THE GRAND SUPERHERO OPERA

RISE OF THE BLACK BAT (2012)

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

I wanted to like this adaptation of the old prose-pulp crimefighter The Black Bat. The most famous version of the character debuted the same year as Batman, though the two characters were probably conceived independently. The Bat was also one of the first "blind crimefighters." In an origin that probably influenced the story of Bat-foe Two-Face, crusading prosecutor Tony Quinn is attacked by a criminal who blinds him with acid. However, in Quinn's case, a special operation endows the lawyer with renewed sight, including the ability to see in the dark. He then takes on the persona of the Black Bat to bring down both the men who blinded him and many other evildoers.

The script by one Trevor (JURASSIC SHARK) Payer reproduces the basic scenario accurately. Prior to launching a major case against the strangely named gang-boss Oliver Snate (yes, that's the name in the pulp story), Quinn (Jody Haucke) is blinded by acid. Carol, a young woman who loathes Snate for killing her father, sponsors an experimental operation. After the operation is done, Quinn finds that he can see perfectly in the dark (nothing's said about him seeing in the light). This inspires him to take on a bat-like vigilante persona and to go after criminals, culminating in his taking down Snate.

The hero's costume is serviceable and there's even some decent background music. However, everything else-- the locations, the feeble action-scenes, and the direction by Brett Kelly-- is strictly from hunger. Worse, none of the actors can act. And for that matter, the script doesn't bear close scrutiny. Prior to Quinn being blinded, he confers with a mousy young woman who's apparently his intern or something. Seemingly introduced as a support-character, she turns out to be the one who blinds him-- and then disappears from the narrative.

To be sure, I've read the first few tales of the prose hero, and they weren't that memorable, so the Black Bat wasn't a great classic of the pulp days. But there was some genuine potential in the original series, and RISE doesn't come close to realizing it.

INVINCIBLE POWER OF KINDNESS (1993)

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

This film's unusual streaming title persuaded me to check it out, as well as learning that one of its co-stars was the famed kung-fu performer Ti Lung. According to various online reviews, though, KINDNESS is a condensed version of a movie running three hours, A WARRIOR'S TRAGEDY-- a title also used onscreen for this adumbrated streaming version. To further complicate things, KINDNESS/TRAGEDY was also a nineties remake of a 1977 chopsocky, THE PURSUIT OF VENGEANCE. That film also starred Ti Lung in the role of Fu, a stoic fighter determined to avenge past wrongs to his family-- but this seventies movie is not readily available to me, any more than the three-hour TRAGEDY.

I can't judge the long version of this film, but the condensed one seems less like a "tragedy" and more like a mystery, one of the many Chinese spectacles in which practitioners of kung fu end up playing detectives in order to suss out who did what to whom. KINDNESS is complicated in that this time here are two fighters who are initially uncertain as to whether or not they should be allies. One is the aforementioned Fu, a grim fellow with a limp (whose bad leg never prevents him from jumping about like an Olympic gymnast). The other is Yip Choi (Frankie Chan), a jovial fellow who uses humor to disarm opponents, though he has his serious side as well. Both are invited to a dinner by a kung-fu master, Ma Hong-kwang, who is rumored to be the mastermind who slew a famed swordsman, Pak, who was Fu's father. But is Ma the killer, or is it one of several other suspects?

As with many Chinese mystery-movies-- some of which I've reviewed on this blog-- this one throws out so many side characters that their dramatic impact is weakened, even in a film like this one, with a lot of strong performances. And the matter is complicated in that all of the characters in the drama are wuxia swordsmen. They often sport weird weapons (an invisibility cloak makes an early appearance here) and magical powers that they can transfer to their weapons, or even just neutral physical objects. There's nearly no one in KINDNESS who even comes close to being an ordinary human being. Nevertheless, Ti Lung and Frankie Chan have good chemistry, and many of the support-players-- such as Ma's daughter (Anita Yuen) have strong moments, as when she seeks to seduce both fighters into doing her will.

KINDNESS does not have a good reputation online, though that may be the result of some reviewers drawing comparisons to the seventies iteration. Chan, in addition to being the movie's co-star, also directed and co-wrote the script from its source novel, and I think he did at least as good a job as Tsui Hark did in similar splashy FX-films of the eighties. Some reviewers complained about the overabundance of wild powers and weapons seen in KINDNESS, and this makes me wonder if any of these critics ever saw a wuxia film before. On IMDB I looked over Chan's credits as both actor and director, and the few Chan movies I'd seen hadn't knocked my socks off. At very least, he should be praised for giving most of the main actors a lot of close-up character moments, which is not exactly a strength found in a lot of Chinese chopsockies.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST (2006)

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

I'm sure Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer saved a ton of money by shooting this movie and its sequel back-to-back, and since audiences loved Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow, both films made bank at the box office. But director Gore Verbinski and his team sure sacrificed the simple, elemental appeal of two good-hearted but conventional lovers who have their world turned upside down by a roguish pirate with a heart of fool's gold.

It's a year later since the events of the first film, and Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann (Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley) are due to be married soon. However, a Navy official named Beckett shows up at Port Royal, ordering the arrests of the two lovers for having aided the escape of wanted pirate Jack Sparrow (Depp). Beckett's also looking for former Naval officer Norrington, but this is merely a plot-device just to let the audience know that the character will show up later in the story. Beckett has zero need for Norrington, because his real plot is to use Elizabeth's captivity to blackmail Will into finding Jack Sparrow.

After the first hour, it becomes clear that the poor excuse for a plot is just a series of "go find something" tasks. The crude assemblages of goals put me in mind of the old kids' song "The Old Lady Who Swallowed the Fly:"

Will follows Jack Sparrow to find Jack's compass,

And they use the compass to find a key,

And the key they use to open Dead Man's Chest,

And in the chest they find a heart

From another chest, that of Davy Jones,

And with that heart they can win their desires--

I understand that most pirate adventures owe a debt to TREASURE ISLAND, but all these different doodads become tedious, particularly since they're just there to pad the film's running-time. The supernatural being Davy Jones (Bill Nighy with an octopus-face), a former human transformed into a keeper of dead souls (and the captain of the Flying Dutchman), holds control of the seven seas. Anyone who can gain custody of Davy Jones' heart will also control the oceans-- which is Beckett's endgame.

After about an hours' worth of pointless stunts, Will does find Jack and reunites the querulous captain with his crew and his ship-- as well as new crewman Norrington, who nurses old grudges against both Will and Jack. While they head off to find the Flying Dutchman-- which is crewed by a bunch of fish-men-- Elizabeth wins free of prison and goes looking for Will.

The makeshift mythology here includes not only Davy Jones, but also a goddess called Calypso and a giant Kraken. I recall that these matters get a little more exposition in the third film, but I imagine the audience just rolled with it all while waiting for Johnny Depp to show up and be funny. Will has a subplot in which he meets his long-lost father, now a member of the Dutchman crew, and Elizabeth once more appears to be slightly tempted by Jack's chaotic charms. Elizabeth gets to swordfight this time, as well as handily tricking tricky Jack, while the best stunt in the film is a three-way blade-battle between Jack, Will, and Norrington. But there were also a lot more boring scenes that one should expect from a Jerry Bruckheimer production.

THE MASTER DEMON (1991)

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

"Measured choice" time again. MASTER DEMON is one of many undistinguished shot-on-video projects, starring a handful of familiar supporting-actors to give it marketability. But is it as bad as, say, SOUL OF THE AVENGER? And the answer is no, because SOUL burns up its run-time with dull sequences irrelevant to its hypothetical martial-arts content. DEMON's fights are almost all badly shot and arranged, but the movie doesn't make a pretense of being about anything BUT fights, which is a mild virtue.

So the demon of the title is an archaic Chinese being (Gerald Okamura) slain in some vague archaic time by a Chinese guy oddly named The White Warrior (Eric Lee). The actors, both of whom appeared in John Carpenter's BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, then reappear in the 20th century. Lee becomes a martial-arts fighter named Tong Lee, who seems to know all about what transpired in antiquity and may be the White Warrior's reincarnation. Okamura's character Cheng though seems totally independent of the Master Demon, being a dealer of ancient artifacts. He accidentally summons a supernatural servant of the Master Demon, pumped prodigy Medusa (Kay Baxter Young), and she repays the dealer by killing him. Medusa goes looking for a mystic token in order to revive her Demon Master (whoops, got it backwards), and she finds the token in the possession of low-rent private eye Cameron (Steve Nave). She gets the token from Cameron and summons some kung-fu fighting servants to off the private dick, but Tong Lee shows up to thwart the assassins. But in jig time Medusa uses the token to revive the Master Demon in Cheng's dead body, and he summons a small army of bad kung-fu fighters from somewhere. Now the only people able to prevent the Demon from conquering the world are Tong, Cameron, Cameron's kung-fu secretary (Ava Cadell), and the secretary's cop boyfriend. And as stated, everything in the film is either a bad fight or a lead-in to a bad fight.

Writer/director Samuel Oldham doesn't ever come up with any worthy brain-fried dialogue for any of these goofballs, so don't expect DEMON to give competition to even the least of Ed Wood's offerings. DEMON does offer some of the worst makeup jobs ever seen in a cheapjack film, so that fills in some of the dull spots. Similarly, it's rare to see a martial arts movie with so many poorly choreographed fights. It looks like all the male performers had no idea how to deliver fake blows, so that all the punches and kicks look wildly misdirected. Oddly, only the two females look fairly authoritative when they're kicking ass, but Cadell only has three-four short fight-scenes, and Young doesn't get into fights per se, since she just slams opponents around with her massive muscles. Cadell and Nave are the only performers who seem moderately invested in their paper-thin characters, but this isn't much of a recommendation given that Lee, Okamura and the cop-actor get more scenes, and they're all bad ones.

If one isn't a fan of bad makeup jobs and bad fight-choreography, though, DEMON's sole virtue is that of being the only movie performance of Young, best known for promoting the popularity of women's bodybuilding contests. DEMON was her only movie role before being killed in a car crash, so at least this cinematic sludge preserves a decent sampling of scenes spotlighting Young's impressive physique.

RESIDENT EVIL: DEATH ISLAND (2023)

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

Though DEATH ISLAND appeared six years after VENDETTA, the filmmakers did their level best to present this film as a rough sequel. Villains Arias and Diego from VENDETTA are referenced, while Diego's daughter Maria follows up on her quest for vengeance, established in the closing moments of the earlier film.

ISLAND is still pretty good kickass, zombie-smashing action, but it's a little disappointing in that the new Big Bad is not nearly as good as Arias. That said, Dylan Blake has clearly been designed to have a trauma-arc like that of Arias. Several years before the main action of ISLAND, he's a mercenary soldier hired by the Umbrella Corporation, creators of the T-virus, to quell the rampaging zombies. Blake, forced to kill his best friend when he's infected, decides to unleash an ultimate bio-terror upon mankind to exterminate the depredations of human beings, as well as to expunge his sense of personal guilt. The script proposes a weighty theme but doesn't manage to sell it adequately.

However, one element where ISLAND excels is the one in which VENDETTA was deficient: fighting femmes. The RESIDENT EVIL franchise became well-known in narrative cinema for spotlighting the tough-girl character of Alice-- but she was an original creation for the live-action movies. At some point, the filmmakers intended to emphasize the game-character of Jill Valentine, and though that character made one or two live-action appearances, ISLAND seems to be the first time the game-character gets a worthy adaptation. Valentine and her soldier-partner Leon Kennedy are essentially the stars of this outing, with other regulars-- Rebecca Chambers, the Redfield siblings-- in secondary roles. Valentine arguably gets more narrative attention, given that she's being "introduced" to the motion-capture series, and if she's not as superhuman as Alice usually is, she's still a formidable femme. And although Maria Gomez takes the hard fall this time, the filmmakers gave her an excellent hand-to-hand battle with Kennedy to go out on.

X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, VOLUME THREE (1994-95)

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

At this point it's hardly worth reiterating that Volume Three offers a sampling from both Seasons 3 and 4, for reasons that are not evident. My only general feeling is that some stories show a bit more originality, as opposed to adapting established tales with some cosmetic changes.

SAVAGE LAND, STRANGE HEART, for example, builds on the X-Men's last visit to the Savage Land, but mostly drops Magneto's mutates in favor of pagan priestess Zaladane, who conspires with the X-foe Sauron to revive a god (probably also a mutant). This narrative only slightly resembles the X's first encounter with Zaladane. Ka-Zar and Shanna guest star but Shanna gets no lines.

Four episodes are devoted to the second half of the Phoenix Saga. Again, the Phoenix Force is changed into a more sentient entity, rather than a discarnate force that unleashes the "id" of Jean Grey. Thus Jean doesn't seem compromised when the Hellfire Club corrupts Phoenix, and when Phoenix goes berserk and destroys the sun of an alien system, no living beings are harmed, in contrast to the original story. The denouement allows Jean to live but she's phased out of the rest of these episodes.

I frankly don't remember how, in the comics, Cyclops finds out that Corsair's his long lost father, but this version is probably as good as any other.

Less well-realized was an episode devoted to charter X-hero Iceman. It starts out well, showing the frosty crusader as having broken away from the X's because he wanted a normal life. But then there's a confused plot about Iceman breaking into a military base to save his girlfriend Lorna-- only to learn she doesn't need saving, because-- she's now part of a new group of motley Marvel mutant-heroes? Why bring back Iceman just to recapitulate a big melodramatic breakup with his GF? Maybe the writers liked Nightcrawler better, since he certainly gets a better solo outing.

Finally, from what I can tell, an episode called "One Man's Worth" seems to be an original attempt to do another dystopian "Days of Future Past" tale, but with an ongoing romance between the future versions of Storm and Wolverine. Nothing in the volume knocked my socks off, but I was sometimes diverted.