hyper-intelligent Riddler seeks to eliminate all records of his existence, but this is also a gambit designed to trap Batman in a virtual-game world. As in the villain's previous appearance, Batman has to figure out the rules of the game to survive. At episode's end, Riddler falls into a mental coma, but by his next appearance he's okay again.

I AM THE NIGHT (F)-- Batman begins to doubt that his crusade serves any purpose since crime remains ever-present, and nothing Robin or Alfred can say lessens the hero's existential ennui. A threat to Commissioner Gordon's life puts the crusader on high alert, though, and by the episode's end Batman is able to regain his sense of purpose.

OFF BALANCE (F)-- Prior to his first encounter with Ra's Al Ghul, the Cowled Crusader enjoys his first encounter with the villain's daughter Talia, albeit in circumstances very different from the comics-introduction. "Balance" is very action-oriented, as Batman and Talia must unite to stop the schemes of Count Vertigo. While not a great story, this is many times better than any of the hero's encounters with Talia and Ra's in the mediocre Nolan-verse.

THE MAN WHO KILLED BATMAN (P)-- It's another gimmicky crime-story, in which Batman allows the underworld to think he's been killed by a low-level goon, Sid the Squid. It is a little funnier than "Cape and Cowl Conspiracy," though.

MUDSLIDE (F)-- Clayface returns, but he's rapidly losing control of his bodily integrity. The shapechanging villain receives a respite from a medical doctor, Stella Bates, who knew Clayface when he was just a film-actor. She directs him to steal components needed for a cure, but he has to steal from Wayne Industries, and so Batman gets involved. Clayface survives his apparent death at episode's end, but this is probably his best BTAS outing.

PAGING THE CRIME DOCTOR (P)-- The original comics version of the titular villain concerned a medical man who's seduced by the thrill of aiding the criminal element. That goes out the window for a mediocre melodrama in which the doctor's gangster-brother involves the physician in crime, as well as kidnapping Batman's medical consultant Leslie Tompkins.

ZATANNA (F)-- To learn methods of escaping traps, a young Bruce Wayne studied stage magic with renowned performer Zatara, and on the side enjoyed a mild romance with Zatara's comely daughter Zatanna. Years later, Zatanna is framed for a robbery during her magic act, and Batman comes to her aid. The villains are far less important than the romantic interplay that results as Zatanna figures out that Batman is the young fellow she once fancied. In the comics and in most other animated shows Zatanna possesses real magic powers, but here, presumably to keep the show more grounded, she's just an illusionist and a good fighter.

THE MECHANIC (F)-- Batman regularly has his car serviced by a mechanic who doesn't know the hero's secret ID. But the Penguin does some research and tracks down the Batmobile's service bay. Like a couple of stories in the ouevre of BATMAN '66, Penguin seems to have a case of "vehicle envy" when it comes to the Batmobile. The mechanic is nicely characterized but happily is not seen again.

HARLEY AND IVY (F)-- This episode arguably begins the slow dissolution of Harley Quinn's love affair with the Maniac of Mirth. In the midst of a quarrel with Joker, Harley tries to prove herself, and ends up joining forces with Poison Ivy. The two ladies find they make a good team and start committing crimes together, enraging the Joker and getting Batman on their tails. Ivy relentlessly blasts Harley for being in love with a homicidal maniac. (Like she's one to talk.) Lots of good action here, and Harley gets most of the best lines.

THE UNDERWATER CITY (1962)

 

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

This American production of the early sixties would make an interesting co-feature with my previous venture into maritime science fiction, F.P. 1 DOESN'T ANSWER. The 1933 film uses SF as a backdrop for a more or less adult drama, but proves somewhat dull going except for its star performer. CITY has no stellar acting chops going for it, but the plot engages better with the SF-premise, for all that the overall treatment is more of the "gosh-wow" variety.

For producer Alex Gordon, CITY might have been a shot at respectability, as most of his fifties oeuvre included low-budget, black-and-white efforts for individuals like Roger (DAY THE WORLD ENDED) Corman and Ed (BRIDE OF THE MONSTER) Wood. Unlike most of the movies Gordon wrote or produced in the fifties, this one was filmed in color. Yet for some reason Columbia released the film in the U.S. in black and white, which probably did not help the film's box office performance.

Dr. Halstead (Carl Benton Reid) gets funding to build the world's first independently functioning city on the floor of the ocean. The only engineer he apparently interviews for the job of supervising the construction is hard-headed engineer Bob Gage (William Lundigan), Bob has zero interest in the wonders of the sea or in harvesting its plenty, but he likes the gams on Halstead's niece Monica (Julie Adams), who shares her uncle's fascination with the Jacques Cousteau life.

So the city gets built, with lots of Scientific American lectures about the sea and its creatures, and though the actors can't make much of this pedestrian dialogue, Gordon (credited on imdb as a co-writer) does put across some of the intrinsic appeal of the science factoids. The plot does foreground a potential problem with the city's construction, then wisely allows the audience to forget it for a while until the inevitable crisis (city's built on a fault line) comes to pass. Halstead doesn't survive the crisis, but both Bob and Monica do, and Bob is belatedly converted to the Life Aquatic. Of course, his conversion is aided by Halstead's belated revelation that the underwater city's extra purpose is that of a bunker for surviving humans in the case of atomic war. Of course, this only makes sense if one assumes that the hypothetical atomic fallout only affects the land parts of the Earth-globe, and doesn't pollute the ocean so that its foodmaking potential would be extremely compromised. But I still give CITY a "B" for effort.

F.P. 1 DOESN'T ANSWER (1933)

 

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

I should note that this early sound film was one of three films with a more-or-less identical plot, respectively directed in English, French and German versions by Austrian wunderkind Karl Hartl. I'm reviewing the English version, starring Conrad Veidt after his emigration to the British Isles from his native Germany due to the rise of Nazism.

The very dated "science fiction" of this film, based on a novel by Curt Siodmak, falls into the category I call "uncanny." Given that in the early thirties no one had yet managed to solve the fueling problems of transatlantic flight, Siodmak's solution was to create a "floating platform"-- the "F.P." of the title-- in the middle of the Atlantic, where planes could land to refuel. This was possibly an extension of the principle of aircraft carriers, which began to catch on in the 1910s. In any case, even in 1933 such a construct did not require the sort of "X factor" needed for most marvelous phenomena; it was simply a fictional extension of current technology rather than a surpassing of technological possibilities. 

All that said, everything in the film dealing with the platform is pretty dull. The F.P. is simply the setting for a romantic triangle drama, whose conflict is exacerbated when selfish corporate evildoers plot to destroy the new invention.

The designer of the platform, Captain Droste (Leslie Fenton) is not any more interesting than his invention. His efforts are sponsored by a London shipping company, partly owned by Claire Lennartz (Jill Esmond). Though Claire and Droste know one another, their relationship is that of business. Then Claire meets the dashing aviator Major Ellisen (Veidt). They fall in love, and Ellisen even does Droste a good turn in helping his project gain recognition. Clearly Claire is willing to say yes if Ellisen asks-- but he procrastinates, wanting one more daredevil feat to his name, and off he flies.

When Ellisen returns to London, a lot of things have changed. He's had some terrible experience he never talks about, aside from saying he was left broke in a foreign country. But in his absence Claire and Droste have become romantically involved. So, who's the only one who can save F.P. 1 when saboteurs strike, and the F.P. is doomed to sink beneath the waves? No points for guessing the right answer, though it's a minor relief that the odd man out doesn't have to sacrifice his life to save his rival's fortunes.

F.P. is an efficient enough drama for its time, but there's really no reason to watch the film except for Conrad Veidt's acting. Supporting actor Donald Calthrop provides some minor comic relief as a querulous photographer nicknamed "Sunshine."

THE WITCHES ATTACK (1968)

 

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

This was the last luchador film directed by Jose Diaz Morales, and whereas THE DIABOLICAL AXE and BARON BRAKOLA were adequate entries in the low-stakes Santo series, ATTACK loses points for being an aimless remake of SANTO VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMEN, with witches substituted for vampires. But it gains points for once more spotlighting the charms of the recently deceased glamour-girl Lorena Velasquez.

After a confusing dream sequence, where dreamer Ofelia (Maria San Martin) envisions Santo fighting with witch-spawn, the movie reveals the plot of evil witch-queen Mayra (Velasquez): to capture Ofelia and sacrifice her to Satan. (His infernal majesty makes an appearance here, even as he did in VAMPIRE). I wasn't clear as to why Mayra thinks Ofelia is the ideal sacrifice. But in a small way this idea makes more sense than the plot in VAMPIRE, which as I noted involved the head vampire wanting to join Satan in hell and needing some innocent to take her place.

Ofelia's dream is taken seriously by her boyfriend, who calls upon the Silver Mask to investigate. In ATTACK's best scene, Mayra utilizes a fairly original gambit: sending her right-hand woman Medusa (Edaena Ruiz) to seduce Santo. But the luchador nobly refuses such base temptations. He doesn't manage to keep the witches from abducting Ofelia and spiriting her to their lair, but from somewhere the hero produces a giant cross and sets the witches on fire whenever it gets near them. This is very likely a borrowing from 1960's HORROR HOTEL, and one reviewer claimed to have seen (as I did not) a clip from that film worked into the ATTACK continuity-- which I think quite possible. 

In contrast to VAMPIRE, where Velasquez barely moved out of her vampire lair, the leading monster-lady at least ventures forth to use some hypnotic mojo on Ofelia, to make her remove a protective cross. The only other notable item about ATTACK is that the lobby card I reproduced above looks like either a borrowing from Henry Fuseli's painting THE NIGHTMARE, or from some other movie poster that uses the painter's imagery.

BATMAN AND MR. FREEZE: SUB-ZERO (1998)

 

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

Whereas MASK OF THE PHANTASM came out when the 1993-95 BATMAN teleseries was on hiatus, SUB-ZERO is set as a prequel to THE NEW BATMAN ADVENTURES, which stressed the ensemble of Batman and Robin, as well as more guest-starring appearances for Batgirl. Allegedly the DTV film could have debuted earlier than 1998, but the producers chose to distance their work from 1997's BATMAN AND ROBIN. That movie was notable, among other demerits, for bollixing the character of Mister Freeze as established by the 1993 cartoon show.

It's worth mentioning here that Mister Freeze, originally just a one-shot foe from a fifties Batman comic, got upgraded to a major foe thanks to the 1966 teleseries. That said, only the first live-action Freeze episode was better than average, and his future appearances in that series, other cartoons, and other comic books were nothing special. The 1993 series gave the villain a relatable if monomaniacal obsession: to restore the life of his cryogenically frozen wife Nora.

At the start of SUB-ZERO Freeze is hiding out in the Arctic with his frozen inamorata. He's made some effort to forge a family of sorts, having adopted (unofficially one presumes) an Inuit boy, Koonak, and making two polar bears into pets. However, an accident damages Nora's containment chamber. Freeze, desperate to try anything that will revive Nora quickly, abducts his former medical colleague Belson for his expertise. Belson says that Nora needs an organ transplant, but that the waiting list for possible donors with the right blood type is a long one. Freeze chooses not to wait, and after some research elects to capture a Gotham City resident with the needed organ. And Belson, badly in need of money, is willing to commit murder to please his new partner.

Said resident is none other than Barbara Gordon, and Freeze abducts her while she's on a date with Dick Grayson. The brief dust-up between the frigid fiend and the two mufti-clad crusaders is almost all the hero-villain action SUB-ZERO offers for its first half (aside from a separate scene with a costumed Batgirl clobbering some hoods). Batman and Robin must depend on detection to ferret out Freeze's current lair, an abandoned oil platform off Gotham Harbor. In that lair Barbara repeatedly seeks to escape, with Belson scamming her with the story that they only want a transfusion. 

The lack of superhero action in the movie's first half is in no way a debit, because the second half delivers a great slam-bang climax. Batman and Robin come to Barbara's rescue, Belson and Freeze fall out, and lots of fires burst out everywhere, imperiling the frosty malefactor's life. He does survive for one later episode, "Cold Comfort," which provided a creditable finish for the character. If I had to carp at something, I'd probably say that Belson's heel-turn from respectable doctor to medical murderer takes place a bit too conveniently for the plot. Also we don't really see the relationship between Freeze and Koonak, so when the boy tries to free Barbara, there's no emotional impact, and he doesn't end up being anything but another body to rescue. But of the four DCAU Batman films, SUB-ZERO is the cream of the crop.

BATMAN: MASK OF THE PHANTASM (1993)

 

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

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

So, I'll get one thing out of the way: the mysterious crook-murdering Phantasm's identity is Bruce Wayne's lost love Andrea Beaumont. (Readers of this blog ought to be used to my disregard for guarding secrets if they get in the way of analysis.)

PHANTASM was the first, though not the last, animated Batman film to make it into theaters, attempting to profit from the sterling reputation of the 1993-95 Batman cartoon show. It's far from the best animated Batman feature, but it does have the distinction of being the first cartoon to ask the question: what if Batman suffered a "last temptation" moment, giving up his dedication to crimefighting for family life? 

Of course, every time this temptation has arisen, whether in comics (1987's SON OF THE DEMON) or in film (2008's DARK KNIGHT), some exigency must come up that pushes Bruce Wayne's nose back to the Bat-grindstone. Here, the script by two animation pros (Paul Dini, Michael Reeves) and two comics-writers (Martin Pasko, Alan Burnett) claims that early in his career, Bruce fell so hard for Andrea that he almost did give up the cowl-- but one such exigency caused Andrea to depart suddenly, and so Gotham City did not lose its "dark knight." However, in current times Andrea returns to Gotham--and at the same time, a masked figure, the Phantasm, begins killing off the criminals who harried her father, one of these being none other than Batman's favorite fiend, the Joker.

I don't mean to make too much of the non-mystery of the Phantasm's identity, since I don't believe I guessed it on my first viewing. But although PHANTASM delivers the goods as far as lots of high-octane action with the Bat taking on two costumed killers, I didn't buy the dramatic aspect. Dini and the other writers try to make Andrea Beaumont seem so witty and resourceful that the viewer believes that she's "the one" for Bruce Wayne. But the truth is, they knew Andrea/Phantasm was a one-off character, and her psychological makeup is no more detailed than an animation cell.

Still, in addition to good action, PHANTASM offers yet another venue for the assemblage of the show's talented voice cast, with the usual list of standouts: Kevin Conroy as Batman, Mark Hamill as the Joker, and Efrem Zimbalist Jr as a delightfully acerbic Alfred.

THE THIEF OF BAGDAD (1940)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *superior*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological, sociological*

Just to get the encomium out of the way, the 1940 THIEF OF BAGDAD remains the greatest magical fantasy ever committed to the cinematic medium. Not even the excellent 1924 Douglas Fairbanks original, on which the 1940 film is modeled, equals the Alexander Korda production for visual spectacle, subtlety of wit, and fine performances. From start to finish the Korda movie feels as if it were spun out of a web of Jungian archetypes, not painstakingly assembled from the prolonged efforts of the producer and his crew over the course of two years, frequently interrupted by the realities of a horrific world war.

Michael Powell, one of the credited directors of THIEF, said in his autobiography that the true author of the movie was not any writer or director, but Korda himself. I acknowledge that the producer's love of spectacle and adventure informs the film from start to finish. And we'll never know that much about the mundane origins of the movies, since, as critic Bruce Eder explained on the Criterion DVD, most of the production notes have been lost to the mists of time. All that said, I have my considered opinion as to who shaped THIEF to meet Korda's specifications. Of the two writers in the official credits, one, British comedian Miles Malleson (who also portrayed the film's dotty old Sultan), was primarily there to provide dialogue according to Eder. That suggests to me that the primary person responsible for re-forging the scenarios of the 1924 film into something pleasing to Alexander Korda was probably the other credited writer, Korda's fellow Hungarian Lajos Biro. Korda had already worked with Biro on several features, not least co-scripting THE DRUM, Korda's second movie with Indian actor Sabu. Biro, a highly regarded novelist and playwright, seems to added many levels of symbolic complexity to the already impressive script for the 1924 original.

Almost every review comparing 1924 to 1940 starts by remarking on the fact that Douglas Fairbanks is at once Ahmed, the titular Thief of Bagdad, and the romantic lead, *and* a martial hero. These functions in the Korda film are divided between Sabu's character Abu, both the titular thief and a young man in love with the idea of heroism, while the romantic lead is Ahmed, King of Bagdad (John Justin). Reviewers don't mention quite as often that in the early part of the 1924 film, Ahmed has a partner of sorts, a fellow thief who performs a few of the same narrative functions as the 1940 Abu. Since the helper-thief has no name in the 1924 film (though he does in the movie novelization), I'm going to dub him "Abu" as well, the better to bring out some of the narratological parallels between the original and the free-form adaptation.

Both Abus function to help the two Ahmeds gain access to the princess, the main bone of contention between the romantic lead and the villain in both films. 1940 Abu has clearly been built up to spotlight the burgeoning popularity of Sabu in his previous two Korda films, and he takes on the role of martial hero as well. 1924 Ahmed, to compete with the villain (and two other, almost superfluous suitors) for the princess' hand, must go on a dazzling journey into magical netherworlds to gain a prize in order to win the suitor-contest. 1940 Abu takes over the function of journeying into magical worlds, and one of his most impressive feats, scaling the Kali-like statue of the Goddess of Dawn, is borrowed not from the feats of 1924 Ahmed but from the deed of a nameless minion, commanded to climb a similar statue by one of the competing suitors. 

Other comparisons abound, such as the motivations of the respective villains. The Mongol Prince of 1924 doesn't actually care about the princess; he mainly wants to conquer Bagdad and add it to his empire. Jaffar of 1940 (Conrad Veidt) is, like the romantic lead, completely in love with the beautiful and unnamed royal (June Duprez), and Jaffar's main reason for usurping Ahmed's rulership of Bagdad is to bring the Princess under his sway. But the most important comparison is that while the 1924 THIEF is full of gorgeous spectacles meant to be looked at, the structure of the 1940 THIEF is all about the actual dynamics of what human beings see, and how they relate to what they see.

Biro, my theoretical architect, probably built on a key idea of both movies, that the romantic lead falls in love with the princess at first sight, as does she with him. But in 1940 one of the first visuals presented to the film-audience is that of an enormous eye, an oculus, painted on the front of a sailing-ship. The visual of the oculus dissolves into the face of the ship's commander Jaffar, first seen aiming his steely gaze at the audience, the lower part of his face masked. 

This intro contrasts with the introduction of romantic lead Ahmed, first seen as a blind man begging in the streets of Bagdad with his faithful dog. We later learn that Jaffar both blinded Ahmed and turned his companion Abu into a dog, and then turned them loose as an "insurance policy" against the return of the then-missing princess. (All this takes place as part of an "in media res" structure within the Korda film, which is utterly unlike the Fairbanks template.)

Despite the fact that the Sultan has gone to great lengths to prevent anyone from seeing his daughter, Jaffar is also given a "first look" of the princess to parallel that of Ahmed. In various ARABIAN NIGHTS, male protagonists may fall in love with a female from seeing no more than a portrait of the female's beauty. That's the way Ahmed encounters the Princess of Basra, seeing her from afar and being instantly stricken with fairy-tale love. Jaffar, as he later tells the Sultan, also sees the Princess from afar, but through the medium of a crystal. (Another seeing-crystal, the Eye of the Goddess, will later be instrumental in Jaffar's undoing.) But whereas Jaffar goes to the Princess' father to make a deal for her hand, Ahmed, with Abu's help, gains access to the hortus conclusus where the Princess gambols with her serving-maidens. So Ahmed penetrates her female space, in a broad sense, but he does so to give her a close-up look at HIM. Even his playful pretense of being a genie is not a real deception, since it only lasts a few seconds-- and even before Ahmed begins his imposture, the Princess is clearly discontented with her hothouse-flower confinement. When Genie-Ahmed asks why she doesn't run from a supposed supernatural being the way her maids do, her significant reply is "I want to look." 

It should be said that although 1940 Abu is just as skeptical about all this lovelorn stuff as was 1924 Abu, the former bases his opinion far more in his own personal desires. Though apparently 1940 Abu has lived his teenaged life scavenging off the solid citizens of Bagdad, his encounter with Ahmed, the dispossessed king of the city, seems to fire Abu up with the desire to become a seeker of the world's wonders. Ahmed's enthrallment with the Princess dashes Abu's dreams, but he remains loyal to his boon friend, though, truth to tell, the former King of Bagdad is sometimes a bit of a prig. The curse of blindness and canine-ness are cancelled out when the Princess falls under the control of Jaffar, The two heroes then pursue Jaffar, but their wizardly foe uses his magic to separate them, rather than leaving them together, as he did before. (Ironically, though Jaffar's insurance policy required his keeping Ahmed alive, he could have killed Abu with no consequences to his plans.)

Whereas 1924 Ahmed enters the world of wonder to win the hand of his Princess, 1940 Abu does so to be reunited with his friend. Abu chances to unbottle a Genie (Rex Ingram), who, for many viewers, is the highlight of the film, and who has no real analogues in the 1924 original. The Genie, resenting his having been confined to a bottle while others were free, announces his plan to kill his liberator. Abu's wits allow him to get the upper hand, and the Genie falls under the boy's control, at least until Abu wishes three wishes. The titanic jinn then inducts Abu into the wonder-world, to gain the only prize that can locate Ahmed: the Eye of the Goddess. But before Abu can get the Eye from the Goddess' statue, he must venture inside "the belly of the female beast." Is the spider a representation of hostile femininity? Why not? 

So Abu gets his own seeing-crystal, and uses it to find Ahmed. But they quarrel, partly because Ahmed can think only of his Princess, and Abu rashly uses his last wish to send Ahmed, alone, to Bagdad. This allows Ahmed to interrupt Jaffar's last-ditch plan to bend the Princess to his will, with the "blue rose of forgetfulness." However, though the plot is foiled, Jaffar finally decides to cut his losses, and cut off Ahmed's head.

But rashness isn't always wrong, when it comes from the heart, as it were. What transpires oddly reminds me of some versions of the European fairytale "The Princess and the Frog," wherein the Frog is transformed back into a prince not by a kiss, but by the Princess throwing the ugly amphibian against a wall. Abu flings the Goddess-Eye against a cliffside, and that unleashes a torrent of magic, catapulting the little thief into the Land of Legend. Though Abu has the chance to be a ruler in that world (even if he apparently would only be ruling a bunch of stately old men), he uses his thief-skills again, to abscond with two vital weapons, with which he overcomes Jaffar.

This long post could have been many times longer if I tried to explicate all the complex symbolism I attribute to Lajos Biro. I've also been obliged to skimp on celebrating the note-perfect performances of the main players, all of whom also mold themselves to be virtual folktale archetypes, but with all sorts of witty modern touches. No magical fantasy before the 1940 THIEF comes close to its mythic power, and only a tiny number of other fantasy-films even touch the border of its flying carpet.

MIRACLE IN TOYLAND (2000)

 

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

I confess I was made aware of this forgotten piece of kidvid-entertainment by a YouTube podcast making fun of its many shortcomings. I can't equal the video's many on-target slams of the subpar animation, so I'll focus on the story's problems.

Middle-schooler Jesse Justice apparently lives alone with his father (no clue if his mother is dead or what), and his cousin Gabrielle lives not far away in the same city. Father Daniel Justice is a colonel in the Air Force and is involved in training exercises so rigorous that he can't even take off for Christmas-- not that he shows any desire of wanting to do so, being blithely unconcerned with his boy's existence. Off goes the Colonel, leaving Jesse with Gabrielle.

At school Jesse acts out, getting rough with his schoolmates in soccer. Gabrielle guesses that he's overcompensating for his father's inattention and tries to cheer him up by taking Jesse to a big toy store, the Toyland of the title. The most interesting exchange of the mediocre flick takes place here, as Jesse disavows any interest in toys, wanting to get military training to be more like his dad. At Toyland, Jesse acts out again, and Gabrielle-- despite showing an attitude correctly called "touchy-feely" with her cuz-- leaves him behind. Jesse falls asleep in the toy store and gets locked in.

So far this isn't a bad setup for your basic "toys come to life" scenario, so in due course Jesse meets (1) a superhero named Super Duper Man, (2) a thick-eared wrestler, Bonecrusher, (3) a hip military commander, Captain Agro, (4) a peg-legged pirate, (5) an elf girl who talks like Betty Boop, and (5) a relatively mature-seeming Indian princess who sings Gospel. (Is she from something like American Girl, or what? Either way, she seems like the maternal figure missing from Jesse's life.)

 What's odd is that the story doesn't stick with helping Jesse work through his issues. After the toys make Jesse's acquaintance, Captain Agro suddenly calls up his toy soldiers to make an assault on-- someone. But out of nowhere, one of the soldiers get injured (somehow) and Agro tells Jesse to stay behind and watch over a fellow warrior. Jesse wants glory to validate himself as he thinks his father would want, so he deserts his post to go look for the enemy (which we never see) and the injured toy-- dies? Agro dresses Jesse down a little, and Jesse maybe learns a lesson-- at which point the script decides it can't handle the seriousness. So then out of nowhere, some bad pirate-toys hijack the good pirate's ship, so Jesse and his toy buddies have a very mild fight quelling this threat. Even the two girls get a little action: Boop-Elf clubs a bad pirate and Gospel Indian hits another pirate with-- a karate chop? Sure, why not. Then there's some business about getting chocolate treats for everyone. Oh, and Boop-Elf gets an upskirt shot.

Jesse somehow transitions back to the real world, finds Gabrielle and apologizes to her. But the desire for heroism has only been deferred. Jesse and his cuz learn that Colonel Justice, flying a plane alone for some reason, has been lost in the frozen mountains. Jesse appeals to the toys for help, and they enlarge themselves to life-size with some magic or other, as well as creating convenient transportation. So Jesse gets to save his dad from the frozen wastes, and Colonel Justice beholds the power of a child's imagination in the reality of the living toys-- though in truth, Jesse was originally rejecting the world of imagination for that of worldly glory. If anything, the toys more or less forced their way into Jesse's closed off existence. They're more like the manifestation of what Gabrielle knows Jesse needs with her feminine instinct. Jesse then gets a maternal hug from Gospel Indian while all the toys have a big musical finish-- I *think* after they revert to their toy-existence, but I'm not sure.

I think the real miracle is that there's even a little content worth explicating in this ramshackle script-- though even little kids would be better advised to play with actual toys, than with TOYLAND.

CYBORG COP II (1994)

 

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

All three CYBORG COP films are bad even compared to most of the merely formulaic efforts of DTV action-films. But so far as one can make a measured choice between bad, badder, and baddest, Number Two is right between Number One and Number Three. And all of them create the same dissonance with their titles, since they are not about cops who ARE cyborgs, but cops who FIGHT cyborgs.

The strongest elements of the first film were (1) John Rhys-Davies' performance as a rather impish mad scientist, and (2) maverick cop Jack Ryan's middling motivation to get the bad guys because they turned his brother into a cyborg. This time, the villain is just one of Ryan's old enemies (Morgan Hunter) converted into a cyborg, who plays his role as a colorless monomaniac, and Ryan's maverick-cop doesn't have even the tiny moral compass he did in the first film. Bradley's just as bad an actor here as in the first film, but his histrionics are more noticeable because he seems like a complete dick.

Though a lot of DTV films seem to think it's easy to make an audience sympathize with a cop who makes his own rules, it's actually a balancing act that can easily lose a given character audience-sympathy very easily. I'm sure that a lot of filmmakers would like to think that action-film lovers will just line up as long as there are plenty of explosions and fights. Director Sam Firstenberg had made one or two decent action-movies by that time, but here he's just grinding things out. Bradley, whose only assets are his skills at fake-fighting for the movies, also doesn't bother blocking the fights out competently, so that it looks like every time he fights a normal human, the other guy's practically racing to hit the floor.

In the movie's final third Ryan gets a weapons upgrade, and that allows him to take out the evil cyborg, variously called "Starkraven" and "Spartacus." Frankly, not having seen CYBORG COP III in many months, I can't absolutely swear that one's worse. But I could see some viewers getting entertainment value just by bagging on Bradley's terrible performance-- as indeed the Rifftrax comedians did, calling him something like a "wannabe RENEGADE."

 

GOLIATH AND THE SINS OF BABYLON (1963)

 

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

I'll note in passing that one online review asserts that this was a better funded peplum that most films in the subgenre. That said, I still found that the SINS here were pretty dull.

The city of Babylon has a bad habit of demanding from vassal state Nefir thirty virgin females a year to sacrifice to their gods. Princess Rezzia (Jose Greci) would like to rebel against the evil practice, but she can't assume the throne of Nefir until she's married. However, Rezzia can only marry whoever defeats her in an arena-bound chariot-race. Wandering hero Goliath (originally "Maciste" and played by Mark Forest) takes exception to the sacrificial ritual and tosses around a few Babylonian soldiers. Some local members of a Babylonian resistance induct Goliath into their ranks, and eventually the rebels set Babylon on fire and depose its corrupt ruler.

There's so much emphasis on ordinary sword-battles (including one at sea) that there's barely any room for the usual muscleman feats of strength. There's an insidious death-trap, in which Goliath is chained to a table while numerous spears drop from the ceiling, either to hit him or torment him with near misses, but there's no big payoff to this. The best action-scene is that when Goliath goes to Nefir for whatever reason, he ends up racing Rezzia in the arena, and of course he wins. But it lacks dramatic impact because Rezzia's in love with another man, so Goliath bows out and-- I guess everyone's just okay with her marrying the guy who didn't win? There's some novelty to seeing a female character race a chariot, and I wondered if the script took a little inspiration from the Atalanta myth, in which an athletic woman races men trying to claim her hand in marriage. But if there's no real consequence to the chariot-race, so what?

The best thing in the movie might be Fabrizio, playing a comic relief midget. For a true rarity, the little hero even gets a bride his own size at movie's end.

GUARDS OF SHAOLIN (1984)

 

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

Just as this streaming flick was coming to an end, and I was thinking the film's alternate title NINJA VS. SHAOLIN GUARD was thoroughly unjustified, the four Shaolin monk heroes get attacked by a bunch of black-masked, black-clad fighters who throw shurikens and some sort of fiery powder. Still, the emphasis of the story (such as it is) is clearly upon the four stalwarts, not their enemies, so I'll go with the streaming title,

The GUARDS-- billed as First Brother (Alexander Lo Rei), Second Brother, Third Brother, and Fourth Brother-- are charged by the dying abbot of their temple to take a "Golden Sutra" to another temple. The abbot was killed by another monk at the temple, addressed as "Uncle" (though probably none of these characters are related to one another). The method of his death is one of the few things that stand out about this Taiwanese-South Korean chopsocky: Uncle's minions attack the abbot, and one of them, a woman in drag (Jin Nu-Ri), bares her tattooed breast, distracting the monk and causing his death.

The four monks head out on their journey, but with the exception of Fourth Brother, the comedy relief, they're all but identical. Ah Mei, Fourth Brother's girl-cousin from his former village, happens across them and invites them to her father's estate. However, Uncle's minions, who theoretically ought to be pursuing the four guardians, somehow decide to run ahead of the heroes and attack Ah Mei's home, killing her dad and all his retainers. This makes the young woman embittered against the Brothers, which is a pain for Fourth Brother, who harbors a desire to marry her. However, the girl has nowhere else to go and continues with the heroes on their trek.

The rest of the film is just one attack after another, including a pointless encounter with some very solid ghosts (or maybe zombies) who pop out of their coffins and menace the stalwarts. Up until the final confrontation between First Brother and Uncle, only one battle stands out: when one of the bros has a nice fight with a female opponent, possibly the same one who did the "boob-fu" earlier. This fight may have confused the streaming reviewer, since he wrote that the monks were joined by a "female fighter"-- and Uncle's minion is the only kung-fu honey, since Ah Mei can't fight. One reviewer said that Ah Mei falls for First Brother, but the film didn't bother developing the romance-angle after bringing it up in the first place. GUARDS is not the worst of the worst, but it's pretty unremarkable.