BLADE TRINITY (2004)

 

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

I haven't seen either the one film David S. Goyer directed before he wrote and directed TRINITY or the two he did afterward. But despite Goyer's unquestionably limited directorial resume, I think he did a respectable job with the film, as good as Norrington's first installment with the Blade character and much better than Del Toro's "Cthulhu-vampire" outing.

Of course, many people didn't like the fact that main hero Blade (Wesley Snipes) shared the screen with a band of human vampire-hunters, loosely based on a group of Marvel characters called "the Nightstalkers." Snipes himself reportedly had major problems sharing the screen, and his sentiments made for a difficult shoot-- which makes it all the more impressive that TRINITY turned out as well as it did. It's quite possible that the movie's producers hoped that this film would spawn a Nightstalkers franchise, which didn't happen because TRINITY didn't do nearly as well as the second installment. What the movie's detractors fail to apprehend is that (1) Movie-Blade is a pretty dull, affect-less figure if he doesn't have more emotive characters off which to play, and (2) the script dealt with an epic threat that Blade alone could not have coped with.

The evil vampires, mostly the traditional type this time out, have a two-pronged scheme in mind. They've managed to find and revive the first vampire in history, who's as old as Sumeria and now goes by the name Drake (Dominic Purcell), though he's the inspiration for the mythic figure of Dracula. But to get Blade out of the way, the vamps use their network of human familiars-- who never seemed to be very important in the first two flicks-- to frame Blade for murder. The intervention of human law enforcement brings about the death of Blade's mentor Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) and Blade's capture. Number Two Vamp Danica (Parkey Posey) lays plans to obtain Blade from the human police, but the Nightstalkers rescue him first.

I will admit that most of the Nightstalkers are pretty forgettable, and the only ones who survive to the end anyway are Whistler's daughter Abigail (Jessica Biel) and Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds, playing the only other movie-character derived from a Marvel original). Blade gives his fellow heroes lots of attitude, calling them "amateurs." Yet he still accepts (with zero gratitude) their help in seeking to thwart Drake's master plan: to eliminate most of humanity and use the remainder as perpetual "blood banks." Not only do the Nightstalkers supply some vital weapons, their scientist comes up with a bioweapon potentially capable of wiping out all bloodsuckers, though Blade himself, being half-vamp, might be a casualty.

While TRINITY is no adventure-classic, it displays the best story-boarded action sequences. Admittedly, while Biel's heroine brings a lot of stalwart intensity to the table, Goyer's version of Hannibal King cracks a few too many lame jokes. Purcell's burly Drake makes a welcome change from the majority of cinematic Draculas, though I could have lived without the part of the climax where Drake transforms into some sort of Sumerian demon.

And so ended the original BLADE trilogy (which would have made more sense than "trinity.") Though there was later talk of Snipes reprising his take on Movie-Blade, I for one felt it something of a dead end. None of the installments are great adventure films, but at least two of the three are solid formula-flicks, and unlike the current crop of comics-adaptations, they all happily avoided the pretentiousness of politicization. 

BLADE II (2002)

 

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

Time has not improved my opinion of the second BLADE movie. In whatever year I saw it on DVD, I thought its action scenes were uninspired and repetitive and its new characters tiresome. One insight: since I did not remember that the director was Guillermo del Toro, from now on BLADE II will be my go-to, should I want to demonstrate the vast contrast between his quality works and his crap.

David S. Goyer is once again the sole credited writer, but I don't believe anything in BLADE II is derived from the comic. I neglected to note in my review of the first installment that Goyer had dumped all of the supernatural aspects of Marvel's "vampire-verse," substituting the Mathesonian concept that vampirism was caused by an infectious virus. Yet the disease still gives its infectees some of the vulnerabilities of traditional bloodsuckers, in that they turn to ash when stabbed with silver or exposed to sunlight. For Number Two, Goyer followed up on the virus-idea by creating a variant species, "Reapers," who don't have the same weaknesses but DO have weird ALIEN-like tentacles that can sprout from their mouths, as an opening scene is swift to reveal. I find myself wondering if this idea came from Lovecraft-fan Del Toro, though it doesn't really matter who came up with an idea almost as dumb as sparkling vampires.

Blade (Wesley Snipes) has a busy opening: he learns that his mentor/armorer Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) wasn't really killed in the first movie, but was vampirized. Blade captures and cures Whistler and kills a few dozen traditional vamps. Then his kung fu skills are tested by two highly trained warrior-vamps, who eventually announce that they want to enlist his help against the Reapers, who threaten both vampire-dom and humanity. Blade meets with their elderly vampire leader Eli and agrees to make an alliance of convenience.

Nyssa (Leonor Varela), the daughter of Eli, leads an elite squad of warriors who have been training for two years-- albeit not to battle Reapers, but with the expectation of taking down Blade himself. The hero shows no real reluctance to risk his life by fighting beside bloodsuckers sworn to kill him-- in fact, during most of the movie Blade never shows any emotions at all. Even when he cows the elite warriors by showing up the foremost tough guy Dieter (Ron Perlman), there's no sense that Blade gives the matter any more thought than he does about the proper polish for his swords.

After all that setup, the rest of the movie just reduces down to a lot of commando missions with no strong sense of what's being accomplished. The combat-vamps, with the encouragement of Eli, do attempt to wipe out both the Reapers and Blade. Only Nyssa honors the alliance, and not surprisingly, things don't go well for her either. The closest thing to human interplay is that Whistler butts heads with Scud, who took Whistler's place as Blade's human aide while the older man was off being a vampire. It doesn't come to much, but it's more fun than watching Wesley Snipes run through super-fast, boringly mechanical martial arts moves with trained stunt-guys.

The one good thing about the mediocre BLADE II is that because it made money, it led to one last installment, which I for one liked better than the first two.

THE ELVIRA SHOW (1993)

 

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

Well, though the comedy of Cassandra "Elvira" Peterson may not always be the most "mythic" thing about her, her aborted half-hour pilot THE ELVIRA SHOW did manage to work a few light-hearted sociological motifs into the setup. I think this may have been the only collaboration between Elvira's long-time writer John Paragon (who worked on one of her TV shows and on both movies) and writer/producer Anne Beatts, famed for the cult favorite sitcom SQUARE PEGS.

Elvira and her dotty aunt Minerva (Katherine Helmond) are both witches, though only Minerva is seen doing actual magic. They've both moved to Manhattan, Kansas, and Elvira has set up shop as a combination fortune-teller and maker of dubious love potions. Their only companion is a talking cat (voiced by Paragon). However, the ladies get a new live-in when Elvira's niece Paige (Phoebe Augustine), who's apparently a complete straight-edge, decides to come for an extended visit.

A woman who imbibes an Elvira potion gets sick, and even though she doesn't file a complaint, the Manhattan PD is on the case lickety-split. The stick-up-her-butt D.A. (Christine Rose) sends handsome undercover cop Chip (Ted Henning) to get the goods on Elvira, and as soon as both Elvira and Minerva see the hunk, they want to get his goods. Elvira does her best to munch on Chip but he makes an excuse about needing one of her love potions and escapes to come back that night.

The brief interim gives Elvira a chance to concoct another bogus potion, while we get to see that D.A. Lindsay also wants to get her hands on the Bag of Chip, and she's not happy to have competition. Later she calls Elvira trash, and Elvira responds "at least trash gets picked up." Boob jokes and double entendres abound when Chip, already besotted with the dark mistress, returns to do his duty. But the forces of law and order are stymied by the forces of wit and witchcraft. Paige too is revealed to be a witch who's ashamed of her heritage, and Elvira gives the young woman a "be yourself" speech while keeping her tongue firmly in her cheek-- or maybe all of her cheeks.

The jokes are good enough that ELVIRA would have made a decent raunch-com had it made the schedule. But had it kept the monotonous routine of the pilot-- Elvira chases Chip to nail him, while Lindsay chases Elvira to jail her-- there's no chance the show would've lasted more than a season. But even one season would have given us more Elvira to ogle on YouTube, and there's no getting too much of that good thing.

BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD; SEASON TWO (2009-11)

 

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

I enjoyed my re-watch of BTBATB Season One but I wasn't expecting anything but more of the same formula. And to be sure, the series' showrunners didn't stray too far from that template. However, it's a mark of their stated enthusiasm as fans that Season 2 did delve into one aspect of DC superheroes far from the vein of camp aesthetics, and that's the trope of the heroic death.

Now, there are a lot of the standard adventures, which, even without the jokes, verged on the absurd by having Batman cross over with a host of DC luminaries, good and bad, famous and obscure. The most successful episode is probably "Death Race to Oblivion," in which various heroes (Batman, Guy Gardner, Plastic Man and sidekick Woozy, Huntress and Green Arrow) are forced to participate in a cross-country car race with various villains (Catwoman, Joker, Gentleman Ghost, and Black Manta). Many episodes reference famous (or infamous) moments in Batman comics, particularly from the goofier moments of the Silver Age. Batman gets super powers on an alien planet and meets a villain with the name "Rohtul." Batman gets split into three separate Batmen, each with his own portion of Bruce Wayne's personality (which not only resembles one of the Batman comics, but also a 2013 TEEN TITANS episode by some of the same writers). The only crossover of Batman with Superman references two or three Superman stories and Miller's DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, while the "teaser" for that episode shows Batman and Robin dressed in mummy-versions of their standard costumes, duplicating a famous 1960s gimmick-cover. 

And yet, the shadow of Real Death intrudes fairly often. "Chill of the Night" has the Spectre and Phantom Stranger making a bet on Batman's soul, a bet suspiciously reminiscent of the story of Job. Spectre predicts that the hero will become vengeful when he finds his parents' killer, while the Stranger hazards that Batman will rise above such temptation. (In the episode's teaser Spectre also implicitly kills one of Batman's minor foes.) 

A three-part story involves the giant starfish Starro trying to conquer Earth, but one of the heroes often regarded as a joke, B'wana Beast, nobly sacrifices his life to defeat the alien.

In "Emperor Joker," the magical imp Bat-Mite accidentally transfers his powers to the fiendish Joker, who then becomes near-omnipotent. Joker uses those powers to put Batman to death, revive him, and put him to death again. These temporary deaths are rendered to be as over-the-top as possible, but it's still rather grotty to imagine the crusader experiencing real death again and again, and presumably keeping those memories even after he manages to trick Joker out of his "emperor" empowerment. Ultimate nerd Bat-Mite does step up and help, and gets some aid from Harley Quinn (wearing a flapper-like costume, presumably to avoid stepping on Bruce Timm's toes).

There aren't any episodes as good as "Music Meister" from the first season, but "The Last Patrol" comes the closest. It's a patent love letter to the 1960s series THE DOOM PATROL, one of DC's quirkiest superhero titles, and one which atypically ended when all the heroes gave up their lives to save those of ordinary citizens. (I think later hands revived all of the Patrollers, but it's the thought that counts.) The episode works in not only a number of bizarre Doom Patrol villains but even reproduces images from old covers.

None of the episodes are actively bad. I could have lived without seeing Batman do a "Turnabout Intuder" body-switch with the Kathy Kane Batwoman. In another episode, Speedy, Aqualad and Robin-- who in comics would be the nucleus of the first Teen Titans-- get too big for their britches. and take on the insidious Ra's Al Ghul and his sexy daughter Talia. Robin even gets so full of himself he makes a pass at Talia, who's renowned for being one of Batman's many squeezes. I don't mind having a little Oedipus wreckage here and there, but that one just comes out of the blue and doesn't have any impact on the story.

Possibly some of the meditations on death came about because the showrunners weren't sure BTBATB would get a third season. But Cartoon Network did order thirteen new episodes-- half the number alloted to both Seasons One and Two-- and this contingency allowed the devoted Bat-fans behind the drawings to send off their series in style with a standout conclusion. 

 

THE JUNGLE PRINCESS (1936)

 

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

There's not much doubt that THE JUNGLE PRINCESS was an attempt to emulate the success of 1932's TARZAN THE APE MAN, since one of the credited writers, Cyril Hume, had worked on two of the MGM Tarzans before contributing to PRINCESS. As an interesting sidebar, director William Thiele went on to helm two MGM ape-man adventures after this film. All that said, PRINCESS is intended to be a romantic drama first and foremost.

Jungle-girl Ulah (Dorothy Lamour in her feature film debut, which "typed" her as a sarong-girl) isn't precisely raised by animals in her rather vague origin. When she's a small girl she's apparently living in the Malaysian jungle with her father, and the father is killed by a tiger (presumably a female) even as the tiger is shot to death. Ulah then just lives in the jungle for the next fifteen or so years alongside the tiger's cub, who ends up looking pretty healthy for a fifteen-year-old tiger. Ulah apparently has some rapport with the local monkey population, who hang out with her despite her tiger companion, though she's never said to wield any literal power over animals.

A group of white hunters come looking for zoo animals, and their party includes Chris Powell (Ray Milland) and his fiancee Ava (Molly Lamont). They're warned by natives of a legend of a "laughing tiger," but this is a superstition that's grown from the locals having heard Ulah's girlish laugh when her tiger friend was roaming about.

Chris ventures into the jungle, where he's attacked by Ulah's tiger, but Ulah appears and orders the tiger to leave him. Ulah takes Chris to her cave to care for him, and almost immediately falls for him. She can only speak what Chris calls "baby-talk Malay," but this common ground gives the hunter the chance to teach Ulah some English. Though it's unlikely that Ulah knows what human sex entails, her body language suggests an intense desire for propinquity at the very least.

Once Chris returns to his camp with Ulah in tow, everyone's glad to see him, but Ava's not the least glad to see Ulah. Ava conceals her hostility, but when Chris invites Ulah to eat with the group at a European-style dinner table, Ava sees an opportunity to make Ulah look bad. She tries to take advantage of the sarong-clad beauty's ignorance by dressing her in foolish clothes. But in a moment that probably gratified female viewers in 1936, Ulah senses what's going on, dumps the bad clothes and cobbles together an impressive outfit that makes Chris appreciate her even more. To his credit, he realizes he's fallen out of love with Ava and tries to be honest with her, though she doesn't want to hear it. 

The natives, still fired by superstition, cage Ulah's tiger and plan to kill it, believing it a demon. They nurture the same plans for Ulah, and when the whites get in the Malaysians' way they're scheduled for sacrifice too. But somehow Ulah's monkey friends (one of which is prominently an African chimp) find out about her peril and come to her rescue, swarming into the Malaysian village and causing havoc. Thanks to the distraction the white hunters are able to escape with Ulah, and later she and Chris are implicitly united, with Ava being a belated good sport about it.

Dorothy Lamour, a former New Orleans beauty queen, enhances her formidable looks with a light, enticing personality. The sarong-look is almost certainly derived from stories about South Sea Island vahines, and though it's hard to tell from the black and white print, it looks to me like the makeup people might have darkened Lamour's skin for the role. In theory Ulah might be at least partly Malaysian, since nothing is said about her mother, and Ulah patently learned her pidgin-Malay from someone. But the broad implication is that Ulah is white, though it's also hard to judge even the father's ethnicity from his brief appearance. As with Tarzan, Ulah is a figure that potentially allowed audiences to flirt with breaking racial codes, in that the character is technically white but suggests the possibility of dallying with someone from the other side of the ethnic tracks.

In addition to the animals' rapport with the sarong-girl, the legend that grows up about "the laughing tiger" fits my category of the phantasmal figuration, even though in this case it arises from a social misapprehension.

THE JADE FOX (1980)

 

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

There's a reason hardly anyone has reviewed this Taiwanese "gimmick-socky" online, because the way the script introduces characters makes it almost impossible to follow. I suppose the dubbing could be at fault but I have a feeling that director Kao Pao-Shu wasn't very invested in the material. 

I know that it's another Ming Dynasty fantasia, in which various factions are struggling for power when a new heir ascends to the imperial throne. The main menace to the country is a female martial artist, Shu Shen (director Kao) who maintains her own estate with numerous acolytes. The one online review says that Lin (Lo Lieh) is one of her allies and that they're trying to steal a vital map from the noble highwayman Jade Fox (Tien Peng). Somehow a female martial artist, Zheng (Lung Chung-erh), gets mixed up with these characters, and she's got some little boy following her around, though I couldn't tell if they were related or if she'd informally adopted him. There are a lot of energetic fights, particularly with Zheng, which are the only reason to watch, though no single fight is a standout. As for the gimmicks, there are a few items like poison gas sprays but the main device is seen both at the beginning and end, in that Shu has a special palanquin she rides in that can sprout spikes and iron cage-bars.

I suppose Jade Fox is the hero but both Tien Peng and Lo Lieh are dull, which is really a rare thing for Lo Lieh. Lung Chung-erh's lively kung fu is the main attraction, though her character is wildly inconsistent. Probably FOX is most significant for being one of the few female-directed chopsockies. Kao Pao-Shu has a long list of acting credits going back to the 1950s, and I suspect she got into kung fu films as a latter-day career move. Of the eleven movies she directed, I did see one other, a Hsu Feng vehicle called WIN THEM ALL, and since I didn't think that was hard to follow, I tend to think that FOX was just another tossed-together trifle.

GOTHAM, SEASON 1 (2014-15)

 

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

The first season of GOTHAM could easily be seen as a Batman-centered version of SMALLVILLE, tracing the history of a hero in his formative years. Of course Clark Kent begins to manifest his full range of powers in his late teen years, while GOTHAM's Bruce Wayne is twelve years old when his parents are murdered. Like Teen Clark, Preteen Bruce begins to form a coterie around himself that includes many characters whom the comic-book hero met under very different circumstances. I should note that Christopher Nolan's successful BATMAN movie-trilogy had just ended in 2012, which may have encouraged Warner Brothers to seek a new venue for their Bat-mythos.

GOTHAM shows influence from both the Nolan films and from the dark, violent comics that became dominant from the 1980s and into the present. However, in its five year run the series duplicated a tendency in TV's previous 1966 Bat-series: to wit, both shows were generally at their best when they borrowed strongly from the comic book adventures of Batman, and did less well coming up with their own mythology.

As in many post-Frank Miller Bat-comics, Gotham City is a sewer of a city, where underworld bosses do what they want while most of the cops are paid off to look the other way. Then two significant events transpire within hours of each other. The parents of millionaire heir Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) are murdered by an unknown gunman, and Gotham recruit James Gordon (Ben McKenzie) is assigned to the case, along with his newly assigned partner Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue). Gordon promises to Bruce that he will find the killer of the boy's parents, and he extends the same intensity to investigating all crimes that come under his scrutiny. This does not endear Gordon to his partner Bullock, to other cops, or the regular mobsters of Gotham.

Though most of the gangsters are ordinary criminals-- even new creation Fish Mooney (Jade Pinkett Smith), a schemer of operatic proportions-- the first season devotes considerable space to showing how many of the famous Bat-villains rise to prominence in Gotham's world of usually violent crime. Selina Kyle, the future Catwoman, is a 14-year-old street-thief who witnesses the killing of Bruce's parents and become involved with the young heir, his faithful butler Alfred (Sean Pertwee), and with the implacable Gordon. Penguin, rather than being a flamboyant gimmick-villain, combines the nature of a gangland snitch with an oily Uriah Heep personality, showing himself willing to commit any crime to ascend to crime-boss status. Edward Nygma, the future Riddler, is a pathologist working for Gotham's police force, and Poison Ivy is about the same age as Catwoman, also existing on the margins of civilized society.

As different as all of these characters are from their prototypes, they're generally powerful presences who interact in stimulating ways. Penguin (Robin Lord Taylor) betrays his boss Fish Mooney but is saved from death by Gordon, bonding the two of them in ways that are not much to Gordon's liking. Selina (Camren Bicondova) and Bruce forge something of a friends-crushing-on-each-other relationship as Bruce begins his own private investigation of his parents' deaths. Nygma progresses from slightly offbeat pathologist with a penchant for riddles to a pathological killer. At the same time, all of their eccentric villainies play out against the backdrop of gangland struggles for power, constantly menacing the city's residents with new outbreaks of chaos.

The show's writers may have also followed SMALLVILLE in constructing various long-range plot-lines, many not resolved in Season One. At the same time, to allow for at least the illusion of closure, Gordon and Bullock are allowed to solve a handful of crimes, though the violence is so prevalent that these victories often seem hollow. There is a certain amount of humor, sometimes of the gallows variety, but romantic attachments, particularly in the life of Gordon, prove fragile. He's first seeing a young woman, Barbara Kean, who ends up becoming a menace, and at the end of the first season he's dating one Leslie Thompson (who in the comics becomes the go-to doctor for The Batman). Like most soap operas, the writers constantly keep emotions and events jacked up to Warp Eleven, so there are almost no quiet, naturalistic moments to speak of. 

Most of the original characters are of questionable value. Fish Mooney seems to have been intended to be a kick-ass criminal, but Smith's acting is so over the top that she's never believable. Barbara Kean, who may have borrowed both of her names from separate Bat-characters, goes much too quickly from a normal woman to an insane-o. Short-term villains like The Goat and the Balloon Man, while never as awful as the worst of the foes from '66 BATMAN, are generally forgettable.

In short, the first season is at its strongest in dramatic scenes between principals Bruce, Gordon, Selina, and Alfred. Penguin is an interesting variation on the original, in that the very first Penguin comics-story talks about his alienation due to his physical appearance, though almost every other appearance of the "Birdman Bandit" has been more comic in nature. The first season is also fairly restrained in terms of marvelous phenomena, which are mostly confined to bizarre chemical concoctions like the Scarecrow's fear gas.