LEGEND OF THE FIST (2011)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*

MYTHICITY: *fair*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*


Here we have two so-called "mashups" between the events of real-world history and the tropes of metapheneomenal fiction. (This review was originally paired with a review of ABRAHAM LINCOLN VAMPIRE HUNTER.)

Of the two, LEGEND OF THE FIST is the less enjoyable film though the realistic concern behind the film has a bit more bite to it.  The events in this case deal with Chinese resistance to Japanese incursions during the Second Sino-Japanese War (roughly 1937-1945).  The hero of the film is a fictional character named Chen Zhen, first played by Bruce Lee in 1972's FIST OF FURY, though this character may have been based a real-life historical model.

Chen Zhen (Donnie Yen) is first seen as one of many Chinese irregulars who see action in Europe, despite the fact that their own Euro-allies treated them less than humanely.  Unlike his fellows Chen is a supremely talented kung-fu practitioner, but after one battle-sequence he shifts his efforts to wartime Shanghai, where he joins a resistance movement devoted to ousting the Japanese.

As one of Chen's contacts runs a bar-- called "Casablanca" in the English translation-- there are some minor intimations that the film may seek to imitate the plot-action of the famous 1942 film, particularly when the film sets up a potential romantic conflict between Chen, the bar-owner, and a beautiful nightclub-singer named Kiki. However, the romantic subplot never develops, as the film follows previous Chen Zhen films-- not only the Lee flick but also Jet Li's 1994 FIST OF LEGEND-- in concentrating on the feats of the hero as he kicks around various Japanese flunkies, working his way up the food chain until he battles their number-one fighter (Kohata Ryu).

There's not much dramatic interest in the one-note salutes to Chinese nationalism, worthwhile only as a motive for Donnie Yen's exceptional fight-choreography.  As a further salute to Bruce Lee, Chen usually fights the Japanese in the costumed identity of "the Masked Warrior," whose outfit is transparently based on the costume of Kato from the 1960s "Green Hornet" teleseries, which role boosted Bruce Lee to stardom in his native China.  This costume is the only metaphenomenal element in the film, in contrast to the earlier Chen Zhen films, which are resolutely isophenomenal.

EVE (1968)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 

MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological, cosmological*

There's not much to recommend either of these two potboilers beyond the feminine charms of their protagonists.

EVE stars Celeste Yarnall as a blonde jungle-girl whose presence in the Amazon jungle is never very clearly explained. She rescues a treasure-hunter named Yates (Robert Walker Jr.) from some nasty tribesmen, but there's no instantaneous jungle-romance between the two of them: Yates learns that her name is Eve, thanks her, and goes back to civilization, and Eve seems content to stay in the jungle as before. Back in some Brazilian dive of a town, Yates makes contact with the rich man who's been funded the treasure-hunt, Colonel Stuart (Christopher Lee). Stuart has a new lead on the location of the treasure they're hunting, but for the first time, Yates meets Stuart's long-lost brunette granddaughter, whose name also happens to be Eve. It transpires that the brunette is a phony, merely posing as the grown-up Eve who was lost in the jungle, and that Phony Eve is really the wife of Stuart's rival Diego (Herbert Lom, playing a competitor slightly like Belloq in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, but with none of the charm). Diego and his party, having ferreted out the info they wanted from Stuart, take off for their new destination. Yates pursues with a few helpers, manages to enlist Real Eve's help, and the good guys manage to get the treasure while the bad guys get dead.

Since Eve remains in the jungle even after becoming acquainted with her aged grandfather, I suspect that producer Harry Alan Towers, famous for his Fu Manchu films, had some hope of spinning the character off into a series. However, the action-scenes are humdrum, though Eve is at least a combative jungle-girl, unlike LUANA, which came about roughly at the same time. The actors-- Lom, Lee, and Yarnall-- are the film's only real charm, and Robert Walker Jr. does a credible job with his adventurous role, despite its not playing to his strengths. This was the second and last time co-director Jeremy Summers worked with Chris Lee following their collaboration on VENGEANCE OF FU MANCHU.

AMERICA 3000 (1986)

 

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

Post-apocalyptic stories are often more concerned with creating new weird worlds than with expressing regret about losing the old familiar world. Every once in a while, though, I've encountered a post-apoc story in which the creators seem almost desperate to bring back the old world, even to the extent of duplicating the same mistakes that created the catastrophe.

Not since 1956's WORLD WITHOUT END have I seen an after-disaster flick so cavalier about the  mistakes of the past. True, writer-director David Engelbach didn't try to create any radical new cultures. AMERICA 3000 focuses on a tribe of Amazons who have revolted against male authority, implicitly because of some nuclear disaster. The Amazons tyrannize men, using them either as slaves or as brood-stallions, and yet for some reason the women maintain some reverence for the lost leader of earlier ages, the "Prezzi-dent."

"Prezzi-dent" is one of Engelbach's more bearable verbal concoctions, while the most of the rest are pretty stupd. "Neggy" means "negative," "the regs" mean "regulations," and so on. One young Amazon Vena is scheduled to lay with a stud named Korvis, but he breaks away from the Amazon camp and heads for the hills with a comic-relief friend. They stumble upon an old military bunker and figure out how to use ancient weapons to re-establish the standing of men in a female-dominated world. The story is vacuous but the action is fairly well staged, and the lead females-- Laurene Landon, Victoria Barrett, and Camilla Sparv-- sport incredible bouffant hairdos and buff bods.

A CHINESE GHOST STORY 1, 2, 3 (1987, 1990, 1991)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, metaphysical*

These three ghostbusting fantasies from Hong Kong, all based loosely on a tale from medieval Chinese literature, still hold up fairly well today. However, in contrast to works that have managed to balance romance and action, such as THE SORCERER AND THE WHITE SNAKE, action gets a certain amount of short shrift here—possibly because the original story was more of a pure romance.

All three films focus on a young man coming into contact with either a female ghost or someone conceptually linked to a ghost, with Films One and Two using the same two leads while Film Three remakes the first film but changes the names and the backgrounds of the principals. Back in an indeterminate period of medieval China, tax collector Ning (Leslie Cheung) happens to spend the night in a haunted pavilion. He meets a pretty young thing named Tsing (Joey Wang) but doesn’t suspect that she’s a ghost for the first hour of the film, even though the supposedly deserted pavilion also houses a weird old matron and her all-female entourage. In due time Ning learns that they’re all ghosts, and that the matron is the demonic incarnation of a “Devil Tree” that likes to consume mortal souls. (A strong influence from the 1988 film EVIL DEAD has been argued.) On top of that, as if to perpetuate the evil customs of human beings, Tsing is due to be wed to an evil demon-lord.

Ning, as a humble scholar with no kung-fu training, is utterly out of his depth to fight demons, while Tsing has a few ghostly powers but nothing on the level of the Devil Tree. The comely couple are only saved thanks to the aid of a Taoist exorcist, Swordsman Yen, who provides most of the heavy lifting in the demon-battles. He even gives Ning a magical weapon of sorts, a holy scroll with a Buddhist sutra written on it, which proves useful in the splashy FX-battles. (I suspect one will not find such an over-dependence on explosions in classical Chinese literature. Ning and Tsing do give Yen just enough aid in these fights to qualify the first film as combative in nature, but the romance scenes, laced with cute comic touches as well, seem to have been the selling point.

GHOST 1 ends with Ning freeing Tsing from her ethereal imprisonment, which means that her soul is therefore free to become reincarnated. Thus as GHOST 2 begins. Ning wanders about for a time, moping over his lost love, until a townful of people mistake him for the leader of a group rebelling against the emperor. This plot-point is tossed off so as to stick Ning in jail very briefly, where he shares his cell with a scholar named Chu, who helps Ning escape. Ning also comes into contact with Autumn (Jacky Cheung), a young exorcist with assorted magical powers. (Before casting spells he says things like “hocus pocus” and “abracadabra”—and yes, he’s the source of most of the film’s comedy.) Autumn and Ning encounter a small group of rebels who dress up like ghosts but are entirely mortal. The rebels plan to liberate a man named Fu when a military unit transports him overland to the emperor’s court. The rebels are led by two comely sisters, Windy (Joey Wang) and Moon (Michelle Reis), and they all venerate Ning when they become convinced he’s the scholar Chu in disguise. Ning wonders if Windy could be the reincarnation of Tsing. He eventually decides that this is probably not the case, and indeed, though both Windy and her sister fall for Ning, there’s never any indication of continuity between the two Joey Wang characters. (Just before final credits, though, an ethereal-looking Joey Wang, implicitly Tsing, is shown smiling as she looks upon the unison of Ning and Windy—whatever that may mean.)

Though Windy and Moon command the rebel fighters, neither female displays any display any strong fighting-ability, and Ning participates in even fewer battles than he did in GHOST 1. (Thanks to some comic training from Autumn, Ning does learn the trick of freezing opponents with a magic spell.) The occult opponents this time seem more like demons than ghosts: there’s a big hulking stone critter that Ning and Autumn must vanquish, and Windy is briefly possessed by some sort of spirit. The cure for the latter ailment is entirely appropriate for a comedy-romance: Ning has to kiss her possessed lips and infuse her with his “yang energy.” The main villain is a phony Buddhist priest
 who advises the emperor’s court, but he’s apparently a demon in disguise, since later he morphs into a giant centipede. The only thing that shifts the balance in the favor of Ning’s forces is the return of Swordsman Yen, and if anything GHOST 2 has even more lavish magical fights than did the first film.

GHOST 3, though, ratchets down the combative aspects even further. This time the earnest young mortal is a junior monk named Fong (Tony Leung Chia-wen), who travels with his aged exorcist master. Given that the master is a first-class demon-fighter, one would think that Fong might have a little mojo of his own, but such is not the case. Joey Wang plays a character with a new name, that of Lotus, but her situation is the same as in the first film: stuck in a haunted pavilion and enthralled to a Devil Tree. She too has next to no real power beyond flying around a little, and thus the old exorcist provides the demon-fighting this time. There’s one minor exception near the climax: the monk, unable to keep fighting, infuses Fong with enough energy to fly up to the sun, absorb solar powers, and use sunlight to dispel the demons—or ghosts, or whatever they are. This is a nice sequence, but Fong is just the vessel of someone else’s power, so GHOST 3 fails the test of the combative mode.

All three of them are enjoyable romantic romps, with decent FX, “haunting” performances from the lovely lead femme, and some funny comic moments, particularly a scene in GHOST 3 wherein Lotus gives new meaning to “giving tongue.” However, on the mythicity meter their use of metaphysical folklore never scores higher than “fair.”

SHARKTOPUS. VS. WHALEWOLF (2015)

 

To date, the Shark-Octopus Opus ends with SHARKTOPUS VS. WHALEWOLF, easily the best of the three, though still quite poor on the mythicity scale. This time, writer Yamashita emphasized as many comedy elements as possible without actually making it a comedy, starting with the latest in the line of mad scientists, Doctor Rinehart (Catherine Oxenberg). Sporting a deliberately thick German accent and an apparent devotion to the ubermensch, Rinehart decides to experiment on a washed-up Dominican baseball-player and mutate him with DNA taken from an incongruous pair of mammals, whale and wolf.

While Rinehart is indulging in mad science for its own sake, local policewoman Nita Morales rides herd on a raffish boat-captain named Ray (Casper Van Dien), whom she obviously likes despite his irresponsibility and alcoholism. She drafts Ray and his sidekick Pablo to go hunting for the Sharktopus. The three of them encounter the monster but manage to get back to land without being eaten. However, around that time Rinehart's pet monster-- which usually acts more like a big dog than a wolf-- begins prowling for prey. If the film has a highlight, it's probably the point when Morales is summoned to break up a fight between Dominican gang-boys, and encounters both monsters at once, who immediately, like the gangs, start battling over "turf." To further complicate matters, Ray is indebted to a local voodoo priest, who wants Ray and Pablo to get hold of a piece of Sharktopus's heart so that the voodoo-man can gain control over the big beast.

Yamashita provides a lot of crazy business for both his protagonists and their monstrous foes, including some jokey behavior from the shark-creature. I've usually deemed both Van Dien and Oxenberg to be rather bland performers, but they really set their teeth in their respective colorful roles. Thanks to a better variety of business, the two of them are at least as much fun as the clashing colossi.

BANDITS, PROSTITUTES, AND SILVER (1977)

 

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

This 1970s chopsocky, issued under an assortment of English-language titles, is probably best known as one of the many films starring kung-fu diva Angela Mao. It's also one of the few films of the kung-fu craze to boast a female director, one Pao-Shu Kao. who also co-wrote BANDITS. The film is better organized than a lot of contemporaneous films in this genre, and sustains a strong sociological theme about the evil custom of selling women into prostitution. The fact that the story takes place in a typical quasi-medieval period doesn't rob it of relevance to modern times, unfortunately.

Though Mao is the most recognizable names to Westerners, she's not the star. Don Wong plays honest kung-fu artist Shang Li, a man who's fallen in love with Shao Choy, who has been contracted-- implicitly by her parents-- to serve in a brothel. Shang can buy out Shao's contract if he has enough silver, but he's just a poor wagon-driver. Sparrow, a scheming bandit, offers Shang a means of making big money if Shang helps Sparrow rip off a silver shipment via wagon. When Sparrow pulls off the heist but threatens to slay all witnesses, Shang fights and kills him. Despite opposing the bandit, Shang still needs the stolen silver and absconds with the loot, intending only to use as much as he needs to buy out Shao Choy's contract.

Another couple of bandits-- Mao's unnamed character, and her husband, a renegade Shaolin-- decided that they'd like the silver for their own reasons. In addition, a third conspirator, Pao, is also after the loot. The married bandits end up becoming allies to Shang, in that they're impressed with his romantic motivations, but this earns them the emnity of Pao. Pao manages to kill both husband and wife, though the evil genius is vanquished by Shang in a final combat with a singularly inventive method of death-dealing.

The only metaphenomenal elements of the film are the weapons used respectively by Pao and by Angela Mao's character. Pao uses a complicated ring-and-chain weapon slightly reminiscent of the "flying guillotine" gimmick, while the bandit queen, oddly enough, has miniature rotary buzzsaws attached to her shoes, capable of cutting anyone she kicks. There is of course no explanation as to how the saws can possibly be powered in this period film, so I have to attribute it to "the magic of chi" or something like that. No technology or magical method is explicitly evoked, so the metaphenomenality is only explicable as some obscure kung-fu trick, in line with the fellow who can cling to walls in THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS.

HONOR ROLL #82, OCTOBER 31

DON WONG must deal with bandits to get the silver he needs for a prostitute-- or something like that.

I can't say that WHALEWOLF can offer you "a whale of a tale."

JOEY WONG ghosts her way through all three of the classic CHINESE GHOST STORY MOVIES.

"Negi Seeder. Negi CHUCK WAGNER and his dumb movie."

CELESTE YARNALL makes her movie all about EVE.

DONNIE YEN's fists didn't precisely deserve legendary status.

BATMAN VS. TWO-FACE (2017)

 

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


This direct-to-DVD production. following on the heels of BATMAN: RETURN OF THE CAPED CRUSADERS,  once again re-united three performers from the classic 1966 BATMAN teleseries, Adam West (Batman), Burt Ward (Robin), and Julie Newmar (Catwoman). But TWO-FACE-- which also boasts William Shatner voicing the titular villain and Lee ("second Catwoman") Meriwether playing a supporting-role-- will almost certainly be the last in the series, thanks to the 2017 passing of Adam West.

Though the second DVD-flick shares the same director and writing-team as the first, TWO-FACE is at least, well, two times as good (given that I rated CAPED CRUSADERS's mythicity as "poor"). And this is a fair accomplishment, given that Two-Face, though it's rumored that he was considered as a "guest villain" for the 1966 series, really did not fit the camp aesthetic. Two-Face's 1942 debut was about as gritty and grotesque as a kids' superhero comic could be at the time, and such grotesquerie didn't really fit the bright primary colors of the West-Ward world.

So, do the filmmakers succeed in making their version of Two-Face fit their version of that world? Well, somewhat. Despite my liking for the origin-story of the villain, I've generally found that he doesn't "travel" well in later stories, and that his focus on "twos" wears out his welcome much faster than the Penguin's birds or the Riddler's riddles. In order to make the villain fit the more science-fiction-heavy world of the DVD-series, Two-Face's grotty old origin is changed to include a device called an "Evil Extractor." The device's inventor is a version of another Bat-villain, Hugo Strange, who in this iteration is actually working to purge Gotham City's villains of the villainy with the Extractor. However, things go wrong and district attorney Harvey Dent is horribly scarred on one side of his face, thus giving rise to Two-Face.

The continuity then leaps over the villain's initial criminal career, showing the viewer that he's summarily captured by Batman and Robin. Following the capture, reconstructive surgery repairs the damage to Harvey Dent's face, once again suggesting that science can obliterate evil.

It should go without saying that you can't keep a good villain's bad side down, and so it's revealed that the apparently reformed Dent can morph into Two-Face, a clear nod to Jekyll and Hyde. While even the youngest viewers will anticipate this revelation, the script keeps things interesting in that square-sided Batman continually wants to believe in Dent's reformation, since as Bruce Wayne he's friends with the attorney. This version of Robin is more suspicious and less of a goody-good than he is in the original series, but he's proven right when the recrudescent Two-Face captures both crusaders and offers to sell them to the highest bidder among Gotham's usual heinous suspects. However, Catwoman, playing a quasi-heroic role as she did in the previous entry, comes to the heroes' rescue.

Whereas the first film in the series played up goony humor too much, this one manages to sell more of the teleseries' signature irony. This is evinced in an early humorous scene in which Batman seems to be courting the villainess-- only to reveal that he's just visiting her in prison. As if to make the hero squarer than ever, he brings the languishing Catwoman a book of Edith Barrett Browning poetry. Later, as if the creators were congratulating themselves for getting things right, there's a sign in front of a hospital labeled "The Sisters of Perpetual Irony."

Since this was the last go-round for the "Adam West Batman," I can appreciate that the creators stepped up to deliver a work with considerably more in common with the breakthrough TV-show.

HEAVY METAL (1981)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama, irony, comedy and adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological, metaphysical*




As I'm not versed in the practice of music criticism, I can't address one of HEAVY METAL's most prominent aspects: the breadth of the musical accompaniment. I can appreciate the thought that went into the selection of contributing artists-- sometimes it seems more thought than was given to the selection of writing-and-animation-talent! I like that HEAVY METAL incorporates both the hard-driving tunes one usually associates with the term "heavy metal," as with "Radar Rider" and "The Mob Rules," but that it also includes slow ballads like "True Companion" and "Blue Light."

As I think over the stories in the HEAVY METAL anthology-- some of which are affecting in the film proper though they all look rather shallow on paper-- I'm reminded that whenever songs try to tell stories, the narratives generally have to be as stripped-down as possible. It may be that, even though HEAVY METAL the movie adapts some of its stories from comics-tales seen in the same-name magazine, the influence of the musical aesthetic keeps any of the narratives from being overly complex. Granted, any anthology trying to sell itself on the fourfold appeal of sex, drugs, rock-n-roll and ultraviolence might not be expected to be especially deep. But it's not a given that such an anthology would have to be simple: hence, my "stripped-down song-narrative" observation. The scriptwriters' decision to link all the stories through the Loc-Nar gemstone, a.k.a "the sum of all evils," proves the film's best symbolic touch. Old-time movie-theater audiences used to follow a "bouncing ball" to sing lyrics; in HEAVY METAL audiences get to follow a bouncing Mephistopheles as he relates his various successes and failures in corrupting humans (the film's "metaphysical" function for what that's worth).

Almost all of the narratives are enjoyable on the eye-candy level, and few 1980s reviewers gave METAL credit for its visual, as well as auditory, sumptuousness. The film's use of rotoscoping as a substitute for full animation hurts it at times, but unlike some CGI films I might name, HEAVY METAL is never dull. And whereas anthologies like DEAD OF NIGHT have been known to mix a little comedy with their serious dramas, METAL manages to prove its mettle by putting forth at least one story to fit one of Northrop Frye's story-mythoi.

"Harry Canyon," for instance, I judge to be a "drama." The tough cabbie of the story's title is tacitly modeled on the hardboiled private-eye works of Dashiel Hammett and Raymond Chandler, but projected into a grundgy Moebius-like future where corruption runs rampant and the police don't investigate cases unless they're paid up front. Canyon gives shelter to a shady lady on the run from a pack of villains searchng for the fabulos Loc-Nar, with predictable results. Although Canyon gets to hump the babe and blow away a few bad guys, "Canyon" doesn't have the invigorating spirit of heroic adventure and it's not quite nihilistic enough to make a good irony. At best it's sort of like a futuristic Chandler-story with a few ironic motifs borrowed from Hammett.

The splatter-gore horror-tale "B-17" I judge to be a true ironic work. Like many slasher-flicks, the story is straightforward in presenting a narrative in which "no one here gets out alive." WWII pilots encounter zombies. WWII pilots get eaten. End of (my least favorite) story.

"Captain Sternn" and "So Beautiful So Dangerous," both adapted (with significant changes) from stories that appeared in the HEAVY METAL magazine, are comedies. As a stand-alone comics-story Berni Wrightson's "Sternn" was an exquisitely-rendered shaggy dog tale with an ending that didn't work; in the film, the addition of the "Loc-Nar" to the equation improves the narrative tension. In addition, this sequence boasts the best dialogue, and the character Hanover Fiste's long rant against Captain Sternn is eminently quoteworthy. Angus McKie's sprawling "Dangerous" tale is condensed to a handful of space-stoner jokes and a routine about an alien robot getting married to a nice Jewish girl. Tolerable but nothing special.

North American feature-film animation, dominantly oriented on comedy, rarely drunk deeply of the mead of pure adventure-- making it all the more weird that a Canadian studio, rather than one from the U.S., produced the major breakthroughs of "Den" and "Taarna." The things I remember best from watching METAL on a big screen were the wild visuals of these pop-cultural mythologies: the hero Den being pursued by soldiers mounted on giant flying insects, Taarna abasing herself before a gigantic stone idol like something out of the 1940 THIEF OF BAGDAD. The former was based on the "Den" comics-series authored by Richard Corben, who seemed to derive it from equal samplings of Edgar Rice Burroughs and H.P. Lovecraft. The latter was an original tale, albeit visually indebted to the comics of Moebius. As I recall, in the "Den" tale the sentient Loc-Nar takes the place of a simple treasure-item from the original tale, so that when Den resists the temptation to gain power from the devil-globe, the Burroughsian adventure acquires a pleasing Faustian touch. "Taarna," however, was designed to give the audiences closure as on some far-off planet the female barbarian Taarna is called forth to destroy the Loc-Nar.

One interesting sociological aspect of HEAVY METAL is its treatment of female characters. In many ways METAL seems to channel many of the gender-tensions of the 1970s decade, tensions that were arguably shunted off to the side in 1980s cinema. On one hand. the stories "Harry Canyon" and "Dangerous" use female bodies as pure spectacle, with no finesse whatever. "Den" is a little more clever. It's very straightforward about being a male action-fantasy, dealing as it does with a nerd whose transition to another world mutates him into a super-tough muscleman. And yes, as soon as he gets to the otherworld he saves a huge-breasted girl from a human sacrifice, and she immediately rewards him with her body thereafter. However, though the film makes clear that the girl too is from Earth, it omits to mention (as the comic did) that she too was transformed from ordinary humanity to this pneumatic beauty. So in the original comic book, she's living her "fantasy"-- even though it's suspiciously in tune with a "male fantasy."

The "Taarna" sequence received some criticism in that the heroic barbarian girl dresses like a G-stringed stripper. Of course, it should be mentioned that many male pop-culture heroes stride around half-naked as well, not least Den as well as Tarzan and Conan. And like many heroines of live-action cinema of the 1970s, the fact that the heroine's hot doesn't diminish her ability to kill the villain very dead..

STARSHIP TROOPERS: INVASION (2012)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Strangely, though STARSHIP TROOPERS sounds like the title of a pure adventure-opus, neither the original Heinlein novel nor the three live-action films derived from it conform to the tonality of the adventure-story.  Only one derivation known to me, the 1999 ROUGHNECKS: STARSHIP TROOPERS telecartoon, falls into the adventure mythos.  This 2012 direct-to-video release, also animated, can now be added to this short list.

As I said in this review, the original TROOPERS film is certainly constructed as a covert irony.
Following that, as I noted here,the second live-action film in the franchise hewed to a more melodramatic approach, while the third one returned to "a more ironic stance."  STARSHIP 4, however, abandons any ironic or satiric elements, and comes off as a somewhat darker version of the G.I. JOE cartoon-- a similarity that may have been suggested to me by noticing that one of that show's writers, Flint Dille, wrote the screenplay for INVASION.  In truth, I think the characters in G.I. JOE were a tad more individualistic than Dille's versions of such TROOPERS characters as Johnny Rico and Carmen Ibanez.

One of the most un-ironic developments in INVASION is that, during the space-soldiers' battle against their arthropodal adversaries, Rico and Ibanez express negative feelings toward Carl Jenkins, and one of the new protagonists, Henry "Hero" Varro, is put into prison for being insubordinate to Jenkins.  In the original TROOPERS film, none of the Earth-people are in any way aware of the noxiousness of the quasi-fascist things Jenkins says or does.  By making Jenkins a secondary adversary for the "grunts," Dille's script defuses any of his potential for irony. 

INVASION boasts some impressive animated effects, particularly for its newly designed insect foes and by improving on the armor-suits seen only briefly in the third live-action film.  However, all of the characters are relatively routine stereotypes, thus reducing the film's ability to compel audience identification.

THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD (1978)

 

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


At some point in my writing-career, I thought of trying to pitch an essay entitled "The Thieves of Baghdad," covering the four English-language / English-dubbed iterations of the story. The distinction of these four films for me-- at least at that time-- was that I felt all four films did an above-average job in evoking Arabian Nights magic. In contrast, most remakes and re-interpretations in this vein usually emerge as poor copies of some high-quality original.

I remain an unqualified fan of the 1940 Alexander Korda film, and an admirer of the original 1924 silent original. Had anyone asked me back in 1978, I might have judged this 1978 movie to be the third-best, leaving the 1961 Steve Reeves vehicle at the bottom of the heap.

Though I haven't re-screened the Reeves film in many years, my re-viewing of the 1978 film has bumped it down a notch. Undoubtedly I'm a little more aware of the budgetary limitations of this film. Despite a genuine attempt to bring a sense of pageantry to the settings and costumes, this THIEF, directed by Clive Donner, always seems constricted, even constipated, in comparison with the other versions.  The only effect that still impresses me today is the re-imagining of the film's genie: though he's still lent gargantuan size by the wonders of photography, this time he has a more serpentine aspect, given green skin and played by the capricious-looking Daniel Emilfork (above).

The script borrows most of its motifs from the 1924 and 1940 films, but without much wit or verve. The silent film focused upon a solitary adult thief, played by Fairbanks, who must seek out fabulous treasures to gain the hand of a princess. The Korda film splits the solo protagonist into two characters: a handsome adult king who has been deposed by an evil vizier, and a teenaged thief who befriends the king and helps him survive many fantastic adventures before helping the king recover his kingdom and rescue a princess.

Plot-wise Donner's film probably takes its lead from Korda's film, though happily it doesn't use any of the character-names thereof. Handsome Prince Taj (Kabir Bedi) is deposed by his evil vizier. While on the run from the usurper's men, he happens across street-magician-and-thief Hasan (Roddy McDowell). Hasan doesn't fully credit Taj's claim to be a royal on the run, but he's too greedy to pass up the possibility of gaining a rich reward, and so becomes Taj's ally.

Fairbanks' thief entered the palace of the Caliph in the guise of a nobleman from a far-off land, with the aim of getting access to the Caliph's daughter. The 1978 THIEF borrows this conceit, having Taj and Hasan infiltrate the palace of their Caliph (Peter Ustinov) in the guise of noblemen, hoping to gain an ally against the Wazir Jaudur (Terence Stamp). However, Taj and the Caliph's daughter Yasmine become infatuated at first glance. However, master magician Jaudur also shows up, flying carpet and all. In a scene slightly indebted to a similar one in Korda's film, Taj challenges Jaudur to a swordfight-- but where no swordfight ensuses in the 1940 flick, Taj and the wazir do lock blades. Taj stabs his foe, only to find that the wizard won't die because he keeps his heart elsewhere. This effects-scene, incidentally, looks like it was copied exactly from a similar one in 1963's CAPTAIN SINDBAD.

Despite Taj losing the bout, Yasmine talks her father into having all of her suitors, including Taj and Jaudur, compete for her hand by bringing back the most desirable prize imaginable.  From there on, the rest of the film follows the general scheme of the 1924 film, though the scene with the genie is indebted to the Korda work.

Some lip service is paid to the metaphysical motifs of the two earlier films, but on the whole, the script is ill equipped to handle such ideas in more than cursory fashion. Thus I don't even assign the film a metaphysical function, but only a sociological one, in that the story principally focuses on the fortuitous union of aristocrat Taj and lowly Hasan. Unfortunately, there's no chemistry between the actors who have to sell this relationship, and even McDowell doesn't bring his customary flamboyance to the role of Hasan. In fact,with the exception of Peter Ustinov, all of the actors merely deliver the goods with no extras included.  Thus THIEF, while not by any means a waste of time, only offers moderate entertainment.

Though the film was released in theaters in Europe and elsewhere, in the US it only debuted on television, so that it's sometimes mistakenly labeled as a "film for television."

SORORITY BABES IN THE SLIMEBALL BOWL-A-RAMA (1988)

 

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


Despite the "poor" mythicity-rating I gave to this low-budget supernatural comedy, it's at least lively with a few decent jokes. It may well be the best offering from the works of schlockmeister director David DeCouteau. Whether the relative qualify has anything to do with the script-- produced by a fellow with no other IMDB credits-- the world may never know.

I would imagine a few reviews may've opined that the best thing about the flick is its sesquipedalian title. The title probably contributed to SLIMEBALL's reputation as a "good bad movie." Yet the movie's best asset is the performance of Linnea Quigley-- even if the real star of this horror-comedy is a goofy imp played by a barely animated puppet and a guy with a deep voice.

A couple of young women, attempting to pledge to an elite sorority, are given the task of stealing a bowling trophy from a local alley while it's closed. For good measure, the two mean girls in charge of them also send along some dorky guys with the pledges. The mean girls rush ahead of the pledges and their companions, planning on spooking all of the dorks. But when the dorks break into the bowling alley, both they and the mean girls encounter a couple of unexpected phenomena. One is a punk girl burglar named Spider (Quigley), for whom Calvin, the most good-looking of the male dorks, immediately falls hard. The other is the trophy itself, which when broken unleashes a malevolent imp, who sometimes calls himself "Uncle Impie." He pretends to grant the young people wishes, but only so that he can visit deadly dooms upon them, when he's not turning some of them into his monsterized minions. He also seals the bowling alley so that no one can escape his macabre games.

Most of the actors are no better than they have to be, but Quigley really throws herself into the role of Spider, who gets to fight off Impie's minions with her punk-girl battle-skills, while her worshipful amour Calvin occasionally helps out. To no one's surprise, the young lovers are the only ones to both survive Impie's games and to trap him again. It's all good silly fun, but despite Quigley's charms  the real star of of this horror-comedy is "Uncle Impie," played by a barely animated puppet and a guy with a deep voice.

BLACKHAWK (1952)

 

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

BLACKHAWK was one of the last major serials before the format petered out in 1955, as well as the last to be adapted from a comic book property. By that time the Blackhawks were no longer fighting Nazis as during their debut in the 1940s, but Communists, which was pretty much the case with the contemporaneous comic book. However, the serial does ring in some changes. The serial begins by telling audiences that the Blackhawks never use guns, which is something the heroes weren't shy about doing in any era. In truth, there are times that the heroes do fire handguns, but they depend much more heavily upon fisticuffs, resulting in some of the best fight-scenes seen in a Columbia serial. One of the other major tropes of the BLACKHAWK comic, in which the multi-national members evince strong accents, is totally dropped, though most of the standard names-- Andre, Stanislaus, Chop-Chop-- are at least used. Chop-Chop, played for ethnic comedy relief in the comics, is given a sobersided portrait here.

As with the other two serials reviewed here, the only element of personal interest appears in the opening episode. A woman from Stanislaus' past, the mysterious Laska, approaches him at Blackhawk HQ and tries to lure him back to his native land, now held by the Communists. When Stanislaus refuses to leave the Blackhawks for the Commies, Laska has her henchmen subdue the hero, and then sends in a double to take his place and sabotage the Blackhawks' operation.

After that plot-thread is disposed of, the remainder of the serial concerns the Blackhawks chasing around after Laska's agents as they seek the mysterious "Element X,"which can be used both as a super-fuel and for making death-rays. Though the serial was produced by the notorious cheapskate Sam Katzman, BLACKHAWK looks pretty good, partly thanks to strong costume design on the simple but effective comics-costumes, partly to the crisp cinematography of William P. Whitley.

HONOR ROLL #81, OCTOBER 31

If RICK VALLIN stands out at all from the other Blackhawks, it may be because there's two of him in the serial (albeit played by one actor.

UNCLE IMPIE has one redeeming feature: he has a shorter name than the movie in which he stars.

PETER USTINOV essays a kingly role in the last remake of 1924's THIEF OF BAGDAD (not counting swipes like the 1992 ALADDIN).

A fellow named VARRO headlines the animated cast of the first STARSHIP TROOPERS cartoon-feature.

TAARNA, the main exponent of the "sword, sorcery, and strippergram" subgenre.

TWO-FACE never got an appearance on the '66 Bat-show, and this animated DTV shows why that was maybe a good thing.

THE TRIAL OF THE INCREDIBLE HULK (1989)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological. sociological*

The second HULK telefilm proves far better thought-out than the previous entry. In this as in the next and last in the short-lived series, Bill Bixby directed from a script by TV-writer Gerald Di Pego, who never worked on the HULK TV show but did script a lot of better-than-average telemovies, starting with 1972's THE ASTRONAUT.

Following up on developments in INCREDIBLE HULK RETURNS, a morose David Banner has hit the road again, and like his TV-predecessor Richard Kimble he often gets a hard-knocks education in the ways of blue-collar life. He makes his way to a big city that seemed to be New York (though the actual filming was in Vancouver), if only because of the role the city's subway system plays in the story. Using the name David Belson, Banner checks into a dingy flophouse, unaware that the metropolis is a battleground for two opposed forces. The first is crime-boss Wilson Fisk (John Rhys-Davies), who maintains a stranglehold upon most of the criminal activity in the city, and his name is derived from a somewhat similar mastermind, the Kingpin, in various Marvel comics. The second is black-clad adventurer Daredevil (Rex Smith), who continually opposes Fisk's schemes.

This time "Belson" doesn't even have the chance to get some menial job before getting caught up in someone else's troubles. While Banner rides the subway one night, a couple of thugs assault Ellie, a young female passenger. Banner can't stand idly by, and after he gets clobbered, he once more transforms into the Hulk, as usual with no one witnessing the change. Even on a budget, the Green Goliath's scenes of tearing free of the subway car are fun, as are his flight down the tunnel. However, the Hulk barely has time to relax and re-transform before the subway cops find this nearly naked guy and arrest him on general suspicion.

The cops can't question Ellie, who's fallen into a coma from her injuries, but they do question the thugs, who trump up a story about Banner being the one who attacked Ellie, so that the former scientist ends up in the jug. Enter blind attorney Matt Murdock, who offers to defend "Belson" because Murdock suspects that the thugs work for Fisk. Banner doesn't initially want representation, and hopes that prison may finally keep his alter ego from hurting anyone.

This proves a rather short-sighted notion on Banner's part, and during his incarceration he dreams of being put on trial (thus justifying the title) and of causing chaos when he Hulks out. The nightmare results in a real-life transformation, the Hulk busts out of prison, and soon Banner is on the loose again. The mysterious hero Daredevil finds the fugitive doctor (heh), but Banner has no reason to trust the vigilante-- until the latter doffs his mask and reveals that he's met Banner before, as blind attorney Murdock.

Though Daredevil's origin is only related in conversation, it's surprisingly true to the original. Further complications include Fisk suborning Ellie, who initially supports the thugs' version of events until Fisk tries to have her killed. After Daredevil prevents the murder, the murderous mastermind lures the hero into a trap, and Daredevil's life is only saved because Banner tagged along with him. The Hulk rescues the hero, who then figures out the secret of Banner's double identity. Banner helps the vigilante recover from his injuries so that he's ultimately able to foil Fisk's schemes, even though the oily villain escapes to fight another day.

In contrast to the backdoor pilot for a "Thor series," Di Pago's ideas for a "Daredevil series" could have been at least decent. I'm doubly surprised that Di Pago captured much of the appeal of Daredevil and the Kingpin despite changing various details, for the writer had never previously worked on any project resembling superheroes, unless one counts a 1978 TV-remake of the adventure-classic THE FOUR FEATHERS. To be sure, Stan Lee-- doing his first live-action cameo in any Marvel adaptation-- advanced a telling critique of the Daredevil costume, noting that unlike the one in the comics, the all-black outfit with solid cloth over the eyes seems to broadcast that the hero is blind-- which is not something that the general public is supposed to know. That said, it's still a cool costume, and Rex Smith, previously known for his role as STREET HAWK, acquits himself ably. Bixby's direction shines in both the interpersonal scenes between Banner and Murdock and in some of the grungier parts of this faux New York City.

FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL (1977)

 

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

Though I've not liked the works of kung fu diva Polly Shang Kwan as much as those of competitors like Chia Ling and Angela Mao, she's certainly a solid enough talent. That said, this cheap Taiwanese production is not the best intro to Polly's kickass-ery.

Polly plays Shih Pu Chuan, a girl with an unexplained passion for mastering Shaolin kung fu. However, the Shaolin temple doesn't allow women. Eventually, after some forgettable comic bits, Shih receives succor from a crazy old hermit monk, Chin Li, who has no problems with female students. At the same time, the temple has suffered a recent embarrassment. Thieves masquerading as monks infiltrated the temple and stole a series of books known as the "Ta Mo Classics," which confer great powers on the practitioners. Shih's mentor is versed in these techniques and teaches them to Shih so that she can retrieve the books from the thieves.

The weird abilities here are not borderline-real, like those I discussed in my review of THE FIVE DEADLY VENOMS.  In the film's most memorable scene, Shih faces off against a couple of kung-fu thieves who have used occult knowledge to stretch their limbs a la Plastic Man. Shih matches them in this respect-- although naturally the effects depicted are very dodgy-- and in another scene displays the ability to paralyze people with a touch. However, the side effect of all this martial training is that Shih starts turning into a man. At times she even grows a mustache, though most of the time the film's content to show her dressing in man's clothes.

Naturally, Shih wants to reverse this situation. However, her dippy master can't remember the "Negative Kung Fu" procedure necessary, so-- he escapes her questioning by faking his own death and having his corpse painted gold to serve as a temple-statue. During Shih's quest she finds her own solution by beating all the thieves and learning their secrets-- though some of the secrets seem rather non-occult, like a guy who seems to be invisible at first but is just using black clothes and makeup to blend in with darkness. In the end Shih, once more female, finds out that Chin Li is still alive, but he redeems himself by beating off a new threat and dying for real-- which is supposed to give the whole megilla a tragic ending, despite all the weird comic stuff that has preceded it. It's because of this conclusion that I can't quite deem FIGHT a total comedy, even though some moments, like a transformed man-turned-woman falling for Shih were certainly meant to be amusing.

PHANTASM 4: OBLIVION (1998)

 

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

PHANTASM IV: OBLIVION, filmed for less money than any of its predecessors, relies less on ultraviolent battles and more on jarring imagery. Mike and Reggie are separated, and although the spectre of Jody can still appear to Reggie and offer guidance, Mike seems more than ever under the thumb of his gaunt nemesis. While Reggie searches for Mike and encounters yet another sexy demon-woman, Mike flees the Tall Man and blunders through a gate in time. He ends up in the America of the late 1800s, where he meets a man, Jedediah Morningside, a dead ringer for the Tall Man. Coscarelli never spells things out, but since Jedediah is working on a dimensional-door device, he’s either transformed into a monstrous being or, more likely, he becomes the template for a whole series of monsters, given that every time the heroes destroy one Tall Man, another crops up to take the dead one’s place.

OBLIVION proves a fitting name for the fourth film. The distortions of time and memory constantly play havoc with the viewer’s expectations, so that, where an ordinary “origin story” would make things clearer, this one only confounds the viewer’s desire for clarity. Mike and Reggie are seemingly reunited after another temporary defeat of the Tall Man, or one of his clones. But even this minor triumph remains questionable, as if it may be a fantasy born from the oblivion of the subconscious.

JOURNEY TO THE WEST (2013)

 

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

*** SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS****


I had to give a lot of thought as to how to classify Stephen Chow's looney, often anachronistic take on the classic 16th-century Chinese novel JOURNEY TO THE WEST.  In the original novel, a devout Buddhist priest journeys from Tang-era China to India in order to secure a collection of precious sutras and to bring them back to China. According to Wikipedia most of the adventures of the priest-- in the film given the name Xuan Zang-- and his magical bodyguards take place on the way to India. Chow's JOURNEY focuses only on the early life of Xuan Zang, when he is a young Buddhist demon-hunter, but one with a naive belief that he can reform demons by reading nursery rhymes to them. This is probably nothing like the original priest's early history, and certainly the available summaries emphasize not demon-hunting but Xuan Jang's quest on behalf of Buddhism.

The priest isn't only naive about demons; he also understands nothing about women, and out of foolish pride he rejects a more experienced female demon-hunter, Duan (Shu Qi) when she falls in love with him. The association of Xuan Zang and Duan leads them into many exploits of demon-hunting, particularly against cannibalistic pig-demons, whose leader is given the comic name "K.L. Hog" (Killer Hog?)  The climax involves the rash young priest releasing Sun, the mercurial and deadly Monkey King, from the prison to which the original Buddha condemned him for the past 500 years. In the novel, Monkey is released so that he will be tamed and enlisted to help Xuan Zang collect the sutras, but in Stephen Chow's script, the mission of the sutras doesn't come about until after Monkey is released.

My various comparisons with the novel are not meant to suggest that Chow misleads anyone in his audience into thinking he'll deliver a sober-faced rendition of the original work. By the time Chow has finished the opening sequence, which deals with Xuan Zang's attempt to "demon-bust" a murderous fish-demon, it's clear that the director is delivering an all-stops-pulled-out Hollywood-esque exercise in kinetic showmanship. It's in this sequence that Xuan Zang first tries to pacify a demon through the use of Chinese nursery rhymes, which naturally does not end well for the young man. Duan arrives on the scene and promptly beats the demon to death with her fists. She becomes piqued by Xuan Zang's resistance to her charms, and when they cross paths again, both hunting down the leader of the cannibal pig-men, she determines to pursue him.

This theme by itself-- a woman's aggressive pursuit of an unwilling man-- should signal that the film will be an all-out comedy. And certainly the middle section of the film is replete with many farcical sequences. Duan and her fellow martial demon-hunters (one of whom is called "Fist of the North Star," after a famous manga hero) have a wagon that can be propelled sans horses, because inside is a ludicrous air-filled balloon that makes the wagon shoot forward every time the balloon is whacked with big hammers. Duan uses her friends to attempt fooling the priest into sleeping with her. Duan, deciding that she needs to act in a more feminine manner to snare Xuan Zang, gets a female friend to use magic so that she Duan will "mimic" the friend's actions-- and of course, the wrong actions get mimicked.

Yet the third part of the film begins the downfall of the traditional boy-girl plot. On the advice of his mentor, Xuan Zang journeys to the prison of the Monkey King in order to employ the latter's powers against the pig-demons. This sequence starts out comically, for when the priest first meets the simian demon, he looks like a wizened old man. Monkey even gets Duan to dance with him, much to Xuan Zang's displeasure.

But once Xuan Zang releases Monkey, the funny little man becomes a malicious, egotistical demon, and he smashes down all of Duan's demon-hunters. Even some of these fight-scenes contain farce-elements, particularly since one of Monkey's challengers is a monk whose power is to make one of his feet grow to titanic size. But the comedy vanishes when Monkey kills Duan. This, ironically, causes the grieving Xuan Zang to realize his own Buddha-hood, and he attains a level of power that allows to chastise Monkey in a show-stopping fashion.  Following this, Xuan Zang goes on to accept the sutra-mission, taking with him his three most iconic helpers: a pig-demon, a river-demon, and the now tamed Monkey.

I've discoursed on the storyline in detail to indicate why I think that JOURNEY is more of a drama than a comedy. It's not simply that it has a sobering ending, but rather, because all the jubilative scenes are subordinate to the main point of the plot. This main point is not jubilative but purgative in nature. Xuan Zang, since he is destined to be a priest, must be purged of his desire for Duan, and this, in the formulations of Northrop Frye as I have read him, aligns JOURNEY with the mythos of drama.

This isn't to say that a drama must end tragically: even Aristotle stated the contrary. SLEEPING BEAUTY is a notable film that I categorize as a drama, not because it ends sadly, but it does so by emphasizing the purgation of evil, in the form of Maleficent, more than it does the heroic triumph of Prince Philip. SLEEPING BEAUTY, like JOURNEY, contains many farcical scenes, but the presence of these is also subordinate to the dramatic resolution of the romance-plot. In similar fashion GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY is also replete with numerous comedic material, but at its core it does emphasize an invigorating heroic triumph, and so it qualifies for the mythos of adventure. Finally, THE TENTH VICTIM is another film with a number of funny sequences, but the main point of its plot centers upon the mortificative mood of the irony, even though, as in SLEEPING BEAUTY, the romance does succeed despite the rest of the world going to hell.

GODZILLA VS. SPACE GODZILLA (1994)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*

MYTHICITY: *poor* 

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological, cosmological*

I recall a review that raked GODZILLA VS. SPACE GODZILLA over the coals as one of the worst, if not the worst, of the "Big G" films.  It's not that bad, but it's not much more than one big setup for the clash between Godzilla, his evil "space clone" (complete with weird crystals growing out of his back), and a human-piloted mecha called "Moguera."

The very basic plot, picking up where 1993's GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA II left off, begins with those helpful Mothra-fairies providing a modern-day oracle, though Mothra herself has nothing to do with the story.  The fairies seek out the protagonists-- mostly a group of Godzilla-fighting soliders and lady psychic Miki Saegusa, a character who appeared in all of the Godzilla films from 1989 to 1995.  The fairies warn that a new monster is descending to Earth from space. Soon the authorities dope out that this new threat is "Space Godzilla," a clone of Godzilla's cells. In no less than two previous films, Godzilla's bodily cells had been thrust into space by his clashes with big monsters, and some of those cells mutated and grew in space.  Now, thanks to a "white hole," Space Godzilla is on the way back to Earth. 

While waiting for the new threat to arrive, Miki and her soldier-allies attempt to rein in the old one.  One soldier, Yuki, has a grudge against the Big G and attempts to kill him with a special "blood coagulate" buller, but he fails.  Miki succeeds to some extent by using a psychic implant to attempt taking control of Godzilla mentally, but this plotline sputters out as well.  Thus when the two Godzillas come to blows-- inevitably trashing Tokyo for good measure-- humanity's only participant in the battle is the military-operated Moguera.  Moguera is visually based a giant robot that appeared in the 1957 Toho production THE MYSTERIANS, but the English script makes no direct connection between that film and this one.

It's just as well that the plotlines involving Yuki the vengeful solider and Miki the "Godzilla-hugger" peter out, for the humans are pretty much lost in the clash of the great powers.  The battles are good but only rarely above average.  Purely on the basis of nostalgia, Moguera is one of the film's better elements-- though he's also used for the best humor-line, when a soldier forced to dig a pit wonders if Moguera-- who has a drill-nose and was named for the word "mole" in Japanese-- might lend some aid.

YELLOW HAIR AND THE FORTRESS OF GOLD (1984)

 

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

This U.S.-Spanish co-production, put together by roughly the same team that came out with 1983's HUNDRA-- also starring blonde Laurene Landon-- is pleasant enough escapist adventure.  Compared to many other ersatz "Indiana Jones" knock-offs, YELLOW HAIR is probably near the top of the pack, though it suffers from a wandering, "make it up as we go along" script.

Writer-director Matt Cimber throws in a little metatextual humor, mostly consisting of voiceovers that adjoin the viewer to watch for the next installment of Yellow Hair's supposedly serial adventures.  But happily there's not too much of this.  The titular "fortress of gold" is a hidden sanctuary of a lost tribe called the "Tulpan"-- implicitly pattened on the Aztecs-- who have survived into the late 1800s.  No one knows the location of the hidden warriors, though they emerge from time to time to taunt the Mexican military.  The one "marvelous" aspect of the Tulpan is what appears to be a magical pool with the Midas touch, for when they lower a victim into it, the pool takes on a mystic glow and turns the victim into a statue-- I presume a golden one, though the material doesn't look much like gold.  At no time is the magic pool given any explanation.

Yellow Hair (Landon) is a half-Comanche, half-white woman who has been raised with the tribe since childhood.  She regards her adoptive mother Grey Cloud as her true parent but otherwise knows nothing of her parentage. Grey Cloud also takes in a Caucasian orphan, who grows up along Yellow Hair as an adoptive sibling and takes the name of "the Pecos Kid."  Pecos leaves the tribe and apparently travels around acquiring girlfriends in every small town, while Yellow Hair becomes the tribe's pre-eminent warrior.  Early in the film she uses her fighting-skills to fend off a male suitor who challenges her, and it's plain from Yellow Hair's conversations with Grey Cloud that she's learned to fight so that she won't live the life of a squaw-- though she doesn't seem to have any better goal in mind.

Pecos gets in dutch with the commander of the Mexican militia, partly because he's claimed to have information about the Tulpan.  When Yellow Hair finds out about Pecos being in captivity, she sneaks into the compound and breaks Pecos free in the film's best action-sequence.  The commander retaliates by sending some of his men, led by the Comanchero Flores, to the Comanche camp, where Flores murders Grey Cloud.  While Yellow Hair seeks vengeance on the commander's forces, she also becomes intrigued by the "Fortress of Gold" when an old seer tells her that her true parents came from the Tulpan sanctuary.

After a number of lively-- but low-cost-- action-scenes, Yellow Hair and Pecos manage to enter the mountain sanctum of the Tulpan.  Yellow Hair naively accepts the apparent welcome of the lost tribe and vows to remain with her parents' people.  Pecos leaves for the outside world, but doubles back, in time to rescue his quasi-sister when she learns that the Tulpan plan to turn her into a golden statue.

Though the action is not lively enough to grab anyone not already in the mood for a RAIDERS-lite flick, YELLOW HAIR is serviceable in that regard.  There's a passing suggestion that the two quasi-siblings may have a thing for each other: Yellow Hair seems jealous of Pecos' many trysts, and in one scene she claims that Pecos once tried to see her without her clothes.  Though he claims that it was only to verify whether she was male or female, the issue is dropped and no romantic liaison takes place, though they're implicitly together at film's end.  The fact that the male is allowed many sexual encounters while the female is occupied in defending her chastity incarnates a certain prevalent sociological myth about male-female dynamics, though this too is not explored in any depth.

HONOR ROLL #80, OCTOBER 27

 After playing in a few dozen spaghetti westerns, ALDO SAMBRELL finds himself in a movie with a blonde Indian lady and immortal Aztecs.

SPAAAAAAAAAACE GODZILLA---!" (Sixties joke)

For once the "journey to the west" focuses not only the monkey but on the monk, and even gives him a hot girlfriend in SHU QI.

ANGUS SCRIMM makes another phantasmal appearance.

Even though SHANG KUAN fights for survival, I'm still not typing that really really long full name of hers.

REX SMITH essayed Daredevil, the Man Without Ratings-- or at least, without ratings good enough to spawn a series.

DEADPOOL (2016)

 

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


The short review would be pretty much the usual thing: "DEADPOOL is balls-to-the-wall fun for the viewer who's getting a little bored with lookalike superhero films."

That said, I can't help noting that as far as its basic plot, DEADPOOL isn't any more complex than, say, ANT MAN. The devilish fun is entirely in the details, such as the opening credits, of which I'll only say that it's the only film where I thought, "Even if the rest of the film is a loss, the credits are worth the price of admission."

In the spirit of said credits, it's easy to break down DEADPOOL into its many familiar tropes. There's a cynical "bad hero," who comes off as less than entirely villainous because he only kills, maims or torments people who deserve it. He meets a "hot chick, " the love of his life, but their future together is questionable when the bad guy gets a badder, totally terminal disease. This leads to a forbidden scientific experiment-- easily the most tedious trope these days, seeming to make an appearance in almost every Marvel adaptation. This experiment creates the super-badass Deadpool, who then goes on a crusade against the guy behind the evil experiment. Villain-protagonist gathers some allies, the villain kidnaps the hot chick, and there's a big fight at the end.

In keeping with the Marvel comic, Deadpool's charm is that he's so motor-mouthed that he makes Classic Spider-Man sound tongue-tied, with the added benefit that Spidey could never indulge in so many R-rated riffs. I credit writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, as well as director Tim Miller with having the sagacity to know just when to create enough melodrama to keep the character relatable-- even if they puncture it in the next minute with a dirty joke.

I'm largely unacquainted with the comic-book Deadpool, but I've been told that his origin in the comics simply amounts to his being injected with the blood of another Marvel character, Wolverine, so that the character obtains the same ability to heal from almost any wound. The film presents a more interesting origin. The evil experiment consists of subjecting its victims to mammoth amounts of pain and stress, in the hope of triggering "mutant genes" that manifest in super-powers. Intentionally or not, this may be a metafictional comment on a familiar trope of superhero comics, where the hero gains his powers by living through some experience that ought to kill him, be it a lightning-strike, a gamma bomb, or the bite of a radioactive spider.

Deadpool's backstory is that he was once a special forces commando who became a whimsical mercenary, and though his motor-mouth seems improbable for anyone in any military service, parts of the film-origin bear strong resemblance to a familiar trope in which disaffected soldiers are subjected to weird superman-making experiments, notably UNIVERSAL SOLDIER. Deadpool exhibits absolutely none of the familiar maladies of soldiers-returning-to-civilian-life-- no post-traumatic stress disorder, no survivor guilt. And yet, because he's disfigured by the evil experiment, and fears showing his ugly mug to his former girlfriend, this does bear some interesting similitude with narratives about disfigured ex-servicemen.

But I'll admit that this is just a side-attraction. The jokes are the thing here, and there are a lot of them . As in the tradition of vaudeville, if you don't like one barb, another will be along in a minute-- and it'll probably be sticking out of someone's ass.