THE GRAND SUPERHERO OPERA

LEGO DC SUPER HERO GIRLS: BRAIN DRAIN (2017)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*

The first of two LEGO-ized versions of DC SUPER HERO GIRLS avoids one of my main criticisms of the regular franchise by concentrating on just three heroines: Supergirl, Wonder Woman and Batgirl.

Like all of the other LEGO films I've reviewed, BRAIN DRAIN is a comedy first and an adventure second. However, the jokes aren't on a par with the best humor of Lego's versions of Batman and Justice League. This may be because the writers were too narrowly following the very limited cosmos of the "straight" HERO GIRLS series, which is a little bit like the old idea of "copying the shadow of a shadow."

BRAIN DRAIN does have an intriguing opening. The three main heroes investigate a burglary and find that the culprits are their schoolmates Katana and Bumblebee. Then all three girls wake up and it seems that they just dreamed the whole thing. However, they've all lost 24 hours of time, during which they apparently committed various offenses against other students and against Principal Amanda Waller.

After this promising start, though, things soon settle down into a routine meet-and-beat. The trio tracks down the author of their troubles, Lena Luthor from the second "straight" telefilm, and she's made common cause with Eclipso, one of the two main evildoers from the first telefilm. Again, the two villains are using a combination of "open a dimension portal to gain power" and "enslave regular people and superheroes alike with a mind-control thingie." But reducing the number of super-foes down to two is also a big improvement, and Lena Luthor gets the movie's best lines.

Even though the animators here are dealing with "brick-mation" rather than drawings, the LEGO raconteurs map out much better fights than were seen in the two adventure-oriented movies. Aside from that, it's just another routine Lego-flick.

BRUCE, KUNG FU GIRLS (1975)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological* The most demanding thing about this goofy romp-- originally titled FIVE PRETTY YOUNG LADIES-- is trying to decide if it's more comedy than adventure. But as dopey as the concept is-- five young Chinese girls, wearing matching skirts, boots, and halter tops, volunteer to capture an "invisible thief"-- I'd say the movie sells thrills more often than jokes. And really, when the Chinese make a thoroughgoing comedy, one's not likely to be fooled by lots of subtlety.

The five girls-- billed on HKMDB as "Pretty Girls 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5"-- are headed by two "name" stars-- Polly Shang Kwan and Elsa Yeung-- while the other three actresses, according to said database, barely did anything else but BRUCE. The five characters are almost indistinguishable from one another, except that the youngest wears pigtails and sometimes acts childishly. The quintet become involved with crimefighting when some hoods chase a handsome young scientist into the girls' gym. The girl-gang's leader (Shang Kwan) has an uncle on the local police force, so the ladies manage to insinuate themselves into the investigation of the scientist's relevance to an invisible thief plaguing Hong Kong. The scientist, whom the Shang Kwan character fancies, used "moon rocks" to concoct an invisibility formula, and the gangsters who attacked him work for a lady gang-boss (Betty Pei Ting). There's no pretense of detective work here. The girls just show up wherever the script needs them to do so and start kicking Bad Guy ass with their kung fu, though top-billed Shang Kwan performs the best stunts. When the girls aren't on screen, BRUCE is a stone bore-- though sadly, I have seen many films worse than this one.

THE KING'S MAN (2021)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological* I'm glad Wiki told me that the working title of director/co-writer Matthew Vaughn's prequel to his two KINGSMAN films was "Kingsman: the Great Game." The "Great Game" phrase appeared in Rudyard Kipling's 1901 novel KIM, and Vaughan stated that his prequel had been inspired by the 1975 film THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING-- itself derived from another Kipling work. Thus, it's fair to assume that the director wanted to ground the origins of the fictional "Kingsman" spy-service in real history and sociopolitics, just as KIM dealt with the "game" of espionage unfolding between the superpowers Russia and Great Britain in the early part of the 20th century.

The main reason I'm glad to have learned this datum is that it clarifies why KING'S MAN is such a mishmash, with elements of Kipling, Mark Millar, Movie James Bond, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, and the entire 1930s Hollywood trope of "Rule Brittania" movies. The two previous movies were one with the Mark Millar source material that generated the franchise: all superficial popcorn fare, built on the tropes of "Movie James Bond," with lots of goofy sci-fi gadgets and references to pop culture. KING'S MAN departs from the formula to tap into a modified "Rule Brittania" vibe, and its only "pop culture" references were exaggerated hat-tips to familiar historical figures like Mata Hari and Rasputin. Perhaps audiences learned that this was only a "name only" part of the Kingsman franchise and stayed away, with the result that the movie bombed.

I might validate Vaughan's attempt to do something different, but I suspect that he labored too long in the vineyards of escapism-- not only KINGSMAN but X-MEN and KICK-ASS-- to know how to approach real history and sociopolitical discourse. Instead, Vaughan begins by loosely describing how the spy-service was founded by the English lord Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) in the early 20th century and then presenting the fledgling service with a great conspiracy to manipulate the outcome of World War One. As in many James Bond movies, the source of the conspiracy is a rogue operator, a mystery man called the Shepherd, who wants to destroy Great Britain in the war by keeping Russia and America out of the conflict. Oxford and his circle of allies, including his Black African factotum Shola (Djimon Hounsou), attempt to foil the conspiracy, though Oxford tries to keep his grown son Conrad (Harris Dickinson) on the sidelines.

The problem with Vaughan's project is that despite grounding his story in real history, the script shows no more sociopolitical smarts than your average comic book. Additionally, Vaughan knew that he had no shot with a big audience if he didn't include the big RAIDERS-style fight-scenes, but with almost none of the marvelous technology seen in the diegetically-later films. One such battle involves Shola and the two Oxfords seeking to assassinate the Shepherd's Russian agent Rasputin, thus rewriting the real history of the priest's murder by a group of his enemies. Another is a lively swordfight between Oxford and the Shepherd at the climax. But I for one didn't engage with any of Vaughan's characters, so I didn't become invested even on the escapist level.

Whereas the old Hollywood movies celebrated the British Empire as a source of order in a chaotic world, KING'S MAN is obliged to apologize for imperialism-- before celebrating how an English spy-agency saves the world. There are a number of grim, downbeat moments here, but they don't mesh with the escapist scenes, and their presence leads me to wonder if Vaughan wasn't trying his hand at more mature fare, even if he chose a bad showcase for that ambition. Despite the suggestion that the younger Oxford will become the central character once he goes through a rite of passage, Fiennes' Orlando remains the focal icon from start to finish. The performances are all strong, which is one improvement over the acting in the two earlier movies, but grim moments alone do not convey a sense of naturalism. There's not much here to connect KING'S MAN with the wild fantasies of the franchise, though in one scene Rasputin does seem to be demonstrating real psychic powers, hence I peg the phenomenality here as "marvelous."

DOCTOR SATAN (1966)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological* Once again, I am indebted to a YouTuber who downloaded this very obscure sixties Mex-horror for the delectation of fans. DOCTOR SATAN is a rare example of a Mexico-made supervillain who starred in his own series, even though only one other installment was produced. This black-and-white movie is, unlike a lot of south-of-the-border horror flicks of the period, remarkably tight in its melodramatic plot, not wasting any time even on comedy relief. At the helm this time is Miguel Morayta. Morayta had been directing Mexican films since the 1940s, and though I can't be sure that none of them contained metaphenomenal content, today he's largely celebrated for two atmospheric vampire films he made in the sixties, THE BLOODY VAMPIRE and THE INVASION OF THE VAMPIRES. He directed DOCTOR DEATH three years after the second of those films, but maybe Morayta didn't really like the horror genre, despite his being quite good at it. From 1967 to his retirement from the industry in 1978, I see only one other movie that clearly had fantasy-elements, and that was the comedy CAPULINA CONTRA LOS MONSTROS.

The villain, whom I'll continue to call "Satan" even though he goes by a more normative alias, initially looks like the usual Mex-horror mad scientist as he uses chemicals to revive a corpse, creating a subservient zombie servant. However, in the many atmosphere-heavy scenes that follow, it becomes evident that Satan (Joaquin Cordero) has a sorcerous relationship with the real tempter himself, addressed as "King Devil." Both times that Satan calls up the bat-winged Father of Evil, the devil-worshipping scientist has to request King Devil's leave before suborning the souls of others to make zombie servants. I found this interesting because nothing is said about King Devil having the souls of the mortal mastermind's victims because those souls sinned. King Devil thus seems less like the Christian lord of hell and more like a lord of the dead, like the Greek Hades. Oddly, the phony sounding first name Doctor Satan uses is "Plutarcho," which was almost certainly coined for its resemblance to the Roman name for Hades, "Pluto."

The bad doctor has some sort of major evil plan in the works, though he never actually says what it is. He only converses with King Devil, his zombie servants, and Luisa, the representative of a crime combine. It seems Satan needs deep pockets to fund his experiments, so he lends his zombie-making talents to the project of spreading counterfeit money throughout Mexico and the US. This involvement with Luisa's gang has a few fringe benefits-- Luisa's a sexy blonde, and she and Satan date a few times-- but the arrangement also brings the Mexican chapter of Interpol into Satan's business.

Inspector Mateos and his assistant Nora make slow progress linking Satan to the counterfeiting ring, particularly since they don't initially know they're dealing with killer zombies, immune to bullets. In one amusing scene, the police consult with Satan before they suspect him, to get him to interview a captive zombie. Satan simply exposes the zombie to salt, so that the creature dissolves, leaving the cops baffled. Since Morayta is more focused on atmosphere than action, there are only a few quick fight-scenes, and the police depend more on dogged pursuit than firepower. But I appreciated that Nora isn't the usual shrinking violet in many Mex-horror movies. When a zombie intrudes on her bedroom to abduct the young policewoman, she whips out her revolver and shoots him point blank-- which only succeeds in driving the monster off, of course. Nora and another woman also prove important in exposing Satan's involvement in the criminal racket and manage to bring Mateos and his forces to Satan's lair to bring about a rescue. Satan is captured but escapes for the sequel. I wish more of the horror-films of the period, in any country, were as tight and forbidding as DOCTOR SATAN.

AFTERSHOCK (1990)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological* AFTERSHOCK-- whose title seems like a reference to nothing at all-- may be rare among apocaflicks in also being a "first contact" story. And it's got kung fu also, so it's a first-contact chop-apocaflick! Also, it's got almost ten familiar faces spread throughout the movie, though some of the performers are in the story for only a handful of scenes, like Richard Lynch and Christopher (son of Robert) Mitchum.

Writer Michael Standing (who also has a small acting role in AFTERSHOCK) comes up with a basic concept that almost has satirical possibilities. What if all the societies of Earth fall into apocalyptic chaos thanks to a repressive military regime, and then a beneficent ET pays Earth a visit, having heard from our outer-space satellites that we're a happening kind of world? A writer with a head for satire might have come up with all sorts of little jabs at human mediocrity while the hero of the story tried to help the aggrieved alien phone home. But Standing had no such head. His idea of satire was to say that the repressive military faction, represented by enforcers John Saxon and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, likes to control subjects by somehow affixing "bar codes" to their persons. Stop me, I'm laughing.

At first AFTERSHOCK looks like it's going to be a "soldiers vs rebels" story. Saxon and his goons arrest two young guys, one of whom is a member of the rebel movement (Chuck Jeffreys) while the other, Willie (Jay Roberts Jr.), is a sort of rebel against the rebels. When the two guys break out of their confinement-- both of them doing so much kung-fu that it seems like they're going to be a salt-and-pepper team-- they also break out a young blonde woman named Sabina (Elizabeth Kaitan). Sabina is an alien visitor who, as I said, came with the idea of contacting a rational civilization, but she can't speak except by imitating the words of others. Naturally, there's no point in having an alien visitor who can't talk, so in jig time she assimilates enough Earth-lingo to communicate. In order to return to her own planet, Sabina desperately needs to return to the point where she first teleported to Earth. The nasty soldiers want to take Sabina into custody in order to profit from her advanced alien knowledge, so the good rebels largely put aside their own concerns to help out this sister from another planet.

With this setup out of the way, the last hour of the film is just one fight after another, and since Jeffreys' character disappears, most of the heroic action is performed by super-rebel Willie, who's just a bleeding altruist at heart. Roberts is nowhere near the best at either acting or fighting, but he's adequate for this sort of routine future-chopsocky. Kaitan provides okay humor support: her jokes aren't especially funny, but she sells the innocent-ET thing well enough. Most of the name performers just say their lines and collect their paychecks. However, the best acting comes from Chris de Rose, whom I at least had never heard of. He plays an "apprehender," a bounty hunter who goes looking for Willie and his alien charge at the behest of Bad John Saxon. But for reasons never very clear, he begins to feel like he wants to wash his hands of the military dictatorship. He turns on Saxon and makes possible Willie's triumph and Sabina's escape from Earth. A concluding curiosity: the name of the hero and that of the Chris Mitchum character, "Colonel Slater," both appeared for other characters in Roberts' first movie, the 1987 ninja-flick WHITE PHANTOM, though that film and AFTERSHOCK shared no personnel except Roberts.

AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER : BOOK ONE, WATER (2005)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological* I don't think I consistently watched Nickelodeon's AVATAR during its initial broadcast, so I'm playing catchup here, digesting all the rules of the show's fantasy-realm as well as a decent-sized cast of characters. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to pronounce it "one of the best animated TV shows of all time," but at least it's a contender.

I've read no accounts of the genesis of the series, which takes place in a vaguely Asian world. Since primeval times, there have been four tribes, each of which may spawn individuals who can wield power over one of the four elements: fire, water, earth and air. I've not seen anything quite like this talent outside of superhero comics, but I speculate that the creators might have been drawing on Chinese stories about the discipline of qinggong, which gives practitioners (in fiction at least) the power to manipulate great energies. One hundred years before the main timeline of the show, the Fire Tribe seeks to master all of the other tribes. One legendary individual, the Avatar, was capable of mastering all four elements, but the Avatar disappeared just when the Fire Tribe arose. I'm not sure what keeps the Fire-practitioners from conquering all their neighbors. The siblings Sokka and Katara-- the latter being a Water-bender-- come across a twelve-year-old boy frozen in ice. After they thaw him out, they learn that his name is Aang and that before he was frozen, he was training to master all four of the elemental disciplines, in order to prevent the Fire Tribe from gaining hegemony. But Aang didn't finish his training, and commands only the skill of air-bending. To save the world from the Fire Tribe's dominion, Sokka and Katara join Aang in his quest to master his powers.

AVATAR is a very likeable series, with a highly original concept and a playful sense of how to expand its fantasy-world. The twenty episodes of Season One-- possibly subtitled "water" because Aang takes lessons in water-bending from Katara-- are all good formula-adventures. Because those adventures are so peripatetic, there's not a lot of opportunity to build up support-characters, with the exception of Season One's primary opponent: Zuko, heir apparent to the King of the Fire Tribe. Zuko has a number of parental issues and desperately wants to capture the Avatar to prove himself. Yet in one episode, "The Blue Spirit," Zuko rebels against his father's admiral Zhao and rescues Aang from captivity, for reasons he doesn't entirely comprehend. There's a lot of good camaraderie between the three young heroes and even their mount, the six-legged sky-bison Appa. However, no particular episodes struck me as having deep symbolic complexity. Still, I have hopes for the next two seasons.