THE GRAND SUPERHERO OPERA

JUSTICE LEAGUE, SEASON ONE (2001-02)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*
There had been a small handful of Justice League stories from Filmation Studios in the 1960s, followed by and the very compromised versions of the "Super Friends" franchise. But this 2001 series, following up on the respective continuities of the Batman and Superman TV shows of the 1990s, still feels like the first animated iteration of DC's Justice League. Unlike those nineties programs, LEAGUE had nearly no participation from writer-producer Paul Dini, so that this DC adaptation is dominantly the product of producer Bruce Timm. The first season is characterized by larger-than-life stories meant to spotlight not only the derring-do of the seven rotating members-- Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, J'onn J'onzz, Hawkgirl, and the John Stewart Green Lantern-- but also the complex backdrop of the DC Universe. Though characterization improved in the second LEAGUE season and the subsequent three seasons of JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED, it might be fairly argued that the "larger than life" approach was later translated to most if not all of the LEAGUE movies made for the DC Animated Franchise, resulting in a certain level of mediocrity there. In my ratings of individual episodes, "G" means "good mythicity," "F" means "fair," and "P" means "poor."

SECRET ORIGINS (F)-- To be sure, "larger than life" is the only way to go when assembling a team of seven unrelated heroes, and in truth the menace of alien invasion was the pretext for the Justice League's formation in the original 1960s comic. This time the ETs are a race of parasitic shapeshifters, given three-legged vehicles that are clear shout-outs to the tripods of H.G. Wells' Martians. But in this universe DC's Martians are the first people to be annihilated by the newcomers. The survival of last Martian J'onn J'onzz gives "Origins" a fair degree of emotional depth, while the backstories of other characters-- notably Hawkgirl, who'll get no real backstory this season-- are more circumscribed. Both seasons of LEAGUE will show a marked tendency to give Batman all the good lines while Superman goes begging for even one decent scene.

IN BLACKEST NIGHT (F)-- This story attempts, with only partial success, to squeeze an expansive JUSTICE LEAGUE story into two 20-minute episodes. In the comic the Hal Jordan Green Lantern is accused of having destroyed a world with his ring-power, while here it's John Stewart. The basic plot remains strong as the League seeks to clear the Lantern's name, but the villains, the android Manhunters, fail to prove as impressive as they were in the comics story.

THE ENEMY BELOW (P)-- Here the writers sought to incorporate a "meaner, leaner" version of Aquaman, more or less in line with what had happened to the Sea King in the comics. What the writers produced was largely a warmed-over version of a variety of Sub-Mariner stories, wherein some Atlantean schemer seeks to force Atlantis into a war with the surface world. In this case the schemer is Aquaman's brother (or half-brother?) Orm, and this may be the first time any story made him into an Atlantean, rather than a human seeking control over the realm of his hated sibling. There's a buildup to the Sea King losing a hand, which was also a big thing in the comics, and this version of his queen Mera has no powers, presumably because it would been extra trouble to explain.

INJUSTICE FOR ALL (F)-- This is an acceptable origin for the Injustice Gang, melded with a comics-story about Luthor getting poisoned by his use of kryptonite against his foe Superman. Still, the story throws a lot of villains at the audience without any rationale, and they don't have that much personal interactions with the heroes, just purely physical brawling. And there's a little too much of Batman outwitting everyone.

PARADISE LOST (P)-- This Wonder Woman-centric episode has the primary menace evolve on her home of Themiscyra, a home she deserted to serve humankind as a hero. The immediate menace is sorcerer Felix Faust, who has made a pact with the Greek God of Death to secure his release from Tartarus, which has to take place on the Amazon isle. I didn't care for portraying Hades as a garden-variety demon trying to escape his prison, and I think this basic idea may have stemmed from some comics-stories in which some myth-entity dwells beneath the island, but if so the writers botched the idea. Further, they loosely imply that Hades may have been the lover of Diana's mother Hippolyta, which implication needlessly complicates an already overwritten script.

WAR WORLD (P)-- Why does an episode that has all the makings to be "Superman-centric" capture so little of the hero's character? Superman and J'onn get captured by the minions of evil Mongul and are forced to fight in War World's gladiatorial games. Their rescuers Hawkgirl and Green Lantern get better character moments than either the Kryptonian or the Martian.

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD (F)-- In the only first-season episode to which Paul Dini contributed, that grotty Gorilla Grodd, originally a foe of the comic-book Flash, debuts here as a menace to the whole Justice League. In this series the Flash is more an amiable goofus than the straight-arrow crusader of the comics, but at least Flash gets the finishing move to "his" old enemy. Grodd's world-conquest plan is unimpressive, but at least the concept of Gorilla City comes across intact.

FURY (F)-- Rogue Amazon Aresia wants to eliminate all men from Planet Earth, and she enlists the Injustice Gang to help her. Some good superhero brawls don't distract from the weaker aspects of the script, which sidelines the male Leaguers so that Wonder Woman and Hawkgirl get all the glory. Points for having Aresia beat up Batman.

LEGENDS (P)-- Does it really make sense for even a reinvented Justice League to make fun of the sort of uncomplicated, simon-pure heroes of the Golden Age, given that the Justice League of the early 1960s wasn't any less goody-good than their 1940s forbears? Anyway, some Leaguers get stuck in an alternate dimension which exists so that a fanatical fanboy can imagine his favorite heroes having wacky adventures. The New League, which got all its gravitas thanks to the influence of Stan Lee's Marvel, provides the cold water to wake the world up from its fannish dreams.

A KNIGHT OF SHADOWS (F)-- Alarums and excursions abound as the medieval menace of Morgaine Le Fay imperils the modern world and its costumed knights. Le Fay is pursued by Jason Blood, who in this iteration started as a mortal who betrayed King Arthur for Morgaine's sake. As punishment, Merlin bound the traitor to the body of a demon, or, as DC billed this Jack Kirby creation, "The Demon." In Kirby, the Demon was a hell-creature who assumed mortality at Merlin's behest, so the script here inverts that scenario. It's a decent episode but the subplot in which Morgaine almost subverts J'onn to her cause seems forced.

METAMORPHOSIS (G)-- The only high-mythicity episode of Season One profits from its model, the origin-story of Metamorpho from the comics. In my review of that origin, I argued that writer Bob Haney reworked the essential elements of Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST, where the hero contends with a magician and his brutish servant for the hand of the magician's daughter. In the comics, the brute Java channels the father's arguable inappropriate feelings for his grown daughter. Here, Simon Stagg not only wants to get rid of his daughter Sapphire's age-appropriate boyfriend Rex, he also finds a way to exploit Rex in good capitalistic fashion. In the comics Simon Stagg is just a pompous fool, but here he's the epitome of the nasty rich man, determined to have everything in his greedy grasp.

THE SAVAGE TIME (F)-- The League finds its way into an alternate Earth where the Allies have almost lost WWII thanks to the intervention of immortal villain Vandal Savage. Refighting WWII is always a popular superhero trope, and this one is decent though not outstanding. This version of Wonder Woman, who's never existed in any time but the 21st century, gets a meet-cute encounter with doughty Steve Trevor, so that in a sense he's still her "first." The comics-fan authors also find guest-spots for the best-known land soldiers in the DC (Sergeant Rock and Easy Company) and for those daredevil aerialists The Blackhawks, though technically these aviation aces made their bones fighting Nazis for Quality Comics and were only acquired by DC after that company folded. The Leaguers succeed in defeating Savage's rewriting of history with no big surprises. For whatever reason, Easy Company doesn't fit into the JUSTICE LEAGUE world, but the Blackhawks worked just fine.

THE MONKEY KING 3 (2018)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological* As I stated earlier, I've never read any version of JOURNEY TO THE WEST, the 16th-century novel on which this film and its two predecessors were based. According to Wiki, much of the latter half of the book concerns the episodic adventures of the traveling monk Tang Shangzan and his supernatural helpers, and one of those episodes dealt with the travelers entering a "land of women," where Tang, Wukong, Baije and Wujing, being males, are not welcome. Seven years have passed since the third installment in the series of adaptations, so there's a fair chance that KING 3 will be director Soi Cheang's conclusion to the series.

Whatever the story from the 16th-century novel might be like, the Chinese/Hong Kong film industry has a strong history of adapting older works for the purposes of romantic fantasy. On the face of things, the overall mission of Monk Tang-- to acquire Buddhist sutras in order to spread enlightenment throughout China-- does not suggest any romantic story possibilities. Cheang may have solved that problem by asking a "last temptation" sort of question: what if the selfless representative of a religious movement becomes beguiled by the possibility of a normal life with love and sex?" Thus, in this version, as soon as the four males meet the (apparently nameless) Queen of Womanland (Liying Zhao), sparks immediately fly between Tang and the Queen, who's never seen a man before and was birthed by her mother via magical parthenogenesis. To complicate things even further, there's a prophecy stating that the advent of males to Womanland will spell the nation's doom. (Note: despite the many lissome ladies in the story, there are never any full-fledged female-led battles here, though it's clear that many of the girls are capable, as when one of them kicks Yujing's butt at arm-wrestling.)

One narrative weakness of KING 3 is that unlike the previous two films, there's no strong villain driving the story. There's some sort of river god (or goddess, since "he" sometimes looks female) who forced the travelers into this hostile domain, and maybe the god's keeping them from leaving, thus increasing the chances that the more martial maidens will execute the infidels-- which they try to do, on one occasion, only to be saved by the Queen's intervention. I think the river-god was spurned by the Queen's mother in order to protect Womanland, which makes it more poignant when the young Queen considers leaving everything behind to be with Tang. The actor playing Tang has to thread a narrow line: showing absolute fidelity to his religious priorities while being mightily tempted by his connection to the only woman who will ever be in his life.

Though KING 3 was probably less expensive than the previous movies, it still looks good, and the humor is far more controlled than one sees in most Chinese comedies. For instance, given the lack of much villainy going on, Wukong, Baije and Wujing don't have much to do, except for an extended joke in which some magic makes Baije, Wujing and Tang all pregnant, which affords the ladies much amusement. Wukong has to find another spell to "abort" the unwanted pregnancies, but even here, Cheang keeps things much less goony than one would expect from any comedy dealing with pregnant males. Thanks to the talents of the actors, I enjoyed the interactions of Tang and the Queen even knowing that theirs was a "love that could never be." Both characters sacrifice temporal love for a higher form, which accords well enough with the overall themes of the series. That said, I didn't think KING 3 went the extra mile in showing this irresolvable human conflict, in contrast, say, to the 2011 romantic fantasy SORCERER AND THE WHITE SNAKE.

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, SEASON TWO (1997-98)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological, sociological* With Season 2, BUFFY takes on its true structure, as against the "scaffolding" provided by Season One, which means that for the purposes of my review I can once more return to the practice assigning grade-letters to the episodes for Poor, Fair and Good. Whedon ramped up the backstories of all of the regular the characters, upgraded David Boreanaz's Angel to that of a regular cast-member, increased the participation of Cordelia, introduced a continuing boyfriend for Willow, and quickly dispatched the inadequate menace of "the Anointed One" in favor of the deadly duo of Spike and Drusilla, both of whom had intimate ties to Angel's origins. There's also a greater elaboration of the Slayer mythology, which would bear larger fruit in future seasons.

WHEN SHE WAS BAD (G)-- Joss Whedon both wrote and directed the premiere episode of Season 2, just as he had the season finale of Season 1. But though PROPHECY GIRL is one of the better episodes of that season, BAD is the show's first leap into new territory. Buffy Summers was certainly not the first hero to cavil at her unjust destiny as a hero, or to refuse the call, or even to become irked with the ingratitude of the people he/she saved. But I can't think of a previous hero who started bagging on her friends to express her resentments. Giles only speaks part of the truth, that Buffy becomes hostile toward her inner circle due to her near-death trauma. But when she does a sexy dance with Xander, the fellow who saved her life but remains in the "friend zone," she mocks his secret desire to be rewarded for his Galahad-like actions, even though he made no such demands upon her. She resents them all, including Angel, for forcing her to be their hero, and only after she lets the "badness" run its course can she have a shot at regaining her natural "goodness." Next to all that, there's not much to derive from the plot of the Anointed One, a child-vampire who failed to project adequate menace from the first, to revive the Master. Still, the Master's skeleton does give Buffy a target on which to exorcise her trauma, and I suspect that Whedon had that scene planned out when the script for PROPHECY allowed for the Master's remains to survive in that form, rather than that of scattered ashes.

SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED (F)-- While this one's more back in the mode of the first season's "freak of the week" pattern, it's still fun to see how the writers managed to work out a Frankenstein theme in the context of Buffy's high school-- making it one of the few menaces not explicity tied to the Hellmouth. SCHOOL HARD (F)-- While Buffy and friends try to navigate the perils of a Parent-Teacher conference, Spike and Drusilla come to town and take over the Anointed's operation. From the first, the two of them make an appealing villainous pair, showing an abiding love for one another despite their remorseless murders of human victims. Spike remains associated with the series until the bitter end, thanks to the contrast between his rapacity and his acidic sense of humor. Even Buffy's mother Joyce gets a rare scene defending her superhero daughter, clouting Spike with a blunt object when he and his fellow undeads attacks the conference. INCA MUMMY GIRL (F)-- For once, a mummy gets some exposure before the more traditional werewolf. Ampata, an Incan princess sacrificed eons ago, revives in a Sunnydale museum and begins romancing Xander, who thinks she's an exchange student. Decent but nothing special. REPTILE BOY (F)-- Another just OK episode, as Buffy and Cordelia learn the problems of dating college boys. Some are so focused upon their advancement in the adult world that they're willing to sacrifice females to a reptilian demon living beneath Sunnydale.

HALLOWEEN (G)-- Though this episode isn't the first to play with "grass is greener" fantasies, the script uses Halloween as an occasion for most of the regulars to experience hypothetical lives as what they are not. All of these are rooted in insecurities based in their current lives-- Xander wants to be more manly, Buffy wants to be more womanly, and Willow is at odds with her own sexuality. Ethan Rayne, a nasty acquaintance of Giles', bestows on the three of them, and several Sunnydale children, costumes that transform the wearers into literal versions of the identity portrayed. Apparently Raine just wants to spread chaos for no particular reason, much like the ancillary menace of Spike, who finds the transformation of Buffy into a helpless upper-class noblewoman much to his liking. Naturally Buffy bounces back and demonstrates the superiority of modern Girl Power. The character of Oz (Seth Green) makes his second appearance on the show, presaging his hookup with Willow.

LIE TO ME (F)-- Buffy reconnects with Ford, a fellow from her pre-Slayer existence, but he hasn't reached out to her just to invite her to beer and skittles. Ford represents a cult of vampire-fans who think the bloodsuckers are just a bunch of swinging dudes-- a prescient conception, coming about eight years before the first TWILIGHT book and its sprarkly vamps. Ford's evil action, that of betraying his friends to Spike's coterie, is rooted in tragedy, but he's not resonant enough to stand as a mythic character. THE DARK AGE (F)-- I'm assuming the "dark age" referenced was Rupert Giles' own youth. Thanks to the connivances of Ethan Rayne, the Buffy gang learns that the two of them once belonged to an occult group that unleashed a demon named Eyghon. This one's good mostly for showing that Giles, as much as Buffy, has his own cross to bear, even if it was one of his own forging.

WHAT'S MY LINE PTS 1-2 (F)-- LINE might not have high mythicity-- though it's the first to explore the process by which Watchers choose and train Slayers-- but it's a roller-coaster ride of action and pathos. Spike finds a ritual that will help bring Drusilla out of her torpid state, and he needs to capture Angel, Drusilla's sire, to bring it off. To keep Buffy from interfering, Spike summons (pays for?) the services of a cult of assassins to kill her. At the same time the assassins arrive in Sunnydale, so does a mysterious young woman, Kendra, who attacks Angel and Buffy with her super-martial-arts skills. Turns out she's the new Slayer in town, activated when someone or something sensed Buffy's temporary death during PROPHECY GIRL. Kendra becomes the Buffy gang's ally against Spike and the assassins, and Buffy wonders if she might give up the Slayer duties to the New Girl. Up to this point, the series hasn't said much of anything about Buffy's relationship to her absent father, though by the way Buffy becomes jealous of Giles' regard for Kendra, clearly he's beginning to assume that status for her. Also, Xander and Cordelia start snogging on the sly.

TED (P)-- "Go knock on his door, and he'll probably kill you." A new man, name of Ted (John Ritter), starts dating divorcee Joyce, but Buffy senses he's not the man he claims to be. I'd like to give the scripts points for referencing Freud, but it's sort of a Bizarro-Freud, in that the daughter is not Oedipally competing with her mother,but is rather renouncing the evil father in favor of the good one. Points deducted for the lack of backstory for Ted having made a "Stepford Husband" out of himself. BAD EGGS (P)-- The Buffy gang (not yet called "Scoobies") are assigned by a teacher to play parents to eggs, and there are some cute humorous touches here. But the revelation that certain henfruits are not from hens, but from some vague crustacean creatures that take over people's minds. Buffy has to deal with this case of demonic crabs and with two vampires from the Old West. SURPRISE / INNOCENCE (G)-- Buffy's friends want to surprise her with a party for her seventeenth birthday, but Spike and Drusilla have a different celebration in mind, bringing forth a demonic figure, the Judge, who may be capable of destroying the world. And the real surprise is the revelation that schoolteacher Jenny Calendar, a potential romantic interest for Giles, is in truth allied to the gypsy cultus that wants Angel to suffer. To her credit, Jenny tries to simply send Angel away, but complications ensue, and for the first time Angel and Buffy make love-- with tragic consequences. INNOCENCE is not labeled a "Part 2," but the story follows directly on the heels of SURPRISE's concerns, with the Judge still a threat, though "good vampire" Angel becomes a much more substantial threat. I've always thought Whedon's vampire cosmos was a little vague on the process of vampirization. Apparently, a demon invades the being of the vampirized victim, but the original soul remains, somewhere, because in this episode we learn that years ago, Angel aroused the ire of a gypsy tribe, and that they restored his human soul to him so that he would suffer. But to make sure if he never stopped suffering, they added a codicil by which he would return to his demonic self if-- he experienced bliss? At any rate, that's the story. The bad version of Angel, sometimes called Angelus, then torments the gang for several episodes after The Judge bites the dust, with aid from Spike and Drusilla. One of the most cynical myth-ideas here is that Buffy's act of innocence, that of opening herself up to her lover in the most intimate manner, also renders herself vulnerable to the degradations of experience.

PHASES (P)-- To compensate for the previous episode's heavy dramatics, Buffy's first encounter of the werewolf kind is comparatively light. There's not much attention to sussing out the lycanthrope's identity, since only two suspects are presented, and one of them is proved innocent halfway through the narrative. Oz, who's been invited into the gang since he started dating Willow, is the lucky wolf-man, who managed to keep his claws clean of human deaths during his full-moon rampages. The real menace is a misogynistic werewolf-hunter, given the generic name of Cain, who wants to add the beast-man's pelt to his collection. PHASES is unusually heavy with anti-male remarks, which becomes rather tiresome when it includes Willow bonding with Cordelia, mere days after the former pitches a fit at learning of the latter's relationship with Xander. BEWITCHED, BOTHERED, AND BEWILDERED (F)-- Cordelia dumps Xander, so he persuades budding witch Amy to cast a love spell on her. It backfires, and every female in Sunnydale, except for Cordelia, starts macking on the young man, including Buffy, Buffy's mom, Jenny Calendar, and Willow. The more serious menace of Angelus, Spike and Drusilla gets overshadowed by the comic romp.

PASSION (G)-- The short vacation from heavy drama ends. Though both Buffy and Giles feel betrayed by Jenny Calendar's agenda re: the curse upon Angel, the teacher begins researching a ritual that might return the vampire's noble soul. But Angelus and his buddies get wind of it, and this has fatal consequences for Giles' true love. The vengeful Watcher attacks the hideout of Angelus and his clique, and Buffy has to save Giles by clocking him. The episode is bookended by voiceovers about the ambivalent allure of passion, read by David Boreanaz, though the reflections might have made more sense coming from Anthony Stewart Head. KILLED BY DEATH (F)-- Buffy catches the flu and has to go to the hospital, despite a childhood experience that left her deathly afraid of hospital stays. But she becomes curious when juvenile patients report being menaced by a ghoulish creature whom only kids can see. Compared to many of the makeshift BUFFY monsters, "Der Kindestod" has a more Old-World demonic flavor, and the episode is strengthened by Buffy's relationship to the imperiled kids, as Buffy has to put aside her usual adolescent concerns in order to be "the adult in the room."

I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU (G)-- This time, instead of Angelus playing games with Buffy's heart, both the vampire and the vampire slayer becomes the pawns of an unquiet spirit haunting Sunnydale High. Jim Stanley, the ghost of a 1955 student, wants forgiveness for his having murdered his lover (and teacher) in a fit of passion. However, he keeps possessing victims in order to replay the scenario of the murder, which can have fatal consequences. The Buffy gang eventually figures things out, but the ghost's obsession is only solved by a contrivance that includes the eleventh-hour intervention of the late teacher's spirit. Still, the episode continues to excel with the theme of the almost corruptive influence of passion. GO FISH (F)-- The "freak of the week" here is so contrived that I almost designated this episode a "poor fish." However, there's just enough mythicity relating to the "war between men and women" to give the story a little more heft than the ordinary freak-show. And the menace, involving the mutation of the Sunnydale Swim Team into fish-men, almost certainly plays upon the sexual danger of that archetypal fish-man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon (who even gets name-checked).

BECOMING PTS 1-2 (F) -- Joss Whedon both writes and directs the season finale here as he did for Season One, but the results are just decent. Since Jenny's death in PASSION, the show teased viewers with the possibility that Buffy's gang would find the teacher's research as to how to restore the human soul to Angel. So of course they find it, in just such a way as to conflict with Buffy's determination to end the threat of Angelus for good. The audience gets a look at Angel's pre-vampire existence, before he's turned by Darla, a female vamp from the first episode. Kendra returns, but only to die in Part 1, in part to set up the appearance of Faith in Season 3. Angelus wants to unleash a demon that will consign the human world to a hell-dimension, but this is a doom too far for Spike. The limey vamp helps Buffy contend with Angelus so that he Spike can escape with his love Drusilla, which may or may not have been meant to presage Spike's return to the series later on. A minor character named Whistler, described (without explanation) as a "good demon," serves to provide extra exposition but nothing else. The episode includes Joyce forbidding her daughter from Slayage, and this plays into the final scene of a traumatized Buffy departing Sunnydale.

BATTLESHIP (2012)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological* This movie is ostensibly based on the 1960s board game, which to persons of a certain age, remains immortalized by its catchphrase "You sank my battleship". BATTLESHIP's scenario of Earth's naval battleships fighting an alien invasion did not score at the box office, yet for various reasons, next year's PACIFIC RIM from a not dissimilar plotline, but substituting manga-style mecha in place of naval vessels.

The two "military-men-vs.-aliens" flicks also have in common the use of that venerable trope: "self-centered potential hero learns to serve the greater good." In RIM the protagonist loses his brother early in the film and has to form a bond to a new mecha-partner so that he can save the world. In BATTLESHIP, main hero Alex (Taylor Kitsch) acts up so much that his square-citizen brother Stone (Alexander Sarsgaard) forces Alex to join the navy to escape prison. One doesn't have to have seen even one war-film to guess that when the main conflict starts, Stone will be the sacrificial goat whose death helps motivate Alex to shape up and repel alien hordes.

Though I recognize that there's little in BATTLESHIP that isn't derivative of other films, I liked this movie more than PACIFIC RIM, or, for that matter, the nineties ET-effort INDEPENDENCE DAY. The aliens themselves are largely standard heavies, but I did like the fact that they're so powerful, they don't bother sending the equivalent of shock troops. All we see are five huge spaceships (and some of their occupants), which descend to the humans' world to set up a communications array, paving the way for a titanic attack force. But their incursion happens to coincide with a series of battleship war games-- usually of ships from all over the world, but here limited just to Americans and Japanese participants. These happy few are called upon to undermine the invasion by taking out the task force.

It's hard for me to say why the gung-ho militarism works better here than in many comparable projects. Certainly none of the subplots are distinctive, and the acting (including that of pop singer Rihanna) is never more than decent. Yet the best subplot serves as a reminder of military sacrifice for a greater cause. The character of Lt. Col, Canales, played by real-life double amputee Gregory Gadson (who bears the same real-life rank), provides such a reminder. Whereas starring character Alex has to take on the hero's role after losing his brother, Canales has already lost both his legs and much of his will to live prior to the invasion. Repelling the evil extraterrestrials is a baptism of fire for both characters, though they never meet, and the contrast between newbie and old hand gives BATTLESHIP a little more vraisemblance than one usually finds in such big-budget spectacles.

FEAR CITY (1984)

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological, psychological*

About five years after Abel Ferrara dipped his toe into the genre of slasher-films with 1979's DRILLER KILLER, he once more visited slasher-tropes in 1984's FEAR CITY, a film that might appear to fall more within the naturalistic domain. However, CITY is one of those rare slashers that remains in the uncanny domain in the same way as the killer of 1981's EYES OF A STRANGER, who also evinced a larger-than-life quality despite lacking most of the common tropes of slasher-killers.

Ferrara places his struggle within New York at the height of its 1980s "Sin City" reputation, focusing on the daily functioning of one of the city's sleaze districts. Ferrara and writer Nicholas St. John (a frequent Ferrara collaborator) depict unflinchingly the "dog eat dog" atmosphere of this milieu, in which everyone's out for a buck and even righteous black cop Wheeler (Billy Dee Williams) openly disparages the "dagos" and "guineas" who run the area's strip-joints.

Into this corrupt domain comes a new element, a man who attacks strippers with a knife, thus earning himself the awkward newspaper-nickname "the New York Knifer." The Knifer is given no backstory whatever, and he departs from many of the common tropes. He slashes his victims in order to watch them suffer, but doesn't invariably kill them, nor does he seem particularly turned on by their injuries. He shows no more affect than the mask worn by Michael Myers, and he attacks with the grace of a ballet dancer, stemming from his expertise in the martial arts.

Both the cops and the strip-joint managers are clueless in dealing with such an outre menace, and their first thought is that the Knifer is some sort of gangland killer. Only an ex-boxer, Matt Rossi (Tom Berenger), eventually sees the nature of the menace, and this seems to be because he himself suffers from a tormented past: having accidentally killed another boxer in the ring. Given inspiration by a Mafia don (Rosanna Brazzi), Rossi makes it his business, private citizen though he is, to track down the New York Knifer.

Unlike most slashers, this one culminates in a combative struggle between the hero and his foe, in which the skills of the Western boxer are pitted against those of the Eastern martial arts. I saw one IMDB reviewer who deemed the final fight "one-sided," but that's not what I saw: the nameless Knifer scores quite a few good hits on the boxer, and it's certainly by no means certain that Rossi will win until the final verdict.

Ferrara would become well-known as a creator devoted to exploring the worlds of venality and corruption, as in 1992's BAD LIEUTENANT and 1996's THE FUNERAL. This early work isn't nearly as extreme as his later works, but it serves as a bracing precursor of sleaze-to-come.

ADDENDUM: Though none of the characters in FEAR CITY tend to make any ethical or spiritual analyses, the St. John script seems to suggest that most of the sins and sinners portrayed by the film are petty, which makes the sinners unable to deal with a serious threat. Ironically, Rossi's implication in a far more monumental sin-- that of manslaughter-- seems to confer upon Rossi the spiritual power that's needed to combat a deeper metaphysical threat.

SHADOW GIRL (1971)

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

I think I gave SHADOW GIRL a "fair" mythicity rating purely because it was so unusual to see someone attempt to mash up a swordplay-chopsocky with an "invisible person" comedy. It's not that SHADOW does anything especially outstanding, but I have to give it credit for trying something different.

We don't find out for a while what made Yin Chu (Lily Li) invisible, though only in daytime. She runs around playing pranks with her invisibility, convincing people that she's a ghost. But she interferes with a powerful gangster, and he sets assassins to kill the "spirit." The comedy-action scenes are okay, but I forgot most of them after one day, except for a climax in which Yin battles two old hermits, a blind one with acute hearing and a crippled one with telekinetic powers.

To build up the comedy even more, Yin has a meet-cute with a handsome doctor (An Ping), and this leads to a comic wedding scene. Lily Li brings an effervescent charm to this lightweight role. On some level I suppose SHADOW GIRL deserves its obscurity, but at least it's the most atypical Shaw Brothers chopsocky I've ever encountered.