THE GRAND SUPERHERO OPERA

AVENGERS CONFIDENTIAL: BLACK WIDOW AND PUNISHER (2014)

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

Here's one of those very scattershot OAVs based on Marvel characters-- scattershot in this case because I doubt anyone in the customer base was longing to see a team-up of the Black Widow and the Punisher, not even one that includes some cameo-appearances of other Avengers and various ancillary (and pointless) guest stars. Actually, a better name for the project would have been "SHIELD Confidential," because the alliance between Natasha Romanof and Frank Castle comes about because the former is a loyal employee of the spy-cabal while the latter is a loner who wants no interference, by SHIELD or anyone, in his private crime-destroying crusade.

Though this video was produced by the Japanese studio Madhouse-- which provides better quality animation than one sees in most Marvel OAVs-- the story came from an American author of prose and comics, Marjorie Liu, and the master trope that Liu chose to pursue was that of "by-the-book enforcer must work with loose cannon." In theory the Punisher might seem well suited to be the loose cannon in any team-up, though there are a number of narrative problems that arise from involving Castle with stories involving spycraft, numerous SF-gimmicks, or both. Liu is on even shakier ground in trying to justify using the resourceful Natasha as the rule-follower. True, as a hired gun Liu had to "follow the rules" of the MCU Bible for these characters, and since no MCU production, live-action or animated, ever defined the terms of the Black Widow's allegiance to SHIELD, Liu allows that dramatic shoe to go on hanging in mid-air.

The teamup comes about because Castle goes after an illegal arms dealer who's also being monitored by SHIELD for his connections to an evil organization called Leviathan. Nick Fury decides that since Castle mucked up their investigation, SHIELD drafts him in their crusade against Leviathan, and the Widow is assigned to keep the Punisher from getting too punitive. Castle plays along because he still wants to take down his original quarry and any of his buddies. Natasha tries to use reason and humor to shake Castle out of his monomania, but the problem there is that without the monomania, the Punisher has no identity. He's the last hero anyone should want tied into a complex espionage operation, but the Widow is stuck with him, much as Writer Liu was.

The menace of Leviathan is so badly constructed that the group is responsible for two separate threats to world peace: one involving a super-soldier serum and the other some mind-control technology. The evil org's master, one "Orion," is a nothing villain, and since Natasha can't get any human reactions out of Punisher, the script works in a secondary threat: Elihas, an agent of Leviathan with whom Natasha was romantically involved. Elihas and Natasha still harbor deep feelings for each other, but it's never clear as to why Elihas faked his death and allied himself with an evil conspiracy. There's a loose implication that Elihas had a deep inferiority complex toward the Widow and wanted to become a super-soldier so that she would be proud of him-- though all this psychologizing is minimal at best. Punisher for his part wants nothing but the chance to take out more criminals-- though very briefly, he considers offing himself when he accidentally kills some innocents. But he gets over that little impulse.

I must admit that even with the lack of substantive drama, even at the level of a good action-movie, CONFIDENTIAL is never dull, for there are a lot of battles counterpointing the unlikely duo's progress until the big fight in Leviathan's sanctuary, and Black Widow gets her best, and sexiest, animated incarnation here. In contrast to the toxic feminism of the MCU, which forbids the depiction of nubile femininity, Madame Natasha looks really good. Frankly the movie would have been better focused only on her, though I did like her initial fight with Punisher, in that once they throw down, Castle shows no compunctions against shooting the Widow dead if she doesn't get out of his way. Liu's script may have been influenced by productions like CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, given that late in the film it's revealed that Fury has been less than honest with his agents-- which is a surprise only to one of the duo. But Liu doesn't make the Punisher's credo of "personal vengeance above all" resonate, and even with the revelation of Fury's skullduggery, SHIELD's more organized campaign against evil still makes much more sense in terms of the world's complexities. A last complaint about Natasha's self-involved Lover-Boy is that Liu evidently gave him the name of "Elihas Starr." In the comic books this was the regular name of a criminal named Egghead, though the MCU used the name for a different character. But neither character was anything like the one to which the name is attached here, which seems to be a pointless bit of non-continuity.

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009)

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

REVENGE received a lot of brickbats in its day, with one critic calling it "incomprehensible"-- which I for one find incomprehensible. It's just a formulaic sequel seeking to keep its audience's attention with even more giant-robot action and silly humor than the previous film. And it's hard to see any other logical avenue for such "high concept" filmmakers. For me the biggest attraction of the 2007 film was to see how its craftsmen attempted to make a kids' cartoon into a general-audience feature film-- which was an act that could only be offered once.

So, the plot. Despite Sam Witwicky having saved the Earth by (temporarily) destroying Megatron, he's attempting to live an ordinary life by going off to college, even though this separates him from girlfriend Mikaela. However, his contact with a shard of the "All Spark" causes him to experience visions-- which, in a circuitous manner, will lead him and various allies to discover a new threat to Earth's survival. But before they can do so, Megaton is resurrected while the Autobots' noble leader Optimus Prime is slain. Yet once the audience learns that only a Prime can defeat "The Fallen," a world-destroying Decepticon who's constructed as an "Autobot Devil"-- can Optimus' revival be far behind?

Most of REVENGE is comfortably predictable and nothing more. The most unlikely development in my view was that the writers brought back Seymour Simmons (John Turturro) from the 2007 film. I described the character as a "minor dick-villain," but here he's a more rounded (if still goony) character who adds some variety to the human allies of the Autobots.

MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS (2020)

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

Japan turns out so many hyperactive comedies than it's almost a surprise when one of them-- namely, MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS-- takes the opposite approach. Here the premise is loony but all of the performers treat the proceedings in a restrained, deadpan manner.

Amateur scientist Takuma, who works for his parents' seafood restaurant, invents a chemical that can enlarge small animals into giants. I think he does so with the idea of being able to create big creatures to supply the restaurant, but he's not responsible for unleashing his "food of the gods" upon urban Japan. A rival, Hikomi, steals the chemical and dumps it in the sea, where it creates three gigantic kaiju: a squid (Irkalla), a crab (Kanilla), and an octopus (Tokalla). There are a few scenes where the big beasts display ancillary powers, and of course there's no explanation for these.

The main joke is that when Japan's defense forces can't stop the goony giants, the government creates a special department SMAT, Seafood Monster Attack Team. (Nice of them to use English for their acronym even though the film is subtitled.) For some reason Hikomi is part of this team despite his having created the crisis, and so is Nana, Takuma's childhood sweetheart. Takuma joins the team too, and they strive to find ways to thwart the monsters, with weapons like vinegar-blasters and a giant chef robot who, at the climax, turns the creatures into sashimi.

The movie's best joke is that while the defense forces battle the kaiju, small parts of the sea-monsters' bodies get sliced off, and somehow these get marketed so as to become great dining delicacies. So the movie is not just "The Monsters That Ate Tokyo," but "The Monsters Tokyo Ate." Though Takuma and his romance with Nana is mild fun, the monsters are the stars as they provide the narrative vector.

LEGEND OF THE SEEKER, SEASON ONE (2008-09)

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

As I have only read the first of Terry Goodkind's "Seeker" books, WIZARD'S FIRST RULE, I can't speak to the overall quality of the series, or whether it was a crying shame that Sam Raimi's teleseries adaptation didn't get more than two seasons. But the first novel offers in part a theme opposed to most otherworldly Tolkienian fantasies. one that might boil down to, "Power of all kinds-- not just One-Ring power-- corrupts the good and the bad alike." The dramatic consequences of this theme are that even the three pure-hearted heroes are innately capable of harming one another, even with the best of intentions.

Though most of the 22 episodes of LEGEND's first season don't adapt incidents from the first book, the overall outlines remain the same. Large portions of Goodkind's unnamed fantasy-verse have been conquered by the military might of tyrannical Darken Rahl, whose long-range goal is to control all life through assorted sorcerous stratagems. However, it's been prophecized that a rare crusader for justice, the Seeker, is destined to kill Darken Rahl. Young Richard Cypher (Craig Horner) is raised without knowing that he is the Seeker, but soon he's drafted to fulfill his destiny by two other heroes. One is elderly wizard Zed (Bruce Spence), who arranged Richard's concealment from hostile forces. The other, Kahlan (Bridget Regan), belongs to a line of priestesses, the Mother Confessors, and she becomes vital to Richard's mission-- although she threatens it as well, as the two fall in love, causing distractions from their purpose.

Some storylines are definitely derived from Goodkind, as with an arc involving the heroes trying to keep Rahl from obtaining the Boxes of Orden, whose power can corrupt even the Seeker. Other episodes are built around "done in one" problems. Yet even the simpler episodes, despite comedy relief, often reflect grim realities about war and death. This may be a reason why LEGEND didn't catch on like Raimi's more famous fantasy-serials, HERCULES and XENA.

Only one episode merits a rating of high mythicity, and that is "Denna," a faithful adaptation of a long sequence from WIZARD'S FIRST RULE. In this sequence, Richard is captured by Denna (Jessica Marais), who attempts to break his will via torture. Like Kahlan, Denna belongs to an all-female priestesshood, but where Kahlan's order compels obedience through the emotion of love, Denna's order uses pain. To some, this might sound like Goodkind importing the Marquise de Sade into a Tolkienian fantasy-setting. Yet because Goodkind structured his world so scrupulously, the concept is both dramatically and mythopoeically compelling.

One additional point of merit is that the showrunners did contrive a "wrap-up" in the final episode of Season One, in case they didn't get another order of episodes. At the same time, the producers alluded to a major event of the next Goodkind novel, STONE OF TEARS, and introduced in Season One's last episode the character of Cara, a Goodkind creation from a later novel-- and both the event and the character proved of paramount importance to the second and final season.

BUTT ATTACK PUNISHER GIRL GAUTAMAN (1994)

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

There's not much info online about this one-shot obscurity, though one site translated about thirteen installments of a manga series, with the added info that the feature enjoyed about 60 chapters. I'm going to guess that the GAUTAMAN manga was not terribly successful, but that this lack of success made the franchise cheap enough for some studio to snap up the rights. Maybe the studio hoped to garner some attention with yet another fanservice-heavy "magical-girl" concept (though nowhere near as heavy as KEKKO KAMEN). As far as I know, there was just this 45-minute OAV.

From the thirteen chapters I read, the concept is relatively novel. Mari Amachi is a Japanese Christian of high school age. She's enrolled in an extraordinarily "multi-culti" school, the Perfect Religion Institute, where all students and teachers belong to a wide variety of religions. The manga starts off gradually, showing how Mari arrives at school and is befriended by future best friend Saori, a Hindu girl. However, the anime jumps ahead to a point where Mari and Saori have also become acquainted with another classmate, handsome Tobishima, with whom Mari is smitten. In the anime Mari has already been transforming for some time into "Gautaman," a name that may be a combination of the 1970s anime GATCHAMAN and the personal cognomen of the Buddha. Mari's origin is super-simple; the first time she's in peril, she calls on God for help, but instead the Buddha answers and gives her the power to change into Gautaman. It's not clear exactly what powers Gautaman has, for she's usually seen just hitting villains with punches and kicks. Once or twice, she satisfies the oddity of her name by slamming into someone with her big, well-exposed butt. Yet even in 45 minutes, there aren't as many butt-jokes as I expected.

As for the source of peril, Guataman's source of enemies is a gang called the "Black Buddhas," who want to force everyone at the school to convert to their religion, whatever it is. There's nothing remotely Buddhist about any of the villains: some of them dress up like octopi (I think they get turned into sashimi) and their leader calls himself "Pope Johann" and dresses accordingly. (He also turns into a Terminator at the climax.) Mari in her "secret identity" is terribly embarrassed by her alter ego's showiness, especially since Tobishima considers Guataman to be little better than a whore. Yet he really has no room to talk, for Tobishima is a member of the Black Buddhas.

The biggest surprise for GAUTAMAN is that for a one-shot OVA, it actually has a unifying arc despite the rampant silliness. Two-thirds of the way through, Mari's father recognizes her in her superhero ID, because-- he recognizes her exposed butt as that of his own little girl. Surprisingly, there's no sense that his butt-recognition is pervy in any way, which perviness is something one sees a LOT of, in anime. Further, because the dad disapproves of Mari being a half-naked hero, he tells her that unless she gives it up, he'll remove her from school. Of course at the end, Mari must become Gautaman to battle Tobishima in his super-villain guise. She wins, but then loses, because the OAV does end with Dad and Mari departing the school by train. We don't see Tobishima wishing her goodbye, but Saori does. She for her part had been tossing out a few lesbian overtures to Mari throughout the anime, and Mari didn't pick up on them, but for the conclusion she confesses to Mari as she leaves. Mari pledges that they'll see one another again-- roll credits. It wasn't anything heart-rending, to be sure. But it was at least an original way to finish up a video that was mostly naked boobs and butts, dopey religious jokes, and light lesbianism.

THE MAN FROM UNCLE (2015)

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

When I saw MAN FROM UNCLE in a first-run theater, I must not have read any contemporaneous reviews of it. I tend to assume that many if not all reviews would have led with, "don't watch this movie if you want entertainment akin to that of the loopy 1960s superspy-teleseries." In addition to being bored, I seem to remember being astonished that director/co-writer Guy Ritchie-- best known for some crime films and two high-tech Sherlock Holmes movies-- had made almost no attempt to emulate the series, except for setting UNCLE's action in the same era of the swinging 1960s. Most of the time, big-screen adaptations of small-screen successes are if anything too reverential toward their source material.

Watching the same film years later with my amateur reviewers' hat on, I must admit that I could cite dozens if not hundreds of movies more boring than Ritchie's UNCLE. But this mostly mundane espionage-film, even with a few uncanny gimmicks thrown in to put some "super" in the spy-jinks, is still very pedestrian. In contrast to the series, in which Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin were introduced as partners in crimefighting for the secret organization UNCLE. the movie insists on giving audiences a dreary account of "how they first met." The heroes' recruitment to UNCLE is brought in only at the story's end, as if to allow sentimental old-timers to imagine the film as a real-world prequel to the fantasy-series.

Since the Cold War was still at its most frigid in 1963, Solo (Henry Cavill) works for the CIA while Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) is some sort of an agent for the USSR. Because the CIA becomes aware of a plot by a Neo-Nazi organization-- loosely covalent with the TV show's "Thrush" group-- seeks to gain control of a nuclear weapon. This project, led by rich magnate Victoria Vinciguerra (Elizabeth Debicki), has obtained the services of a major scientific talent with the telling name of Teller. With an eye to luring Teller away from the bad actors, Solo goes to East Berlin to engage the services of Teller's daughter (Alicia Vikander). Gaby accepts the mission, but during her extraction from East Germany, Solo has a eye-raising (and fender-crunching) encounter with Agent Kuryakin. As played by Hammer, this Kuryakin is a Samson-like powerhouse, though no particular explanation appears for his being able to grab a car by the bumper and hold the vehicle back. Despite this hostile first meeting, the Kremlin wants to eliminate a new nuclear threat as much as the CIA does, so Solo and Kuryakin are assigned to work together, still using Gaby as a means of entrance into the social circle of Victoria and her allies.

In addition to Kuryakin's strength and the THUNDERBALL-like plot of a private entity gaining control of an atom bomb, there's one moment where one agent uses a laser-device to cut through a wire fence, but that's it for the fantasy-content in UNCLE. The relationship of the two heroes is thoroughly predictable: they don't like each other and bait one another, though by the conclusion they've become bound as danger-buddies. Gaby is a little more interesting than either character, for she's in the position of a vital young woman who finds herself playing den-mother to two handsome hunks while also pretending to be the fiancee of Kuryakin's fake character. Vikander and Elizabeth Debicki are allowed to channel a bit of sixties glamor through their attire, and one late development gives Gaby a little semblance of a "Girl from UNCLE." But Ritchie's main focus follows the pattern of a mundane action-thriller, and there's nothing memorable on that score. The film flopped, barely making more than its original cost, so this movie stands as one of the least successful adaptations of a small-screen show.