ASTERIX AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES (2008)

 

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

I chose the above still to illustrate my review because, even though Asterix and Obelix are indisputably the stars of the show, the centermost performer, one Benoit Poelvoorde, is a big part of why OLYMPIC is the funniest Asterix story I've encountered so far, in any medium.

This is the third of four live-action adaptations of the famed French comics-franchise, and the only one I've screened thus far. International star Gerard Depardieu has played the role of pot-bellied Obelix in all four, but in Film Number Three one Clovis Cornillac replaced the Asterix-actor from the first two movies. Cornillac and Depardieu evince good chemistry together, and all of the support-players are strong in their respective roles, particularly the renowned Alain Delon in his sole outing as the patrician ruler of Rome, Julius Caesar. But the Belgian comedian Poelvoorde sells the film as Caesar's adoptive son Brutus. Reportedly the character from the Asterix comic (whom I have not previously seen in any incarnation) is said to have been remodeled so that Poelvoorde could make him not just as relentlessly treacherous as the historical Brutus, but a conceited moron as well.

I also have not read the original Asterix comic ASTERIX AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES, but Wiki establishes that not only is Brutus not present in that story, there's also no love-story subplot. In the comic, Asterix and Obelix simply get involved in the Greek games simply as another gambit to embarrass the Romans. In GAMES the film, a Gaul named Lovesix competes with Brutus for the hand of Greek princess Irina, and it's decided that she will marry whoever wins the current Olympic contest. The romantic subplot adds extra dimension to what I view as the rather standardized, and somewhat boring, plot of most Asterix tales.

To be sure, most of the jokes revolving around the competition between the Gauls and Brutus (and his various stooges) are probably drawn from the album, particularly those concerning the Gauls' illegal use of strength-potion. Production values are high, matching the actors' stellar performances with excellent costuming and stuntwork, particularly in the concluding chariot-race between Lovesix and Brutus. Unlike many Asterix villains, Brutus is a consummate schemer, and when he's not coming up with ways to cheat in the games, he's setting deadly traps to kill off Daddy Julius, so that he Brutus can take over the Empire. 

GAMES isn't just the best Asterix story I've ever seen, as I said, in any medium. I'd also put this film on my list of best comedy feature-films of all time, along with the best of Preston Sturges and Mel Brooks and the one really good Abbott and Costello flick.

ASTERIX AND THE BIG FIGHT (1989)

 

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

I've never been much of an Asterix fan in any medium, but in this ARCHIVE essay I confessed a mild liking for the album entitled ASTERIX AND THE BIG FIGHT. However, the 1989 animated film given that title in some markets only borrows one subplot from the album, and takes its main plot from an installment I've not read, ASTERIX AND THE SOOTHSAYER.

The principal story concerns Prolix, a phony soothsayer who comes to the village of Asterix and begins sponging off the Gauls by issuing dire presentiments of doom. All of the Gauls are shown as being victim to groundless superstitions, particularly the fear that the sky might fall on their heads. Only sensible Asterix perceives that Prolix is a phony. Meanwhile, since the story needed an excuse for the heroes to beat up Romans, a Roman officer decides to have his men abduct Getafix, the only druid capable of brewing the magical potion that gives the Gauls superstrength. (The latter subplot is all that the movie really took from BIG FIGHT.)

The two plotlines barely manage to dovetail, and hardly any jokes land, slapstick or otherwise. It's never clear why Asterix is so sure that the soothsayer is phony, and his attitude sounds a little too much like that of a modern-day unbeliever, rather than as a barbarian who's spent his whole life associating with a druid who can make a magic elixir. I suppose in the creators' minds, ASTERIX was usually a "one-gimme," in which the elixir was the only marvelous thing the heroes encountered. But that doesn't really account for the pint-sized pugilist's seeming materialism.

MORTAL KOMBAT: ANNIHILATION (1997)

 

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

This movie's lack of both director Paul W.S. Anderson and writer Kevin Droney shows just how indispensable their services were in making the first MORTAL KOMBAT a hit. There were a couple of behind-the-scenes carryovers from the first film, but they may have done more harm than good. John R. Leonetti had been a cinematographer on the first KOMBAT, but the overall trajectory of his career showed that directing was not his strongest suit. But if anyone is to blame for ANNIHILATION, it's probably producer Larry Kasanoff, who collaborated with four other writers to produce an incoherent mishmash of motifs channeled from various incarnations of the RPG. One contemporaneous quote has Kasanoff exulting over the FX that he thought would grab the 1997 viewing public.

Oddly, the only actors who reprised their 1995 roles-- Robin Shou as Liu Kang and Talisa Soto as Kitana-- got very short shrift in the Kasanoff script. The 1995 film made Liu Kang the strongest character in the ensemble as well as the direct savior of Earth for his winning of the tournament. In ANNHILATION, there's a vague agenda about how Liu must train really hard to stave off the forces of another Outworld invasion, but his supposed training exercises are poorly conceived, thus undermining the character's entire arc. Kitana, who saw very little action in the first film, has a fine scene fighting reptile-ninjas with twin Malay daggers that can morph into bladed fans. But this character spends a lot of time in captivity, and her arc, which involves some sort of reconciliation with her mother (more on which later), is utterly botched. To be sure, though, Liu and Kitana get off better than the character Johnny Cage, played for a few minutes by a new actor before the heinous new villain kills him off.

The only other ensemble-character from 1995, Sonya Blade, is however hugely improved by her recasting, as actress Sandra Hess proves far more authoritative as a martial artist than Bridget Wilson. She's given a new partner for most of her scenes, the character of Jax, who made a very brief appearance in 1995, and who this time is essayed by one Lynn "Red" Williams. These two performers have the best fighting-scenes and character-scenes in the film, and they're the only reasons to watch ANNIHILATION.

I commented in my review of the first film that it was unwise for the sequel to pick up from KOMBAT's rule-bending conclusion. It's true that no matter course the filmmakers took, they could not have strictly abided by the franchise's internal rules, since that would sidelined all of the main characters for the next generation. But the scripters could have chosen to ignore KOMBAT's concluding cliffhanger and found some less hasty-pudding way to come up with a contemporary threat to bring all the heroes back together again. 

Whereas KOMBAT emphasized that the heroes' only way to save Earth for Liu Kang to win the tournament, Kasanoff and company muddy the waters. The character of the Emperor from the first name, now given the name Shao Kan (and played by Brian Thompson), somehow breaks the rules that should have kept his forces away from Earth-- though, in order that the producers don't have pay to the effects of vast armies, the "invasion" is a synthesis of the two dimensions that makes select portions of Earth look sterile. While the good guys run around trying to figure out how the villain pulled off his caper, their advisor Rauden (now played by James Remar) somehow knows that Liu Kang must master a martial skill called "Animality," while Kitana must reconcile with her mother Sindel (Musetta Vander). The latter was supposedly killed by Shao Kan along with Kitana's father when Shao Kan conquered Outworld, but the evil one somehow resurrected Sindel and made her one of his commanders (along with more reptile-ninjas, a four-armed female warrior and a swarthy centaur).

Does Shao Kan want Sindel around to validate his rule? But if so, why doesn't he just kill Kitana when he captures her? The one scene between Shao and Kitana suggests that he wants her to become his bride, so then why does he need Sindel? One or two lines suggest that Sindell's presence helped Shao break the cosmic rules, but this goes out the window when it's revealed that one of the Elder Gods conspired with Shao to make the invasion possible. Oh yeah, and the conspiratorial Elder God Shinnok is the father to both Shao Khan and Rayden, a fact not foreshadowed at all before its blunt revelation halfway through the film.

While Kasanoff bragged on ANNIHILATION's FX-scenes, the only good fights are those which combined FX with the performers doing inventive stuntwork. Thus a scene in which Shao and Liu fight in monster-form is a big waste of time, while another in which Sonja and Jax contend with a robotic opponent works much better, partly because Hess and Williams have good chemistry. There's not much FX when Kitana battles Sindel, but it's still a blah battle, particularly when contrasted with the hard-fought conflict between Sonja and female ninja Mileena (Dana Hee). Even George S. Clinton's score improves whenever Sonja and Jax are in action!

ANNIHILATION is far from the worst film of its subgenre. Still, it's a cardinal example of filmmakers thinking that an initial success meant that they could "coast" on the sequel. They found out differently, for ANNIHILATION killed the franchise for live-action feature films for the next twenty years, until the 2021 success of a franchise reboot.

THE STRANGER (1995)

 

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

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I have no false illusions about THE STRANGER. It's Clint Eastwood's HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER filtered through the marketing demands typical of direct-to-video martial arts thrillers. but with a female action star played by a renowned lady kickboxer. DRIFTER brings its enigmatic hero to a corrupt small town to guilt them for letting their sheriff be killed by outlaws, and to seek revenge on the bandits, since the visitor himself seems to be the ghost of the dead sheriff. STRANGER is much less ambiguous about the supernatural nature of its heroine, and the story champions the individual's possibility for heroism despite the scuzziness of the outlaws and their townie allies.

Yet, despite many derivative elements, some of which are logically dubious, STRANGER is one of those interesting movies in which journeymen talents put together something better than average. I haven't seen everything from the oeuvres of director Fritz Kiersch, writer Gregory Poirer, and composer Kevin Kiner, but nothing I have seen (or heard, in Kiner's case) grabs me as THE STRANGER does.

So prior to the film's action, a motorcycle gang run by a martial artist toughie named Angel (Andrew Divoff) has decided to make a small western town the base for illegal operations. Bridget Mercer, wife of local sheriff Gordon (Eric Pierpoint), makes an attempt to alert the FBI to the gang's activities, and for that Bridget is raped, murdered, and buried in the town cemetery. The aggrieved Gordon becomes a drunkard, allowing the worst elements of the town to rule the roost.

Then a blonde motorcyclist (Kathy Long) comes to town, wearing an outfit far from the wardrobe of Clint Eastwood or martial-arts heroes in general: tight leather trousers and a bustier. Initially, at least, this wild outfit seems designed to draw some of the lesser members of the gang into assaulting her, at which point she kills them dead. Gordon doesn't precisely recognize the mystery woman as a reborn version of his dead wife, but he won't interfere with her vengeance-quest, and she either kills or incapacitates all comers. Maybe-Bridget works her way up the food chain until Angel himself comes to town, along with hench-cyclists played by such familiar faces as Danny Trejo and Faith Minton. There's a cool, well-scored beatdown at the end, concluding with the Stranger bashing her maybe-rapist's skull to pieces against the gravestone of Bridget Mercer.

Not all the action set-pieces are as good as the climax, but a lot of them offer solid tough-girl action, and if Kathy Long isn't the most expressive actress, she excels a lot of her competition in that department, as well as being to sell all the kicks and punches. The ghost-cyclist also gives new life to both Gordon and a young girl who witnessed the murder, even though by that time the rest of the town has fled for the hills.

In addition to the cathartic climax, STRANGER boasts two scenes of greater symbolic import than one finds in the average chopsocky. Toward the beginning, after some set-up scenes, the viewer sees the Stranger park her motorcycle at a gas-station. A truck passes in the foreground, and as the viewer sees the black-clad female in the background, she "fades" from sight intermittently, as if the truck's passage revealed her true insubstantial nature.

Another scene occurs late in the film, after the avenger has taken out several bad bikers, Angel's in a camp outside town, preparing to ride in. While all of Angel's men are asleep and he's doing martial arts "kata" positions, Maybe-Bridget appears on a nearby hill and begins "mirroring" all of Angel's moves. For me this implies, without putting it into clumsy words, that the vengeance-seeking spirit of the murdered woman needed something as a model for her new form.  Thus she imitated her murderer in terms of conveyance, skills and flamboyant attire, the better to hoist him on his own petard. When this stranger rides off into the West, she's explicitly going to a well deserved rest from earthly travails-- though only after taking a lot of evil spirits with her. 

MORTAL KOMBAT (1995)

 

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

I've never played video games, so I only know of their success through their iterations in other media. I won't echo the tedious critical observation that the games' emphasis on action and spectacle might retard their potential for meaningful discourse; it's obvious to me that this concentration on spectacle has dominated much of the adventure-genre in many eras. Most serial films from 1940 onward are stripped-down narratives whose only purpose was to provide thrills and spills, and that tendency certainly can't be blamed on video games.

There were only three major live-action video game adaptations before 1995's MORTAL KOMBAT and it's my memory that none of them did as good a job as the team of director Paul W.S. Anderson and writer Kevin Droney (to say nothing of the fight choreographers and musician George S. Clinton). I would tend to assume that the "universe" of the KOMBAT game was pretty simple, and that Droney probably didn't expand on the basic rules of the game. But his contribution may not be so much "world-building" as "world-justification," in that he made the responses of the main characters to their extraordinary situation credible, at least within the context of an action movie.

Of the three "mortal" heroes who get roped into the Mortal Kombat tournament, Liu Kang (Robin Shou) is given the greatest reason to succeed, while the motives of Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby) and Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson) are more contingent and less indicative of even their simple characterizations. Liu Kang turns his back on his supposed destiny to fight for Earth in the tournament because he's become "Americanized," so that he brushes the martial tradition off as ancient Chinese superstition. Because he ducks out on his responsibility, his younger brother tries to take his place but is slain by the sorcerer Shang Tsung (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa). Shang, who is an Earth-ally to the warlike dimension of Outworld, hosts the tournament, which will make it possible for Outworld to invade Earth if Earth's champions lose this contest. Liu's only initial reason to enter the tournament is to get the chance to avenge his brother, but he also has a fair psychological arc as far as subsuming his personal desires for the greater good.

There's a rumor that at some point Johnny Cage was planned to be the main hero who defeats Shang Tsung, but there's no trace of any such orientation in the finished film. Unlike the humorless Liu and Sonya, Cage is almost the film's only vessel for humor, but the character remains admirable and likable, in contrast to many current films in which "the Ugly American" is made into the designated goat. Sonya Blade really has no psychological arc; she also seeks vengeance for a slain ally, and once she gains that revenge, she really has nothing much to accomplish. However, to keep Cage from being the sole source of humor, the role of the storm-god Rayden (Christopher Lambert) provides some much needed levity as he shepherds the reluctant trio to their destiny.

Also overshadowed by Liu and Cage is the extradimensional humanoid Princess Kitana (Talisa Soto). Her minimal backstory involves her father having been slain by the reigning emperor of Outworld, and for some reason she's been allowed to live even though she's clearly planning to undermine the Emperor's invasion plans. She only has a couple of fight-scenes and her main purpose duplicates that of Rayden, offering sage advice when possible.

As stated, the action scenes are the main attraction. Are they among the best of all time? No, but they're consistently good, and I even enjoyed Cage's conflict with the four-armed monster Goro, for all that the animatronic device wasn't state of the art. Only at the end does the script violate the story's internal rules, for that ending depicts the Emperor making ready to invade Earth despite his side having lost Mortal Kombat. Still, I recognize that the only reason this scene was tossed in was to rev up the viewers' desire for a sequel, and that it wasn't really germane to the main story. Unfortunately, the original film's one sequel did take that scenario seriously, which did not work out very well. 

THE DEATH RAY MIRROR OF DOCTOR MABUSE (1964)

 

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

The credits say that Wolfgang Preiss reprises his role as the evil mastermind in the film, but the shadowed figure of RAY's villain may not really be Preiss, though IMDB claims that at least some archival footage of the actor can be found. I confess I wasn't moved to watch very closely.

If the film wasn't part of the Mabuse series, I would find it very easy to deem the star to be its leading-man viewpoint character Anders (Peter Van Eyck, returning to the series in a different role). Only one thing distinguishes RAY from the many James Bond knockoffs that Europe would begin deluging viewers with: RAY is all black and white, while every Eurospy I've seen is a color film.

Anders is out to investigate the disappearance of an important scientist, one Larsen. For some reason Anders' superiors decide to saddle the hero with the professor's daughter Gilda Larsen (Yvonne Furneaux of THE MUMMY), even though she's not any sort of agent and has no means of protecting herself. That said, I'm not precisely complaining, because the rather dippy character of Gilds--  constantly trying to court Anders, acting jealous when he pursues other women-- is one of the few fun things about RAY. 

Though I screened the film yesterday I've forgotten the strategies Anders uses to track down the "death ray mirror" with which Mabuse (or his agents) plan to rule the world. I remember  a shootout in an observatory, and the film's only good scene not involving Gilda Larsen: a well-filmed scuba battle between Anders' allies and the minions of Mabuse. Frankly, I found the crisp black-and-white photography of these scenes far superior to anything in THUNDERBALL.

I have not seen the third and fourth non-Lang movies in the series, but this may well be, as other reviews aver, the least impressive entry, though I should note that director Hugo Fregonese did an admirable job remaking 1944's THE LODGER as 1953's MAN IN THE ATTIC.

THE INVISIBLE DOCTOR MABUSE (1962)

 

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

INVISIBLE DOCTOR MABUSE is the second of the non-Lang German series about the evil mastermind, and the last directed by Harald Reinl. I commented that Reinl's previous entry had a strong blend of real-world verisimilitude and pulp thrills, but INVISIBLE shows the series moving toward pure pulp. That's not necessarily a bad thing, depending on the creative talents involved, but the first couple of sixties Mabuses felt more grounded than the later entries I've seen. But compared to most of the dilatory Eurospy flicks ground out once the Bond craze took fire, any of the Mabuse films seem superior fare.

This time stalwart FBI agent Joe Como (Lex Barker) plays a largely lone hand, investigating a mysterious murder. His inquiries lead him to a theatrical revue, where a young woman named Liane (Karin Dor) seems to be haunted by some unseen specter. But it's not Mabuse himself, even though the idea of the sinister plotter spying on people via invisibility is a natural extension of, say, his use of sophisticated cameras in THOUSAND EYES OF DOCTOR MABUSE. In point of fact, Mabuse himself is never invisible, though he plans to create an army of imperceptible minions with which to rule the world.

No, the unseen specter haunting Liane is none other than her former boyfriend, the inventor of the invisibility device, Professor Erasmus (Rudolf Fernau). Liane thinks Erasmus dead from a car crash, but he survived, albeit with disfiguring injuries, and ever since he's used his mechanism to remain close to his beloved. It's implied that Erasmus doesn't want Liane to see him in his disfigured state, though it's possible that his haunting presence alerts Mabuse's thugs and causes them to swarm toward the theater. Fortunately, Como is there to protect the woman, leading to a few good fights and an assassin dressed up as a sinister clown. Mabuse loses his chance at the device, of course. Wolfgang Preiss appears in a disguised identity but he doesn't have as much to do in this film. When he's in his sanctuary his "real face" remains in shadow, so I guess in one sense he is "invisible."

The Bond movie series loosely parallels the phenomenalities of the German Mabuse series. Whereas the Bond books are almost entirely uncanny or naturalistic (with the marginal exception of DOCTOR NO), the Bond movies-- beginning, like INVISIBLE, in 1962-- quickly souped up Ian Fleming's plots with sci-fi gimmickery. The Mabuse films did the same thing faster and with more extravagance. In fact, INVISIBLE's explanation for the device's principle is that it utilizes "cosmic dust" to block light-waves. This inventive explanation, far from the corpus of H.G. Wells, is my main reason for giving INVISIBLE a "fair" mythicity. It's fun to see the invocation of some space-age gobbledygook, especially since Fritz Lang, Mabuse's creator, made his own "race for space" movie in 1929, the supremely dull WOMAN IN THE MOON.