RADAR MEN FROM THE MOON (1952)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

A new writer is credited on the next two serials: Ronald Davidson, who had previously scripted FLYING DISC MAN OF MARS.  Instead of his battling a mundane mad scientist, Commando Cody (George Wallace) is placed in a more cosmic conflict, albeit one that reads like a rewrite of WWII scenarios, no doubt still potent seven years after the close of the war.  Acts of sabotage alert Commando Cody to the presence of a truly alien presence on American shores.  The saboteurs have recourse to atomic technology that Earth has not yet mastered, so  Cody, fearing that this means America will find itself on the wrong end of an arms race, takes a quick hop to the Moon and meets with alien leader Retik (Roy Barcroft).  Retik is pleased to reveal his entire plan to Cody: after his agents soften up Earth’s defenses (which seem covalent with those of the United States), the Moonmen will invade Earth with a fleet of ships armed with atomic technology.  Retik’s motive is a familiar one: since the Moon has lost so much of its air that its natives can barely traverse the surface without suits, the denizens plan to dispossess the Earthlings of their planet—a science-fictional rewriting of that old excuse, Liebenstraum.  Naturally, Cody survives his commando raid and returns to Earth, taking an atomic weapon with him in order to even up the arms race—though Earth’s possession of the weapon never adds up to much in the way of plot-developments.

Instead, the plot follows a path more like that of 1937’s DICK TRACY.  Cody figures out that the invasion will be delayed or foiled if he and his allies can keep the saboteurs from fully weakening their target’s defenses.  At the same time, the alien assigned to Earth, a fellow named Krog, finds himself short of funds and starts sending out his hired Earth-thugs to bring in more money, usually on such ill-considered schemes as kidnapping Commando Cody to hold him for ransom (!)  Once again, the bulk of the serial deals in mundane action-stunts, but the scripter and FX-team put together a better variety of rocket-suit stunts than KING boasted.

George Wallace plays Cody with even less charisma than did Tristam Coffin in KING.  Aline Towne puts forth a spirited girl-helper type, but modern audiences will perhaps groan when she’s only allowed to go on the trip to the moon because she’s a good cook.  Barcroft is as always a fine larger-than-life villain, but he stays out of the action except in the early and late chapters.  Clayton Moore compensates quite a bit as Krog’s number-one henchman Graden, as Moore’s resonant voice alone makes his scenes pleasurable.

ALICE IN WONDERLAND (2010)

 Tim Burton’s take on Carroll—which I’ll call WONDERLAND for short-- dispenses with the notion that Wonderland is a dreamscape.  The film, released by contemporary Disney but with none of the old Disney "brand" about it, begins with Alice as a young lady whose mother attempts to make her marry a rich but repulsive suitor.  In her heart Alice knows that she shouldn’t have to bow to the conventions of the real world, because as a child she visited the unconventional cosmos of Wonderland—though during her inevitable second visit, she learns that her child-self got the name wrong; that it’s actually called “Underland.”  Though Underland’s only intrusion into Alice’s real world is the White Rabbit, the script strongly implies that the other world maintains its own existence, for between Alice’s two visits the wacky inhabitants of Underland undergo a political victimization more in line with STAR WARS than with Carroll's satirircal japery.

Even though the script insists that the world’s proper name is not Wonderland, the CGI effects go all-out to emphasize the wondrous beauty of the terrain the teenaged Alice explores.  However, much as in STAR WARS and the NARNIA films, this Alice finds she’s been called to a new world not to simply wander about but to fulfill a heroic destiny.  The reluctant heroine not only learns that the quirky inhabitants of Underland are enslaved by the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter in CGI-altered form), but that a prophecy asserts that Alice will be their liberator. More specifically, Alice—a young woman who has no martial training whatever—is expected to slay the dragon-like Jabberwocky, as a prelude to destroying the Red Queen’s power.

Obviously this is about as far from satire as one can get, even further than Disney’s looney slapstick comedy.  Nevertheless, Burton’s WONDERLAND is enjoyable enough on its own terms, and even if the characters aren’t as dark as the Carroll originals, they are (in line with most of Burton’s other films) much quirkier than Disney’s flat comic types.  The CGI versions of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, though depicted as sympathetic figures, carry a creepy Charles Addams vibe, as does Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter.

  The Hatter, despite his madness, is something of a secondary heroic figure in WONDERLAND: like Obi-Wan in STAR WARS, he pushes Alice to be the hero that his world needs.  Alice finally girds her loins (so to speak) and has a vivid sword-battle with the Jabberwock, insuring the defeat of the Red Queen (who might be viewed here as symbolically identical with Alice’s tyrannical mother).  As a result of facing her destiny in Underland—which is to say, the “underworld” of her own psyche-- Alice returns to the real world, rejects its insistence of conformity, and successfully chooses her own path in proto-feminist fashion.

Though neither film has much in common with the themes of the Alice books, the Burton film does at least feel like the work of an artist providing his very different take on another artist’s themes.  Derivative though Burton’s film may be, it has a less cobbled-together feeling than the Disney adaptation, and for that reason is more aesthetically successful overall.

   

WRECK-IT-RALPH (2012)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

The script for WRECK-IT RALPH had apparently been kicking around since the pre-Internet days when arcade-games enjoyed the height of their popularity. Today, the references to arcades may evoke nostalgia more than anything, and the idea that the games’ characters are secretly alive is familiar ground after ROGER RABBIT and TOY STORY.  The script plays heavily to the nostalgia-factor with several cameos from such licensed characters from such games as STREET FIGHTER II, QBERT and SONIC THE HEDGEHOG.

But properly speaking, WRECK-IT RALPH is not a crossover of characters designed for separate franchises, but rather parodies of real game-characters, much as MONSTERS VS. ALIENS did with classic movie-monsters.  RALPH’s storyline principally concerns five main characters who hearken from three made-up arcade games, all of which sound like franchises that might have existed but did not.

From the game “Fix-It Felix” comes the titular character.  His discontent with his role of “villain” moves him to desert his game, where the star Felix and the game’s other denizens take him for granted.  Once he realizes that Ralph has vanished, Fix-It Felix is obliged to follow Ralph into other games in order to corral his resident villain, lest the game be shut down.

Ralph, obsessed with finding validation in the form of a “medal,” lucks out—so to speak—on his first try, when he invades a video-game roughly patterned on ALIENS.  There he meets the third major character, badass lady soldier Sergeant Calhoun, whose regular game-plotline involves leading other badass soldiers against swarms of ghastly “Cy-bugs.”  Ralph takes part in the game, and despite numerous comic blunders, he manages to acquire a medal for his efforts—though when he leaves that game, he accidentally takes a Cy-bug with him.  Calhoun subsequently meets Felix and they team up to track down Ralph and the Cy-bug.

Ralph crashes his way into the third game, the memorably-named “Sugar Rush,” a girly-girl scenario in which cute little girls race one another in super-go-carts.  Ralph loses his precious medal to a cute but very manipulative munchkin named Vanellope, and to get it back, he has to help her win a race.  The fifth and last central character, the evil King Candy, wants to stop Vanellope no matter what.

Like the aforementioned ROGER RABBIT and TOY STORY, RALPH is hectic in its heavy layering of subplots and sudden revelations, many of which are hurled at the audience before it has much chance to care about them.  Nevertheless, in terms of its four major heroes, RALPH does a fine job of playing the disparate characters off one another. There’s nothing new about the main character Learning His Lesson that a mere medal can’t take place of human connections.  But though many films have put across such moral lessons with heavy sentimentality, the film displays honest sentiment when Ralph is forced to crush Vanellope’s dreams (temporarily) in the belief that he’s saving her life by so doing.

In contrast to this displaced parent-child bonding, shrimpy Felix and warrior-babe Calhoun pursue a more romantic form of bonding.  The film plays this more for comedy—particularly in a scene where Calhoun can only save her life and the life of Felix by punching him in the face several times.  Nevertheless, RALPH’s script has fun playing off the disparity of pairing up a woman with the power to inflict massive damage with a male with the power to “fix” anything.    

Both films have a strong admixture of elements from adventure, comedy, and drama-- though almost none from the irony.  Still, I label RISE as a "combative adventure" because the adventure-elements predominate.  WRECK-IT RALPH is not quite as clear.  But after some consideration I determined that for the most part the adventure and dramatic elements of RALPH serve to underscore a very comedic theme, that of bringing together oddly-matched characters to their mutual benefit, so I term this film a "combative comedy."

       

CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010)

 

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

I haven’t re-viewed animator Ray Harryhausen’s final theatrical film, CLASH OF THE TITANS, in many years.  At this time it remains my least favorite of Harryhausen’s otherworldly fantasy-films.  Harryhausen’s other venture into Greek myth, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, possessed a strong theme, that of man’s growing independence from the gods who created him.  But the 1981 CLASH seemed little more than a series of episodic fantasy-sequences built loosely around the archaic myth of the hero Perseus.  In addition, the simple charm of Harryhausen’s stop-motion techniques seemed to me at odds with the then-current mood of 1980s triumphalism.

To be sure, the 2010 CLASH, directed by Louis Letterier, isn’t long on charm either, but arguably its CGI techniques are meant to be more overwhelming than charming.  That said, this version does attempt to approach the same theme seen in JASON, asking once more the question, “What does man owe the gods?”

By and large the 1981 CLASH sticks with the bare bones of the Perseus myth.  Letterier’s version expands the mythic topography, hearkening back to the beginnings of the Greek myth-world, when Zeus led a younger faction of gods against the elder generation of deities, the Titans.  In addition, the gods triumphed with the help of a cosmic beast, the Kraken, who was spawned by Zeus’ brother-god Hades.  (For some reason the Kraken is later described as a “Titan,” which makes no sense given that he’s the spawn of a god.)  However, despite Hades’ contribution to the triumph, he got the short end of the stick when it came time to divide up the universe, since Hades got stuck with overseeing the underworld.  Hades, who plays no part in the archaic Perseus stories or in the Harryhausen work, becomes the villain of Letterier’s cosmos.

In the original Perseus myth, Zeus simply begets Perseus on a whim, and Perseus’ later feat of saving the city of Argos from a great sea-beast is set in motion by an unrelated challenge to the dignity of divinity.  Queen Cassiopeia of Argos unwisely proclaims that her daughter’s beauty surpasses that of the sea-nymphs, the Nereids.  The nymphs complain to Poseidon, who sends a sea-monster against the city.  In the 1981 film it’s Thetis whose divine beauty is challenged, but the Letterier film ramps up the stakes.

This time, the mortal king Acrisius swears to overthrow Olympos—a patent evocation of the story of the Titanomachy.  Zeus, who ostensibly loves mankind, holds back from simply destroying the king and all his people and settles for humiliating the impious mortal by sleeping with and impregnating his wife.  Acrisius tries to destroy his wife and her bastard child by hurling them into the sea.  The mother perishes but Perseus is found and raised by humble fisher-folk, while Zeus takes further vengeance on Acrisius by converting him into a monster named Calibos (a boogeyman from the Harryhausen film who had nothing to do with Perseus’ family tree). 

Twenty years later, Perseus is still a fisherman based near the city of Argos when the city’s rulers attempt to do away with the gods—not by direct assault as Acrisius planned, but by destroying the gods’ temples.  Though I’m not aware of any archaic authors who believed the gods to be dependent on man’s worship of them, the idea is common coin for both mortals and gods in Letterier’s cosmos.  Zeus and the other gods are enraged that mortal impiety may end their immortal gravy train, but Hades is the first to take retributive action, sending forth his demons to kill several mortals.  Hades himself kills Perseus’ parents, apparently with no more knowledge of the hero’s demigod status than he himself possesses.  Perseus swears vengeance upon Hades.  In addition, Perseus is more than a little put off when he finally learns that he himself is the son of Zeus, making him kin to the evil god who slew the only parents he knew.  In contrast with the hero of the Harryhausen film, this Perseus is deeply conflicted by his intimate and unassailable relationship to the capricious tyrant-gods.  He swears to act only with the power of a man, foreswearing any godly heritage he may possess.

The mortals continue in their impious defiance.  With a little prodding from Hades, who acts rather like Satan toward God in THE BOOK OF JOB, Zeus agrees to turn loose the Kraken on Argos.  Yet even here he allows an “escape clause” designed to force the mortals to acknowledge their ignominy: the city will be spared if they sacrifice Princess Andromeda.  To be sure, there’s a minor line in which the queen mother does exalt her daughter’s beauty above that of Aphrodite, but that’s no longer the principal cause of the gods’ enmity as in the Harryhausen film.

Once all this set-up is done, the film essentially follows the plot of the 1981 film.  The desperate rulers send Perseus on a quest.  Perseus obtains the aid of Pegasus and talks the wise-women, the nearly-eyeless Graieae, to learn the location of Medusa.  As in the 1981 film Perseus beheads Medusa—who once again is termed a “titan” in order to rationalize the film’s title—and uses it against that other “titan,” the Kraken.  Incidentally, the 2010 CLASH features a clever joke at the expense of the 1981 movie, which seems to be pretty much the only humor in this generally grim and unrelenting film. 

As with many remakes, the digressions are more interesting than the likenesses.  While Perseus is following his heroic course, Hades makes his move for rulership of Olympos, blithely informing Zeus that he Hades has become stronger because he feeds on mankind’s fears.  It seems pretty improbable that all Hades needs to conquer his heavenly sibling is to get fueled by the fears in one lousy city.  However, the contrivance makes it possible for the script to place Zeus in danger as well, the better to disassociate him with the evil of the Kraken’s rampage.

Letterier’s film doesn’t have much of a handle on its hero’s “daddy issues.”  When Zeus becomes belatedly aware of his mortal offspring, he sends Perseus a magic sword.  Perseus initially rejects the blade as a way of denying kinship with the father who begat Perseus but showed no interest in raising him.  Yet the hero ends up using the sword to slay Calibos/Acrisius, who is in a sense the mortal equivalent of Perseus’ divine father. Later, though the hero can’t actually slay Hades, he again uses the blade to banish the death-god back to his dismal realm.  Since Hades had been injected into the story as a second “bad father,” the one who does Zeus’ dirty work, this makes it possible for the film to end on a reconciliation of the demigod and his father. Unfortunately it doesn’t ring true and seems merely a convenient wrap-up.

The nature of that reconciliation may be the most interesting change. The romantic trajectory of the 1981 CLASH follows the same premise as the archaic myth: as the prize for defeating the sea-beast, Perseus wins and marries Andromeda.  In the 2010 version, Andromeda is noble and self-sacrificing, but holds no romantic interest for Perseus, any more than he does for her.  Were the scriptwriters reluctant to validate the old “save-the-woman-and-then-marry-her” trope? Or did they simply want a more active female lead? To the latter end they introduce another character foreign to both the Perseus myth and the 1981 film: a woman named Io, who though born mortal has acquired immortality and oracular powers.  She’s seen watching over Perseus as a child when he and his deceased mother are hauled forth from the ocean.  Twenty years later, she follows him on his quest, instructing him in the ways of the gods (and even giving him a little martial training).  She dies at the hands of “bad father” Calibos, but at the end of the film Zeus resurrects Io and reunites her with Perseus.

Though I’d never accept Freudian analysis as a universal tool of interpretation, I must say that even the image of Io watching the re-delivery of the child Perseus from the sea is enough to mark her as an alloform of Perseus’ mother Danae.  It’s probably not coincidence that the scriptwriters named the heroine “Io,” who in Greek myth is best known as one of Zeus’s conquests—in fact, by one account she was Zeus’ first mortal conquest as well as one of Hera’s temple-maidens.  In addition, the fact that Io is many years older than Perseus, despite looking to be his age, also rings Freud’s version of the Pavlovian bell.  Of course the original Perseus myth is full of “hostility to the father” tropes, though it’s not overtly Oedipal.  But though there’s no hint that the Zeus of Letterier’s film has any history with this Io, the mere fact that Io shares the name of a Zeus-paramour in real myth suggests that Perseus’s reward for accepting his heritage and saving his father from conquest by Hades is to receive one of his father’s former conquests.  I’m aware of no myth in which the traditional Zeus does this.  However, there is an interesting story which states that when Zeus’ demigod son Heracles was about to perish, he had his son Hyllos married to one of his wives.  Obviously this hand-me-down-wife wasn’t Hyllos’ own mother, but she did possess the name of “Iole,” which is strongly comparable with the name of Zeus’ first mortal conquest.  How much of this tradition was known to the writers of the 2010 film is, of course, anyone’s guess.

FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE (1989)

 

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

This film-- whose title I'll shorten to FINAL, even though it wasn't anything of the kind-- suffers from a bad reputation, even among ELM STREET sequels.  Yet for all its flaws I found it an improvement over DREAM CHILD, which as I noted here suffered from a theme inappropriate to the ELM series.  Though a lot of the scenarios in the script-- co-scripted by first-time director Rachel Talalay-- are far too broadly comic, at least the story returns to the theme of "never trust anyone over thirty," a far more fruitful theme than "the right to life."

If DREAM CHILD was all about Freddy becoming a son again-- though in a metaphysical sense he also would have been his own father-- FINAL is all about Freddy himself being a real parent.  As always, having been closed off from entering the real world by his previous gateways, Freddy seeks a new one.  Apparently his time being imprisoned in the body of his ghostly nun-mother reminded him of the Facts of Life, for he suddenly remembers that when he was a living human, he sired a child.

The film begins in the dreams of an unnamed male teenager, who for the remainder of the film will be addressed as "John Doe."  For some reason he dreams that he is the "one surviving teenager" in a world where some phenomenon-- read: "Freddy"-- has slaughtered almost all the other teens in the country.  He encounters Freddy in the dream. Freddy expels him from the dream into reality, uttering the odd phrase "be a good little dog and go fetch!"  Because John has no identification or memories, he's taken to a youth shelter, where he encounters case worker Maggie Burroughs.  Maggie in turn interacts with three of her teen charges, and with Doc, a psychologist who uses dream-therapy on his patients.  All three of the teens-- males Spencer and Carlos, and female Tracy-- suffer from bad dreams, brought on by some form of parental abuse.  Carlos' mother deafened him by probing his ears to clean them, while Tracy's father sexually molested her.  Yet rich boy Spenser's father gets the most opprobrium, for not only does he demand that Spenser be just like him, Spenser accuses him of having committed "date rape" and having tried to set Spenser up with "his girlfriend's older sister." In conversation Doc hints that Maggie too has bad dreams.  He's also the first character in the ELM series to supply a rational as to why Krueger's ghost is so damn powerful, as he mentions to Maggie the lore of "dream demons," creatures that inhabit the dream-world and are willing to bestow power on "the most evil, twisted human imaginable."

A Springwood newspaper clipping on John's person leads Maggie to take him to the cursed community; by chance-- or possibly by Freddy's designs-- the three troubled teens stow away in Maggie's van, hoping to escape the shelter.  After Maggie and John research the story of Springwood's kid-killer-- which Talalay handles in an overly jokey and inconsistent manner-- they learn that he had another life beyond being a serial murderer: that he also had a child, though they can learn nothing about the child's identity. John becomes convinced that Freddy spared him because he is the child of the Dream Master.

Talalay doesn't tease the viewer long with the true identity of Freddy's offspring.  Not long after Freddy kills John and mentions that his sole offspring was a daughter, Talalay doesn't even try to create suspense about whether it might be Maggie or Tracy, but reveals it to be the former almost right away.  Tracy, Carlos and Spenser are all put the mental meat-grinder as their dreams force them to confront their bad parents-- always disguises for Freddy's sadistic pleasures, of course.  He's particularly nasty to deaf Carlos, and even mocks Tracy with Carlos' severed ear. Tracy is the only one to survive, though the duty of forcing Freddy into the real world in order to re-kill him is left to Maggie.  This she does manage, though it sometimes strains credulity that a caseworker for troubled teens could use edged weapons as well as Maggie does.  Freddy enjoys a fairly imaginative death that reveals a touch of sadism in his darling daughter-- something in the blood, no doubt.

I have reservations about the depiction of Freddy Krueger as having been any sort of "family man," even a deceptive one.  In my view the character works as a disaffected loner who takes out his animus for society on children-- an image implied by the majority of the films.  On the plus side, FINAL is the only film to devote much time to depicting Freddy's maltreatment by "normal" children and adults, being beaten by a foster father and having schoolmates call him "son of a hundred maniacs."  And in addition to providing a much needed rationale for Freddy's powers-- the "dream demons" are seen emerging from Freddy's body after he is destroyed-- the film dwells quite a bit on the Sadean qualities of pain, as Freddy tells his foster father, "You wanna know the secret of pain? If you just stop feeling it, you can start using it."  It's also interesting that the film briefly toys with the idea that Freddy may be able to "rewrite" reality as he pleases, an idea not advanced since the first ELM film.

But the best line in the film is when Freddy asserts his universality.  He's not confined to the place of his original death simply because "Every town has an Elm Street!"  This universality may help explain the appeal that Freddy has, that he goes beyond the limited goals of most vengeful spirits.
 

THE HURRICANE EXPRESS (1932), MYSTERY MOUNTAIN (1934)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological*


A couple of online references claim that Mascot Studio's serial MYSTERY MOUNTAIN is a "remake" of the same studio's chapterplay from two years previous, HURRICANE EXPRESS. I find "remake" too strong a term. It's more like the later serial simply recycled some of the story-tropes that had been used by EXPRESS, though all of the tropes probably date back to the silent years. Both serials involve trains to some extent, though there's a lot more locomotive action in the 1932 serial, while the 1934 film is more concerned with horse-riding and stagecoach chases.  And both involve trains being assailed by a criminal conspiracy, headed by a mystery mastermind who can assume many identities through his use of disguises.

There are some important differences, too. EXPRESS is set in contemporary times, given the presence of both cars and planes of the 1930s. Hero Larry Baker (a pre-stardom John Wayne) is even a pilot, providing a small amount of air-action here and there, and the serial begins with what amounts to a two-minute paean to "the wheels of civilization," proceeding from stagecoachs to cars to speedboats, before settling on the train-line that's the main concern. MOUNTAIN, though not given a strong period setting, apparently takes place closer to the 19th century, given that there's an ongoing conflict between two companies: a stagecoach line and a railroad seeking to lay tracks around the "mystery mountain" of the title. Heroic railroad detective Ken Williams (Ken Maynard) drives neither cars nor planes, depending on his horse Tarzan for transportation. Williams is simply motivated by professional duty, while Baker seeks the villain for having slain Baker's father.

Another difference: the villain of EXPRESS, though he sports the fancy cognomen of "The Wrecker," is never seen in any sort of masked or cloaked manifestation. He depends entirely on his masks to keep his identity hidden, particularly the from viewer, until the final chapter's unveiling. In MOUNTAIN, "The Rattler" is also a master of disguise, but he affects a black slouch hat, a black cloaked outfit, and a patently false nose with a big mustache. Due to the false nose, the Rattler is probably one of the most ridiculous looking villains in American serials, though he's still resourceful enough to give the hero a good tussle or two, while the Wrecker depends a lot more on henchmen. The Rattler also uses certain "calling card" gimmicks-- artificial snakes, presumably made of wood or metal, that he throws like darts, and by which he sends messages to both allies and enemies. He seems to have no particular reason for this affectation, except that it arouses terror in his enemies' hearts, and his motive for plaguing both the railroad and the stagecoach-line has to do with unearthing a secret bounty from the mountain. The Wrecker's motive is simple revenge.

Both serials have a lot of thrilling set-pieces, though EXPRESS speeds ahead of MOUNTAIN in most respects. John Wayne and Ken Maynard both provide better-than-average heroics, though it should be no surprise that Wayne gives the more dynamic performance. However, MOUNTAIN has a better support-cast, ranging from feisty heroine Jane (Verna Hillie) to comedy relief Breezy (Syd Saylor), with the latter breaking the mold for serial-comics in actually being fairly funny.

But neither of the heroes have any metaphenomenal status. MYSTERY MOUNTAIN does have a costumed villain, but does HURRICANE EXPRESS fall into the category of the uncanny, just on the basis of his disguises?

In this essay on my companion blog, I considered whether or not a "man of many faces" could be said to register as having an "outre outfit:"

Now, being a simple "disguise expert" is not enough to mark a protagonist as belonging to what I've termed "the superhero idiom"... there are various "men of many faces" who do make my cut for belonging to the idiom, like the 1934 pulp-hero Secret Agent X, while others do not, like "Paris" from MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.

I must admit that, even though the cloaked Rattler with his false nose is risible, the Wrecker's reticence makes him a little dull as a serial-fiend. Still, I've decided that his protean ability to masquerade as anyone-- even the hero-- does give  him the requisite aura of "strangeness" that I find necessary for an uncanny villain.

Besides, it gives me an excuse to induct John Wayne into the august company of actors belonging to 'the superhero idiom"-- an honor he'd probably have declined had he lived to hear about it.

HONOR ROLL #67, SEPTEMBER 28

 Before becoming an almost full-time cowboy, JOHN WAYNE dabbled in crossing swords with a sort of low-end supervillain.

LISA ZANE sends her daddy Freddy a fatal father's day card.

And speaking of daddy issues, SAM WORTHINGTON's Perseus has those up the Greek wazoo as well.

Into a universe of living computer-games plunges that intrepid hero-villain WRECK-IT RALPH.

She's the thunder down in the Underland: MIA WASIKOWSKA.

GEORGE D. WALLACE is a rocket man, burning out his fuse in sequel town.

INCREDIBLES 2 (2018)

 

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

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS


I mentioned in my review of the 2004 INCREDIBLES that creator Brad Bird had sometimes been accused of loading his film with thematic references to Nietzsche and/or Ayn Rand, and that the writer/director had consistently denied them. The far less philosophical nature of INCREDIBLES 2 suggests that the first film'superiority arose more from a "perfect storm of creativity" rather than an intentional thematic pursuit.

The original film began by showing how the superheroes in the Incredi-Universe suffered the ignominy of being outlawed from further public service. The story ended with the four members of the Incredibles family triumphing over the principal menace, followed by a short coda in which they appear ready to take on a new super-villain as well. Thus Bird's first movie ends with the general implication that superheroes will return without further complications.

Thus I was more than surprised to find that Bird picked up the second installment of his franchise exactly where the 2004 film ended, with the super-family about to take on the insidious Underminer (a minor variation on Marvel Comics' "Mole Man" villain). However, not only does the villain escape, the heroes' actions create the sort of wholesale chaos that got the "supers" banned in the first place. As an additional headache for the protagonists, Tony, classmate of the group's teenaged member Violet, sees Violet without her mask, thus endangering her secret identity.

Thus within the first fifteen minutes Bird establishes that the recent heroic actions of the Incredibles (and their ice-making ally Frozone) have made absolutely no difference to the existing anti-super law. All four heroes are briefly arrested before being bailed out by the federal government, which still keeps an eye on the country's one-time protectors. Government rep Rick Dicker informs the heroes that they will get no more support, and must return to their mundane existence as the non-super Parr family, though Dicker does them one last favor by doing a "Men in Black" mind-wipe on Tony (which leads to a comic subplot of teenaged misunderstandings later on).

Now the Parrs have no jobs and must find some way to remain incognito despite the unpredictable antics of their super-powered infant, Jack-Jack. Enter a savior for superheroes: telecommunications genius Winston Deaver, who wants to engineer the overturning of the anti-super law. With the help of his sister Evelyn, Winston plots a series of publicity stunts designed to restore public confidence in superheroes. The catch is that he only wants Helen "Elastigirl" Parr, thus forcing Bob ("Mr. Incredible") Parr to inherit the lion's share of the duties dealing with the couple's three kids. Middle-schooler Dash needs help with his math homework, Violet has romance troubles, and Jack-Jack is trouble personified. All of these sitcom problems provide some light amusement, but no one will ever accuse Bird of re-inventing the wheel here.

In my review of the first film, I observed that Bird never explained what happened to quell his world's super-villains, who surely didn't have a problem breaking the anti-super law. Now, as with Bird's creation of Syndrome, another costumed evildoer appears when it's convenient for the creator and inconvenient for his creations. Elastigirl is forced to contend with a new foe, a hypno-tech master named "ScreenSlaver."

(Cue the SIMPSONS's Comic Book Guy: "Worst. Super-Villain. Name. Ever.")

Following her first encounter with the villain, Elastigirl captures him and turns him over to the law-- though the "red herring" is so crimson here that only really small children are likely to believe that she's nabbed the real perp. Sure enough, ScreenSlaver is still out there, with a complicated plan designed to make superheroes unpopular for all time. Oh, and his true identity is revealed, which is thoroughly unsurprising since Bird only gives his audience two potential suspects.

INCREDIBLES 2 was a lot of fun on the big screen. Most of the comedy is funny, and the action-scenes are thrilling, except that three of them invoke the same basic threat: Something Big Is Careening Toward Some Structure Full of People, and Must Be Stopped. However, in terms of producing a story as good as the first entry, Bird drops the ball.

Given that Bird raises the issue of the difficulty of changing the anti-super law, his idea that it can be overturned merely by public acclimation is a cop-out. But even granting that no one goes to superhero movies to see tedious legislation debates in Congress, Bird could have still come up with a funny take on the exigencies of jurisprudence. Further, had he axed out some of the almost endless Jack-Jack slapstick-stuff, he might've created some extra red herrings-- say, senators who wanted to keep supers illegal, and so might've been logical candidates to become hero-hating villains.

There's a lot to like about INCREDIBLES 2, and it comes off like a film that earnestly wants to be liked. From my viewpoint, though, this is exactly what kept me from loving it.

CYCLONE (1987)

 

Now, when I watch Ray's CYCLONE from about a year later, I'm aware that the director uses the exact same procedure that he did in THE TOMB. Yet CYCLONE was reasonably entertaining, as long as I kept my expectations low.  Where lies the difference?

A better star does help, to be sure.  Lead actress Heather Thomas came to this project following the conclusion of her most well-known role-- tough girl "Jody Banks" on the teleseries THE FALL GUY-- which meant that she certainly possessed more "TV-Q" than Michelle Bauer ever did. While not an exceptional actress, Thomas projects a basic credibility in her underwritten role.  She plays Teri Marshall, tough girlfriend of a guy working on a super-motorcycle called "Cyclone." When her boyfriend is killed Teri has to protect her dead lover's secret against a coterie of low-level spies. 

The humor is just as tortured and Wood-esque as anything in THE TOMB, though the appearance of aged Bowery Boy Huntz Hall provides a little amusement in itself.  But perhaps because Thomas might have proven to be a bigger draw because of her modest celebrity, Ray and his crew do work a little harder on the FX and fight-choregraphy.  Compared to the best that Hollywood can offer, the various car-and-motorcycle stunts are nothing special, but they are watchable.  The Cyclone doesn't seem like a super-weapon anyone would be willing to kill for, and in truth one of the plot's more moronic points is that the spies kill off the maker of the super-weapon rather than kidnapping him to learn the weapon's location.

The fight-choreography is about the same: nothing that would cause Jet Li to turn green with envy, but Thomas looks authoritative doing her stunts, particularly a big fistfight with a female agent who betrays her trust.  In reality CYCLONE didn't make Heather Thomas into a new straight-to-video action-goddess, but as a film it's probably no better or worse than those that bolstered the reputations of Sybil Danning and Cynthia Rothrock.  So though it's just as much a cookie-cutter flick as THE TOMB, at least CYCLONE has a touch more seasoning.

THE TIME MACHINE (1960)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, sociological*


Though George Pal's TIME MACHINE appeared in theaters at the beginning of the 1960s, I would argue that it is, in essence, the last great SF-films of the 1950s. I'm not talking about the base fact that some of the movie's scenes were filmed in 1959. Rather, it's more to do with my perception that the 1950s, no matter how many bad SF-films may have appeared, still evinces American cinema's first true investment in the SF-genre's concept of "thought experiments." In contrast, the early 1960s show marked a waning enthusiasm for such experiments, though arguably the genre made a comeback in 1966 with FAHRENHEIT 451 and recovered somewhat with recognized masterworks like PLANET OF THE APES and 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, both in 1968.

To date, no other filmmaker has managed to craft an adaptation of the Wells novel that has rivaled that of producer-director Pal and writer David Duncan-- which is quite an accomplishment, given that Pal and Duncan change so much of the source material.

As I pointed out in this essay, Wells is so devoted to his theme of cosmic degeneracy that he devotes scarcely any time to having his Traveler play about with his time-hopping machine, but instead has the character vault into a future thousands of years distant from his own. Duncan, however, is extremely concerned with having his traveler, name of George (from Wells' middle name), interact with 20th-century developments. Of course, Duncan had an advantage of hindsight that Wells did not have, but there's also a concerted attempt in the script to make Wells' future reflect the priorities of 1960s culture. Thus George (supposedly an Englishman, though Rod Taylor plays him as a practical-minded Yankee) makes his first temporal forays into World War I, World World II, and a 1960s atom-bomb war, the last of these playing to contemporary fears that such a conflict was practically right around the corner.

Improbably, despite the many thousands of years that ensue between the 1960s and what I'll call "Morlock-Earth," the patterns of the 1960s become indelible templates for the future. Duncan is basically true to the sociological patterns suggested by the Eloi and the Morlocks, but he adds in the contemporary reference of bomb shelters, which are loosely responsible for the divergence between the two species of humankind. The Morlocks are still the "engineer-types" who chose to remain underground even after the bombs stopped falling, but now the Eloi, the descendants of people who ventured back to the surface, have unaccountably lost all ability to think rationally. The movie-Eloi even have, unlike Wells' version, access to fallen cities that come complete with recording-devices that reveal to George (in English!) the circumstances of civilization's fall.

Perhaps because these Eloi are no longer covalent with "the idle rich" of earlier civilizations, Duncan stumps for the idea that the fragile flowers of the future are not beyond redemption. As in the novel, the Eloi seem blandly indifferent to one another's fates, even when one female, Weena, almost drowns in a river, only to be rescued by the Traveler. However, in the film George's heroic action provides a model for redemption. In the novel, Weena is described as child-like, and there's no sense of a budding romance between her and her savior. As played by Yvette Mimeux, though, Weena is ineluctably a mature female, and her association with George marks her slow journey to maturation (characterized by her desire to compete with the women of George's time-frame).

As in the novel, George's time-device is stolen by the Morlocks, forcing the hero to descend into the metaphorical underworld and fight these cannibalistic "devils." Unlike Wells' Traveler, who doesn't appear to fight very well but manages to stave off his foes with the help of an iron bar, Taylor's George is seen as a good brawler, and his actions cause at least some of the male Eloi (but not the female ones!) to fight their long-time oppressors. George returns to his own time, but the coda suggests that he will return to the Morlock-Earth and use the knowledge of his time to reform the fallen world.

Even before Pal's adaptation, though, it might be argued that Wells' scenario was broadly adapted in the 1956 film WORLD WITHOUT END, which simply re-arranged matters so that the people in the underworld became the helpless wimps and the people on the outside mutated into horrendous barbarians.

AVENGERS GRIMM (2015)

 

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

There’s a long if not vernerable tradition of cinematic piggybacking, wherein a cheaply made film emulates some aspect of a more expensive production in order to profit from the latter film’s high profile. On occasion the imitative film occasionally to be something of a mirror image to the film imitated, as when THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN was followed by THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN. A few such imitators are at least deent if unexceptional entertainments, as is the case with COLOSSAL MAN. However, some imitators—particularly the “mockbusters” of recent years—don’t offer even rudimentary story values.

It goes without saying that most of the piggybackers are derivative crap. AVENGERS GRIMM, though, seems to have been undertaken to see if it could win some reputation for being crappier than the crappiest. I imagine some conversation wherein the head of the Asylum Studios floated the idea of mockbusting Marvel Studios’ AVENGERS franchise. He would’ve been duly advised that Disney, the owners of the franchise, would have sued the company into the ground if they even attempted doing mock versions of the Marvel superheroes, even if the Asylum did get away with mockbusting THOR. Then, in this imaginary conversation, the studio head gets the idea: instead of mocking superheroes, they’ll use the public-domain characters of folklore as their heroes. One critic alleged that the Asylum scripters might have also been swiping from the ABC series ONCE UPON A TIME. Yet, given that Disney built its empire in large part on adapting folklore and children’s stories, that alone may be the reason the heroes of AVENGERS GRIMM are all a bunch of folkloric princess-types.

The makers of GRIMM manage a rare feat: they select five model-beautiful actresses to be the “Avengers” of the title, yet make all of the heroines so dull that they sustain no erotic interest. The five actresses playing the heroines—combative versions of Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Red Riding Hood—are partly responsible, since their line-readings are inexcusably tedious. But the script is the prime culprit.

Like many mockbusters, the narrative consists mostly of a lot of pointless running around. Rumpelstiltskin (Casper Van Dien) tries to take over the fairy-tale kingdom ruled by Snow White. As the two rulers battle in Snow’s courtroom—the only part of the kingdom the viewer ever sees—both of them fall through a portal that takes them to the more mundane, and less expensive, realm of Earth. Three of the other heroines—Cinderella, Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty—follow to assist their queen, while the one badass girl in the group, Red Riding Hood, goes to Earth in search of her enemy the Wolf. For no particular reason, six months go by between the two portal-jumps, so that by the time fhe other four heroines arrive on Earth, years have passed for Snow and her enemy. She hasn’t done a whole lot with herself during that time, but Rumpelstiltskin has assumed a human identity, Mayor Heart, with his own supernatural police force and plans for conquering the whole world. This leads to a lot of poorly organized and poorly choregraphed battles, with the heroines being joined by a man who literally turns to iron, Iron John (Lou Ferrigno).

Ferrigno and Van Dien, the sole name actors, are also the sole attractions in this mess. And of the two, Van Dien is the only one who has a little fun with his villainous role, while Ferrigno is, as always, Ferrigno.

VARAN THE UNBELIEVABLE (1958)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*


In this essay I cross-compared the Japanese monster-film GOJIRA to its Americanized version, and found that there were numerous differences between them. Many of the comparisons placed the original version in the better light, though I pointed out that GODZILLA KING OF THE MONSTERS had some touches that validated its existence.

I read a little about the original Japanese version of VARAN, though, and got the impression that it didn't offer much more than the Americanized version. Both movies are largely concerned with re-using the most basic motif of the first Godzilla film-- that of having a prehistoric beast, worshiped by a Japanese tribe, awaken from a submerged slumber and take on the forces of modern military warfare. In the Japanese version, as in GOJIRA, Japan's "self-defense" force contends with the monster, while in the Americanized reboot, some or all of the military forces apparently stem from American occupation-forces.

In some ways, the intrusion of the American characters may have improved on the overly simple story. The formal American occupation of Japan ended in 1952, but in the English-language VARAN, Americans still seem to have absolute authority. Naval commander Jim Bradley, married to a Japanese wife, decides that there's only one lake in Japan where he can conduct his experiments in desalinization. Near the lake dwells a small tribe of Japanese people, who worship the god of the lake and really don't want the ugly Americans messing with their livelihood. But Bradley gets his way, and starts bombarding the lake with shells, because as we all know, that's a good way to shake the salt out of the water. (Or something.) This apparently wakes up the slumbering Varan, who may not be a real pagan god but begins tearing into the impious outsiders nonetheless.

Varan, who alternates between walking on all fours or standing erect, gets the best scenes, ignoring tank-shells and smashing houses with his tail. But whereas various reviews complain of little character-conflict in the Japanese version, Bradley and his wife Anna (Myron Healey, Tsuruko Kobayashi) sustain some slight tension as he goes about imposing his will on the tribe-- originally Anna's own people-- "all for their own good," of course. I'm not saying that there are outright arguments between the two characters, for Anna, who dresses both in traditional Japanese costume and in modern outfits, is largely deferential to her husband. But even the possibility that she might be at odds with Bradley over his ambition offers a little more potential than what I've heard about the original. And though the couple don't have children, one local kid, Matsu by name, hangs around them. He's sort of the "Dondi" of the story: the adorable foreign kid whose affection for the American military-man implies that America can do no wrong on foreign shores.

As most monster-fans know, the giant reptilian originally had leathery wings that allowed him to fly, but the Americans filmmakers cut all such scenes out of their version. Varan didn't get another outing as such, though he was given a couple of quick cameos in 1968's DESTROY ALL MONSTERS--  both of which showed him flying.

THE LOST TRIBE (1949)

 

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


THE LOST TRIBE was the second of Columbia's "Jungle Jim" series.  Like the first film, TRIBE is a moderately lively cut-rate entry, in which old jungle hand Jim is called upon to save the hidden city of Zom from jewel-hungry white interlopers.  Like the first film, it also dresses up the film with two females, one a white woman from the outside world and the other an "exotic" who looks like she escaped from a South Sea Island picture, though ostensibly the story is set in Africa.

This time the black African characters remain pretty much in the background.  Like the majority of fictional lost cities set in Africa, Zom's few inhabitants are either Caucasian or very close to that model (Elena Verdugo, who plays the exotic female "Li Wanna.," was of Hispanic extraction).  Just to stir the pot a tiny bit, this time the white girl is an evildoer.  She uses her feminine charms to fuddle the young son of the ruler of Zom and gets him to reveal the city's location.  She does make a belated attempt to change and to free Jungle Jim from captivity, but meets a fairly brutal fate, being knifed to death by one of her thieving allies.

The city of Zom may be one of the most desultory depictions of a lost city on film, perhaps even beating out THE HIDDEN CITY.  Like that film TRIBE belongs to the "exotic lands and customs" trope, though to be sure Zom isn't especially "exotic" compared to most lost cities.  As the photo above shows, Zom's specialty is making all sorts of mini-statues studded with priceless diamonds, which in the photo are displayed on what looks like a mockup of a water-fountain.  Jungle Jim asks Zom's ruler as to whether his people worship the statues, and the king responds like a good Protestant: they don't worship the idols, but only use them as symbols of a higher power.  Yes, Jungle Jim: always be sure that the natives you're protecting have the "right" belief-systems before you save them from venal white guys.

The film also includes the performance of an "astounding animal," a female gorilla-- patently a man in a gorilla suit-- who joins Jungle Jim's side after he saves her and her offspring from a lion.  Just to show how drunk the writer was, he has Jim dub the gorilla "Simba," which means "lion" in Swahili and has been used to connote lions in dozens of other crummy jungle-films before this-- so the LOST TRIBE guy couldn't even get THAT right .  The gorilla gets the best fights against the human bad guys, though Jungle Jim proves his manhood by killing two or three jungle-beasts.  

HONOR ROLL #66, SEPTEMBER 28

ELENA VERDUGO swished a mean sarong in this Jungle Jim programmer.

What's unbelievable is that VARAN got even one movie of his own.

CASPER VAN DIEN found grim indeed the acting of his co-stars in AVENGERS GRIMM.

ROD TAYLOR essayed the he-man scientist piloting the Time Machine.

HEATHER THOMAS, mean super-motorcyle mama.

VIOLET gets a little more action the second time around.

THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER (2021)

 

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

Let’s get the positive stuff out of the way first. Though this streaming series consists of just six episodes of over an hour each, the production values look as good as any of the movies, with the plus that there’s far less intrusive CGI.

However, there’s much more bad than good about FALCON—and despite the Winter Soldier’s co-billing, the show is really about Sam “Falcon” Wilson— in that the show offers its viewers a dense, muddled plotline full of international intrigue, lots of virtue signaling, and an almost total absence of the clever (if superficial) humor that informs most of the MCU theater-films.

In AVENGERS ENDGAME, all the MCU heroes team up to undo the effects of Thanos’s “Snap,” which eradicated half of the population in the universe. The mission succeeds, and the millions of people—including the Falcon and some of the other major heroes—are brought back to life, albeit five years after they disappeared. But the MCU’s showrunner Kevin Feige pursued his own “eradication” scheme in finding reasons to eliminate or marginalize the “big-name” heroes on whose reps the MCU had been built. In the case of Captain America, he implicitly passed on the mantle of his iconic identity to his partner-of-sorts, the Falcon (a development mimicking an unsuccessful plotline in Marvel Comics).

FALCON’s showrunner Malcolm Spellman sought to form a connection between Sam Wilson’s personal chaos—his doubts about accepting the role of Captain America—with the societal chaos brought about by the return of millions of people from non-existence. Large-scale war has often brought about the distress of numerous “displaced persons.” However, in the real world, the displaced don’t just vanish into nothingness, which might logically give survivors the idea that all the missing people are dead. During the five years between the Snap and its undoing, the property of the “deceased” has inevitably changed hands, thus setting up a conflict between the new owners and the old ones. Spellman provides scant details as to what’s been going on in the six months separating ENDGAME from FALCON, and I couldn’t figure out which group was getting the short end of the stick. It would be logical to assume that the former owners’ legal status would be debatable, and that they might remain in a displaced status. Yet, a new terrorist group, “the Flag Smashers,” shows up with the avowed goal of returning the world’s civilization to the less populous, more united conditions that prevailed during the Snap. That seems to imply that it’s the “new owners” who somehow got dispossessed, since the “old owners” would have no memory of the Snap-era.

In essence, though, I suspect that Spellman didn’t care that much about the Flag Smashers’ motives, for FALCON’s scripts fairly bleed unconditional love for all activists, even though the Smashers, who kill people and blow up buildings, are not even close to being “peaceful protesters.” Falcon is the spokesman for the unqualified view that the Smashers are more sinned against than sinning, because they’ve been done wrong by their governments, who haven’t managed to re-position all the displaced millions within the period of six months. Since most of the series’ action takes place in Europe, the viewer largely sees only irresponsible white Euro-leaders criticized for their failures, though logically the same restoration problems ought to affect even the wonderland of Wakanda. In addition, the Flag Smashers seem to be largely a European phenomenon, partly because it’s a European scientist who re-creates the famed “super soldier serum,” and several key Smashers dose themselves with it. Thus, the potion that created the ultimate symbol of the American flag falls into the hands of fanatics dedicated to some vaguely defined goal of “open borders” for the world.

Falcon, as I noted, deeply sympathizes with the activists, but he’s willing to fight against the “radicalized” group. So, he teams up with another former associate of Captain America, Bucky “Winter Soldier” Barnes. The two characters didn’t like each other in CAPTAIN AMERICA CIVIL WAR, but apparently since then they’ve bonded over their mutual respect for the Captain. It’s much more likely, though, that Kevin Feige has some involved plans for Winter Soldier, and that including the Soldier character in FALCON was just a way of advancing those plans somewhat. One such plot-thread—in which Bucky Barnes was shoehorned into a role in the BLACK PANTHER cosmos—makes it possible (though not plausible) for FALCON to feature a guest-starring appearance by two badass spear-ladies from Wakanda. As far as I could tell the two spear-carriers had nothing to do with the Flag Smasher storyline, but since the women manage to defeat three skilled male fighters, their appearance makes for some feminist virtue-signaling.)

In addition, Falcon’s Cap-conflict is exacerbated when the American government confers the star-spangled identity upon career soldier John Walker, and “New Cap” also starts messing around in Europe, looking for both the Smashers and their super-soldier serum. Falcon, Soldier and New Cap all get trounced in battle with the super-strong terrorists. Needing a guide to Euro-intrigue, Falcon seeks out a master of the art: Baron Zemo, the devious plotter who brought about the Civil War that almost destroyed the Avengers team. Though Zemo’s agenda is different from that of the Smashers, he also gets more than his fair share of validation. In one speech, he rails against the tendency of the serum to foster “supremacist” ideas in those who take the stuff. Though the word “white” never precedes “supremacist,” there’s no chance that Spellman has any other connotation, since Zemo draws comparisons between super soldiers and the Nazi ideal of the superman—an accusation often aimed at blonde, blue-eyed Steve Rogers. Both Falcon and Soldier listen to Zemo’s tripe but can muster no more than token opposition.

When Falcon gets a spare moment from scouring the European continent in search of terrorists, he jets back to the States. This leads to the introduction of Sam Wilson’s family, probably so that they can return in future episodes. In addition, Falcon meets Isaiah, a black man from the WWII era who suffered terrible mistreatment when the U.S. government experimented on him as part of their attempts to re-create the super-soldier serum. This sequence draws upon a continuity from Marvel Comics, and Spellman uses the sequence to slant the story more in the direction of the “systemic racism” narrative. At least the Isaiah sequence has some dramatic intensity, which is more than I can say for a fatuous scene in which two white cops hassle Sam Wilson for standing around talking to Bucky Barnes in the street.

Though politically I oppose the narrative of systemic racism, I’d concede that it’s possible for a book or movie to make an intelligent argument for that position. Possibly a straight adaptation of the original comics-story about the WWII experiments, all by itself, would have proved sufficient to dramatize Falcon’s ambivalence about accepting the mantle of the shield-tossing Avenger. But this argument gets lost in the milieu of this frenetic political thriller, which is burdened with too many characters and too much counter-intrigue. Inevitably, Falcon does accept the role of Black Captain America. But by the time he does, I for one no longer believed that he would fulfill the ideal of the superhero, to oppose injustice in any form. He seemed to assume the role simply so that he, a black man, could be in a position to keep watch over the activities of all those toxic white people.

SHAKUGAN NO SHANA (SEASONS 1-2, 2005-2008)

 

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

I have explored none of the manga adaptations of this franchise, much less the light novels that gave rise to the concept, but after having been slightly entertained by the first season of the anime series, I decided to survey the second season and to review both.

The predominant trope of SHAKUGAN NO SHANA might be described as “Badass Otherworldly Girl Bonds with Ordinary Earth Schmuck.” In most if not all manga/anime executions of the trope, the girl and the boy are either teenagers or in their early twenties, the better to exploit any and all romantic possibilities. Just as a guess, the popular eighties franchise TENCHI MUYO might have provided SHANA with its basic template, although SHANA is atypical in that the Earth Schmuck here doesn’t get a whole harem of cute girls fighting one another for his attentions. The schmuck in question, Yuji by name, does have one Earth-female who’s warm for his form and so competes with otherworld-girl Shana. However, there are only two other female support-cast types in the show’s first two seasons, and neither of them is interested in Yuji.

This relative lack of constant romance-plots left the door open for other types of dramatic development, but I’ve the impression that the original author of the franchise wasn’t especially ambitious in this regard. The scenario at least makes a little more sense than, say, DATE A LIVE, in that Shana comes from a dimension whose hostile inhabitants raid Earth to gather human energies (called “power of existence.”) Shana is one of a group of sword-wielding knights called “Flame Hazes” who make it their business to rein in the raiders, called “Denizens.” Apparently human beings, though not directly tied to the otherworld, have parallel functions, for when Shana first encounters Yuji, she reveals that she deems him a “Torch,” a human with an intrinsic ability to stoke her own powers, though possibly at the expense of Yuji’s own existence. This contrivance provides Shana, a female with no understanding of human culture, with a motive to remain in Yuji’s company, while Yuji then seeks to find some way around the implied death-sentence he’s been given. Naturally, there’s a way out, for Yuji not only staves off imminent death but gains a measure of power to fight Denizens himself, even if Shana remains the dominant fighter of the two.

The interactions of Shana and Yuji are moderately entertaining in the first season, but the writers seem satisfied to leave things in status quo for the second season, aside from a belated announcement that Yuji’s parents may have another kid, which I assume is a plot destined to be developed in the third and final season. The writers don’t develop any of the support-characters to make up for this lack, either. The only one who proves somewhat memorable is the winsomely named Flame Haze “Margery Daw.” In addition to her being older than Shana, Margery also proves cynical and bad tempered, a negative reflection on the life of being a knightly hero. This attitude does not keep Margery from making a vaguely defined compact with two of Yuji’s high school classmates, but the scripts are never clear about just what Margery gets out of the association, except that she doesn’t have a romantic linkage to them as Shana does with Yuji.

As for the main conflicts, some episodes offer some colorfully designed villains, but all the Denizens seem pretty much the same, without good character arcs to distinguish them. Shana herself is the most memorable looking character, and her voicework puts across a dynamic personality. However, everyone else in the show proves pedestrian, and episodes oscillate between bursts of fantasy-violence (featuring a preponderance of clockwork imagery for some reason) and lots of tedious talking-head scenes.

In short, I doubt I’ll ever invest any time in Season 3 of this low-interest endeavor.