FLYING G-MEN (1939)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Jaunting back to pre-WWII times, FLYING G-MEN was one of many pop-culture stories to subject America to Axis attacks long before the country was officially at war-- though naturally, the saboteurs are not explicitly identified as agents of Germany or any other Axis ally. Still, acts of sabotage are on the upswing. American intelligence decides to bring together four G-men who all have piloting-experience to serve as counter-terrorists. All four men flew together as a group called "the Sky Hawks," and they're charged with ferreting out the mysterious leader of the sabotage-ring, "the Professor."

In the first episode, one of the G-men is killed. Since the four pilots are almost identical to one another, the murdered man simply functions as an emotional rallying-point for the three remaining crusaders. As an additional touch, one of the three men operates with a double identity, occasionally taking on the identity of a masked pilot, the Black Falcon. The reasoning for the masked identity seems fuzzy at best, and was probably just a bald imitation of a similar motif in the successful LONE RANGER serial, in which that Ranger was suspected of being one of three local cowpokes. However, there doesn't seem to be a clear and present need for any single pilot to do his work in a costume, though there's some eyewash about the Falcon being able to do things that the other agents cannot. This time both the mystery hero, the other two hero-pilots, and their villains are all pretty vanilla, though there are some OK aerial dogfight scenes.

ONECHANBARA (2008)

 

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

2008's ONECHANBARA, a Japanese adaptation of a video-game of the same name, is another zombie-fighting opus, albeit set in the future, when a mad scientist has polluted the world with killer zoms. For some unvoiced reason the same scientist also intervenes in the lives of two young girls, Aya and Saki, during their martial training by their swordsman father. The scientist somehow persuades Saki to kill her father, absconds with her and unleashes his zombies, in that order. Aya, the heroine of the story, goes after the madman and her sister with her sword, which is able to blaze with fire due to her powers of *chi,* or something.

There's nothing new in ONECHABARA, especially the way it tosses plot-points at the watcher like set-ups in a video game. But at least Aya's zombie-killing orgies have some visual flair, as does her climactic fight with Saki, who for some reason runs around in a sailor-suit school-uniform. The Campbellian function here would be psychological, since the crux of the conflict is the two sisters fighting over which receives the favors of the father, but I must admit I've seen a lot of Japanese films that delve into Oedipal matters with considerably more brio than ONECHANBARA.

FUTURE ZONE (1990)

 

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

Ted Prior also directed both FUTURE FORCE and its sequel FUTURE ZONE, and this time he borrows from THE TERMINATOR rather than ROBOCOP. John, who suddenly has a wife this time out, is going about his bounty hunting business when Billy, a twenty-something hunter, joins the force and starts pressing John to become his partner. The older man responds to the younger one’s enthusiasm by insulting and slugging him. But Billy won’t take subtle hints, and eventually John lets the guy work with him. Little does John realize that Billy is his own grown son, who’s not been conceived in the film’s present, and that he’s somehow traveled back in time to prevent John’s being slain.   

Overall the film is better shot and directed, and Ted Prior (brother of David) is a good enough actor that he seems to enliven Carradine as well. But the external threats to the father-and-son team are even more forgettable than the first film’s villains, and minor appearances by old pros (like Charles Napier) fail to alleviate the overall tedium.

TWELVE TASKS OF ASTERIX (1976)

 

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

THE TWELVE TASKS OF ASTERIX appeared about nine years later, and stands as the only Asterix animated film to be produced from an original script. That said, this did not signify a deviation from the vision of the comic's creators, since those creators, Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, authored said screenplay. Arguably, TWELVE improves upon the two films that adapted comics-stories in terms of coming up with clever jokes-- though it's still a pretty simple juvenile tale, as well as one that more or less "rewrites" the serial's status quo for the sake of an end-joke.

Just as CLEOPATRA started with an absurd bet, TWELVE begins with an absurd proclamation by Julius Caesar. Since his forces have for years tried and failed to overcome the Gauls of Asterix's village, Caesar-- who in previous installments had been made aware that the Gauls have a magic potion that makes them superstrong-- suddenly posits the idea that the Gauls may be gods, which would mean it's pointless for Rome to fight them. Caesar then travels to the Gaulish village and issues a challenge. He proposes that Asterix and Obelix should attempt to complete a series of twelve tasks-- inspired by, but not patterned after, those of archaic Heracles. The stakes: if the Gauls lose, they bend the knee to Rome, while if they lose, their little tribe will take the reins of the Roman empire. The Gauls don't especially want the Roman empire, and it would seem that the status quo works to their benefit, but for whatever reason our heroes accept the challenge.

What follows is inevitably a very episodic film in which Asterix and Obelix overcome various opponents. Most of these are simple jokes, like showing the Gauls' encounter with Far Eastern judo (through the medium of a German practitioner) or having Asterix reverse the hypnotic spell of a mesmerist. The strongest segments are the episode in which the duo must resist the blandishments of the sultry Sirens, and the one in which they must seek to escape the terrors of a mammoth bureaucratic office. Naturally, the doughty warriors complete all of their tasks, and win control of the Roman Empire-- which, as Asterix notes, is possible because "it's only a cartoon."

DRACULA: LEGACY (2005)

 

ASCENSION is merely middling entertainment, clearly patterned after hundreds of horror-films in which foolish mortals trifle with forces beyond their control. That said, though most of the characters are flat stereotypes, ASCENSION at least allows for a few Faustian themes. LEGACY, however, is just a lot of thud and blunder, as Uffizi teams up with Luke and they both run around various beautiful Romanian locations hunting vampires. This time, because Uffizi has been infected by Dracula's vampirism, the church doesn't sanction his mission, and he goes vamp-hunting on his own recognizance, though he continues to wear the priestly collar.

During the duo's quest, a European reporter named Julia joins them, with the result that she and Uffizi form a romantic attachment. There's a little character-conflict in that Uffizi doesn't want to fall in love, despite no longer being restrained by a priest's injunctions, and this mirrors Luke's desire for Elizabeth, and to liberate her from the evil Count. Eventually Dracula is defeated. Only at the very end do the scripters dip into the Christian myth-bag once more, for though Uffizi slays Dracula, he doesn't manage to overcome his own curse, and at the end he's seen with a vampiric Julia sitting in his lap-- a clear quotation of Michelangelo's "Pieta," which shows the slain Christ lounging in the lap of his mother Mary.

On a final note, it's interesting that the scripters found a "Doctor Who"-like method of accounting for changing the actor playing Dracula in each film, stating that whenever the vamp regenerates, he automatically changes his face. This doesn't really make any sense, but does make it easier to watch the transitions between Gerard Butler, Stephen Billington and Rutger Hauer.

DEAD HEAT (1988)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy,*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, psychological*


In this review I'm pairing two films that have absolutely nothing to do with one another, except that they're both incredibly bad action-films despite having "A" level money and/or stars behind them. (Note: the other one, THE TUXEDO, will appear on OPERA elsewhere.)

So-- which is worse?

I hadn't seen DEAD HEAT since the late eighties, and screening it again only made me more aware of its shortcomings. This is one of the many "buddy cop" films popular during that decade, though most such films start out by emphasizing some incompatibility between the two officers. In contrast, sole credited writer Terry Black-- whose other credits are a handful of TV episodes-- makes Doug Bigelow (Joe Piscopo) and the punnily-named Roger Mortis (Treat Williams) almost identical in being "rule-breaker" types who perpetually aggravate their frazzled captain. It's kind of like teaming Mel Gibson with another Mel Gibson (LETHAL WEAPON appeared the previous year), with the only real difference being that Roger dresses in a natty fashion while Doug wears sporty muscle-shirts. Oh, and nothing is said about Doug's romantic history, whereas Roger has apparently had a fling with a lady mortician working for the cops.

Doug and Roger have an altercation with robbers who seem invulnerable to gunfire, but the cops manage to take out the thieves-- at which point the coroner reveals that the men seem to have already died before being killed, in that they have a special preservative in their veins. This clue causes the buddy-cops to investigate the facility from which the chemical came. During the investigation Roger is attacked by another undead killer, and as a result Roger is slain. However, by that time Doug has learned that the company has a "back from death" machine, and uses it to bring Roger back. However, the effect is not permanent, for as the investigation continues Roger's body begins to deteriorate. Eventually, the two cops-- whose belated incompatibility is that one's dead and one's alive-- find the people responsible for the reanimated robbers, one of whom is played by Vincent Price in a handful of unimpressive scenes.

By the end of the movie, even the "dead/alive" incompatibility is erased, when Doug too is zombified. But, lame though the zombie-humor is, I couldn't help feeling that the order of transformation was wrong, since Piscopo's persona in the film was edgier than that of Williams, so that the former might've been a little funnier doing dead-body jokes.

On a small psychological note, while I'm usually impatient with queer readings of films in this subgenre, I could actually see it applying here-- partly because of the cops' sartorial difference, and the fact that they end up as fellow zombies more or less stuck with one another (for all that the film's last line riffs on CASABLANCA: "I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship."

HONOR ROLL #108, FEBURARY 26

 JOE PISCOPO and TREAT WILLIAMS: just a couple of wild and crazy dead guys.

DIANE NEAL hates "legacy characters," especially when they try to put holes in her neck.

The only possible reason for Asterix to like OBLELIX: he likes 'em big and stupid.

TED PRIOR didn't have much prior fame before he got his name on a marquee with David Carradine.

Swords and samurais in the Future Old West, thanks to ERI OTOGURI.

Did anyone care when ROBERT PAIGE was revealed as the true ID of the Black Falcon? 

DR. SYN ALIAS THE SCARECROW (1963)

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological, psychological*

DR. SYN, ALIAS THE SCARECROW was first shown on television in separate parts on the Wonderful World of Disney teleseries, and later collected for theatrical and DVD showings. Given the nature of the project, SCARECROW is much more episodic than SYN, and places little emphasis on the vicar Christopher Syn's past history as an ex-pirate.  The Scarecrow and his men operate in full costume but they make no attempt to portray themselves as phantoms as they carry on their smuggling operations while undermining the king's soldiers and press-gangs.

As with Disney's 1957-1961 ZORRO teleseries, the scripts validate the lawbreaking activities of a swashbuckling rebel by framing his activities against an evil hegemony that oppresses the people as a whole.  This time both Syn and Scarecrow are portrayed by thirtysomething Patrick McGoohan, who, forty years before Christian Bale's Batman, gives his masked identity a harsh, grating voice that conceals his identity just as well as the stunning Scarecrow-mask.  (For that matter, McGoohan's scary-voice blows Bale's out of the water). 

However, despite the greater youth of the actor playing the masked hero, the direction and script doesn't include much more action than DOCTOR SYN.   I remembered watching the teleseries' original broadcasts and being disappointed that the Scarecrow didn't get into more swordfights or gun-fights, in marked contrast to the impressive fencing-battles of ZORRO.  Director James Neillson had worked on two ZORROs before SCARECROW, and seemed able to adapt to the strong action qualities of a single BATMAN episode later on ("The Clock King's Crazy Crimes").  So I suspect that someone in the Disney organization decided to emphasize suspense over swordfights, which resulted in scripts full of talk talk talk.

Still, even the stories are forgettable, the mask and voice of this Scarecrow carry all the spooky vibes needed for a good uncanny film, and the theme song is one of the best produced for Disney's television properties-- not just in the 1960s, but even up to the present day.

RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE (2010)

 

 

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

 I suppose the “afterlife” of the title is meant to describe the life the heroine experiences once she loses her virally enhanced super-powers. Despite the return of Paul W.S. Anderson to writer-director status, AFTERLIFE is a mixed bag. On the plus side, the film boasts action-sequences as strong as those in APOCALYPSE. On the minus, the plot seems even more unfocused than usual, and the film suffers for not having a strong villainous presence throughout.

 

A year after EXTINCTION, Umbrella CEO Albert Wesker is the target of an attack by Alice and her obedient clone-army. Wesker escapes the attack as such in a plane, but the original Alice overtakes him. The evil CEO, however, has not only injected himself with T-virus so that he’s begun to mutate, he also manages to zap Alice with a fast-acting anti-virus that removes her superhuman abilities. Just as Wesker prepares to execute his longtime foe, the plane crashes. Alice survives despite her lack of powers, while Wesker goes missing.

 

Later Alice seeks to find the handful of survivors she helped in EXTINCTION. She’s attacked by one of those survivors, Claire (Ali Larter), but only because an Umbrella device was used on the woman to make her into a berserker. Once Claire is back to normal, the two females join up with a bunch of new characters, one of whom is another game-entity, Claire’s brother Chris. However, for reasons never made clear, Umbrella operatives are busy unleashing zombies on the survivors. After many redshirt-deaths, Alice tracks down the Umbrella malefactors and find out that Wesker is still calling the shots—leading, naturally, to another big battle.

 

The battles, as stated, are visually pleasing, but at times Alice doesn’t seem all that de-powered, since in the climactic scene her arm is impaled all the way through by a knife, and she still manages to fight and defeat the evildoers. I get the feeling that Anderson wanted to introduce her “humanization” for a quick character bit, but that he didn’t really want it to get in the way of major havoc.  

 

                   

                            

2020 TEXAS GLADIATORS (1982)

 

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

Strangely, one year before Joe D'Amato did ENDGAME, he directed an aggressively bad post-apoc tale, co-written by D'Amato and George "Karnak" Eastman, though Eastman does not contribute his acting-talents to said film. The flick was known in its American release as 2020 TEXAS GLADIATORS. The Italian release-name more correctly called its heroes "Freedom Fighters." Unsurprisingly, no one in the film does anything even slightly gladiatorial.

Here, in a post-apocalyptic world centered around what's supposed to be Texas, several vigilantes go around busting the heads of criminals. Their leader is a fellow bearing the Greek name "Nisus." Nisus and his men save a lissome young lady named Maida from rape, but one of Nisus' own soldiers, "Catch Dog" by name, tries to rape her himself. Nisus lets the Dog out of the group, but the team's real enemy is Maida, who functions as something of a Yoko Ono. She talks Nisus into giving up the martial life to raise crops and the rest of the so-called "Rangers" disband.

The error of Maida's ways are soon evident: soon the local post-apoc towns are menaced by nasty motorcyclists-- led by the rapacious Catch Dog-- and a new fascist army, and there are no dedicated vigilantes around to stop them. Nisus (essayed, as in ENDGAME, by emotionless Al Cliver) is killed,. However, his death inspires the remnants of the old group re-unite to kick hell out of the bad guys. Maida belatedly learns the importance of kicking ass and taking name, and manages to blow away several evildoers herself.

Whereas ENDGAME is a simple film whose broad characters are reasonably appealing, GLADIATORS is a mess, in which no character comes off particularly well. The one point of interest is the name of the film's sacrificial hero. One can't be exactly sure what D'Amato and/or Eastman had in mind by evoking this obscure name, but in my opinion, the most likely match-up is with the Nisus of one Greek legend. This Nisus was a king fighting an invading army, but his defenses were betrayed when his daughter, who had fallen in love with the invaders' general, gave the enemy soldiers a pass into the city. Even here, though, the symbolism is pretty confused. Is the film's Nisus "betrayed" by Maida, since she talks him out of the vigilante life and indirectly brings about Nisus' death, just as the Greek king dies for his daughter's betrayal? However, the script doesn't really pay that much attention to Maida's sins, any more than it does to any other character's reasons for his or her actions.

DRAGONSLAYER (1981)

 

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

Aside from 1978's CORVETTE SUMMER, DRAGONSLAYER is the only film that Matthew Robbins both directed and co-wrote (collaborating on both films with one Hal Barwood).

It's interesting that, even though the genre of fantasy was booming in 1981 thanks to numerous Tolkien emulations and to D&D games, DRAGONSLAYER operates as a elegy for the worlds of fantasy. Though the specific location of the narrative is the made-up "Urland," it's just Dark-Ages England by any other name. At this time, Christianity is making major inroads into the culture but the old ways of paganism have not yet died. However, even Ulrich, the foremost wizard in Urland, tells his apprentice Galen that he Ulrich is not long for this world, at a time when wizards are becoming scarce.

In an opening cadged from THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, a coterie of poor farmers, led by the apparently male youth Valerian, approach Ulrich for help in banishing a dragon. As seen in the archetypal European dragon-myth, this particular dragon, Vermithrax, has taken up residence in some caverns near their farmland, and over time the rulers of the realm have appeased the dragon by feeding it female virgins. Said virgins are selected each year by a lottery that supposedly selects from all females of a certain age, though it seems that only the poor people's daughters have ended up as dragon fodder over the years. Ulrich swears to help the farmers, but he meets what appears to be a death by mischance. Galen (Peter MacNicol) chooses to accompany the farmers back to their territory, and in the process learns that Valerian is actually a young woman disguised as a boy, as part of her father's strategy to keep her out of the dragon's mouth.

Galen does have considerable magic powers, and he brashly attempts to slay the dragon by simply burying it in its own cavern. However, Vermithrax breaks free and scours the countryside with fire. This puts Galen in bad odor with reigning king Casiodorus, who is largely responsible for the custom of dragon appeasement. He and his soldiers confiscate Galen's magical amulet, and although the young wizard escapes, he's unable to do anything more to fight the dragon. In fact, he comes into further conflict with the King when Galen reveals to Casiodorus' daughter Elspeth that she's never been included in the lottery.

Galen, armed with new weapons given magical potency, attempts to slay the dragon himself, but fails, though he does manage to kill the king's foremost flunky. However, at the eleventh hour it turns out that the deceased Ulrich is not quite sincerely dead, and that he's laid a secret plan to kill the dragon all along.

Robbins and Barwood's medieval world lacks many of the glorious tropes of heroic adventure. Casiodorus is not just an aristocratic parasite, but a fool, since he vainly hopes that the dragon will simply die someday. Galen sees this dream proved a folly when he invades the cavern and finds that Vermithrax has spawned a small brood of carnivorous dragonets-- which would eventually prey on the people as well, save that Galen kills them. The Christian priests are no better, being presented as vain in their trumped-up belief that God will save them from the ravening beast. Even Valerian's father, though approving of her alliance to Galen, admits that he'll be glad to see magic die away. Ulrich's plan, in effect, destroys both the last dragon and the last wizard, clearing the path for the triumph of materialism and general mediocrity. However, the last minutes of the movie allow Galen and Valerian to cherish the hope that at least a little magic will survive.

GODZILLA (2014)

 

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


In my review of SHIN GODZILLA I observed that it was the first Japanese-made Godzilla film since the original to focus entirely on a battle between the giant monster and the Japanese military. Of course, America's 1998 version followed that trope, but given the derivative nature of that movie, I tended to think its lack of other big monsters was largely reflective of the script's lack of imagination.

The 2014 effort has much in common with the "monster-vs.-military" trope, but it does labor mightily to orchestrate a climactic battle between this spanking-new incarnation of Godzilla and a couple of insect-monsters called "Mutos." In contrast to the 1998 film, 2014-Godzilla mines a trope seen in the first few Showa films, which asserts that creatures like Rodan, Anguirus and the Big G have migrated from caverns far beneath the Earth's surface. And although there are some fulminations against nuclear power in G-2014, this seems to be the first time a Godzilla-film suggested that these archaic monsters were mutated in archaic times, when the Earth was filled with naturally occurring radioactivity. This explanation does make it a little more logical that Godzilla and the Mutos should be attracted to radioactivity, and it even gives the Mutos their own counter-tactic against modern humans: the ability to project EMP waves that paralyze electrical functions.

Sad to say, this attention to mining earlier tropes provides G-2014's only attraction. While G-1998 is a competent blockbuster, G-2014 looks like it was made by a director trying to get noticed for his skill with military scenes (though apparently Gareth Edwards' only feature-length film was another creature-work, MONSTERS, which I have not seen).

The film suffers not just from dull human viewpoint characters, but also from an initial bifurcation of viewpoint. The initiating setup begins with Joe Brody, supervisor at a U.S.-Japanese atomic plant, who loses his beloved wife to an apparent nuclear meltdown. However, fifteen years later, Joe tries to convince his grown son Ford-- the real viewpoint character of the movie-- that the meltdown is actually a government cover-up for an anomalous event. Joe perishes, but Ford inherits his mission, and becomes the viewer's-eye that witnesses the cause of the anomaly, the resurrection of one of the Mutos. This creature's appearance brings forth its mate, as well as another prehistoric creature, one that preys on Mutos. A Japanese scientist (cannily named "Serizawa") gives this "alpha predator" the name of "Gojira."

The possible consequences of the Mutos mating and spreading more of their kind seems somewhat derivative of G-1998, and they become the film's central threat, with Godzilla as something of a coincidental rescuer. But Godzilla is sorely under-used, and the design of the Mutos is unimpressive-- when one can see anything at all, given that the lack of electricity eventuates in far too many scenes shot in partial darkness. Even the outdoor scenes are hard to see, though Edwards seems to find plenty of light when it comes to depicting military goings-on.

I wasn't crazy about SHIN GODZILLA devoting far too much attention to the humans buzzing around and trying to dope out the big monster. But at least some of the dialogue was okay, and the explanations of Godzilla's freakish nature were interesting. I can't say that any of the human characters of G-2014 held my attention even as well as Nick Tatoupoulos.

DICK TRACY VS. CRIME, INC. (1941)

 

 

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

The only reason I graded the last of the Dick Tracy serials as "fair" in mythicity is that the script makes an interesting use of an "invisible man" villain as a world-beating villain. H.G. Wells' original unseen predator talks a lot about taking over the world, but he's too crazy to organize a criminal empire. The Ghost, however, has exactly the right amount of moxie to do just that, and though he's not as spectacular looking as some other serial villains-- the Lightning, Ming the Merciless-- his mask gives him an imposing quality, if only because it remains, even when he's issuing orders to his minions, as motionless as a death-mask.

As in the other three serials comic-strip hero Dick Tracy is essayed by Ralph Byrd, who's back to being a city policeman after a brief stint as a G-man. The first serial from 1937 was noteworthy for giving the hero a "super-villain" before the character had encountered any in the relatively mundane comic strip, while the next two serials made more circumspect use of metaphenomenal elements. When CRIME INC debuted in American moviehouses in December 1941, Chester Gould still hadn't introduced very many of his signature villains in the strip, with the exception of the Mole in September 1951. The Ghost's use of an invisibility ray machine is far more outrageous than anything seen in the strip, yet in one sense the serial-villain has more background than most such world-conquerors. While some of his activities include finding better ways to menace the world-- the first chapter opens with his attempt to destroy New York City with an artificially induced earthquake-- the Ghost's more personal mission is to eliminate all the members of the crime commission responsible for the legal execution of the villain's equally criminal brother. Further complicating the situation is that Tracy comes to suspect that the villain is one of the council, though I was never clear if the Ghost was impersonating a staunch citizen or was simply a corrupt businessman from the word "go."

Though the Ghost is the main source of the serial's mythicity, the hero once again conveys the hard-nosed desire to extirpate all criminality. There's less byplay between Tracy and his various subordinates than in previous serials, though lead female June Chandler (Jan Wiley) contributes some telling assistance with her expertise in sound technology. There's also some good suspense generated by the fact that none of the heroes know that they're dealing with an invisible man, because the Ghost kills everyone who finds out about his powers. There are only a few scenes in which the Ghost invisibly intrudes upon his victims, which are considerably spookier than the average serial-murders. 

The guilty councilman is eventually revealed to be Ralph Morgan, who proves excellent in conveying the Ghost's emotions despite having his face covered all the time, The serial does make some use of stock footage, and only a few of the cliffhangers-- like the one entitled "Beheaded!"-- are memorable. But if CRIME INC isn't in the top ten of the best serials, it should have no trouble making it to the top twenty.

ADDENDUM: I always thought that the 1963 comic DOOM PATROL got its name from spoofing the name of a movie, THE DAWN PATROL, which debuted in 1930 and was remade in 1938. However, one chapter-title of this serial shows that the TRACY writers got the pun out there first:

HONOR ROLL #107. FEBRUARY 18

 "Pay no attention to the man behind the creepy mask"-- oops, wrong brother, this one's RALPH MORGAN.

If you think THE MUTOS were lame adversaries for Godzilla, wait till I get around to Megaguirus.

Before he was a nebbish on Ally McBeal, PETER MACNICOL was out there slaying dragons with the best of them.

No gladiators in this Italian post-apoc epic starring HARRISON MUELLER.

WENTWORTH MILLER made one of the better accomplices for Alice, that killer of evil residents.

And before PATRICK MCGOOHAN was convicted to the status of prisoner, he swashed buckles as a noble defender of his people, albeit on the wrong side of the law.

THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE (2017)

 

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


LEGO BATMAN also depends on a similar sociological lecture, but this time it's tied to the filmmakers' perception of Batman's imagined psychology. Here, instead of being an avenger obsessed with righting the unfairness of the world, he's Richie Rich As Superhero. Yes, there's a touch of the original Bat-trauma, which has caused him to shun almost all contacts with the outside world, save for his faithful butler/surrogate dad Alfred. But the trauma simply unleashes the Bat-Id, moving the crusader to pursue ever bigger and more ostentatious methods of crimefighting. He's Veblen's conspicuous consumption wrapped in a cape.

It's kind of fun to see a Batman who hasn't yet become saddled with Robin, and who won't even acknowledge Joker as his foremost villain-- which moves the Clown Prince to go looking for a new level of evil. He releases various famous non-DC villains from the Phantom Zone, and Batman's only way of thwarting all of these evils is to forge the bonds of family with New Robin, New Batgirl, and even his previous roster of rogues.

Again, most of the jokes in LEGO become repetitive pretty quickly. However, I must admit an affection for one that involves DOCTOR WHO's Daleks, which ends with Joker advising the audience to "ask your nerd friends" about them.

RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION (2007)

  

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

 

                   

 

Once again Paul W.S. Anderson handles only writing chores on an EVIL sequel, with Russell Mulcahy in the director’s chair. Since Raccoon City is annihilated at the end of the first sequel, Anderson decided to up the ante by having the virus go global. The T-virus, like Alice and her friends, successfully escapes the city, and within five years, the world undergoes a full-on apocalypse—which makes one wonder if the two sequels ought to have exchanged subtitles. In addition to the usual winnowing of humanity into isolated enclaves of survivors, the virus has also mutated other forms of life enough to change the geosphere, though Anderson’s script doesn’t spend any time explaining the fine points of this transformation.

 

Further, the opening sequence reveals that Umbrella has a new bolt in their technological quiver: that of cloning. Alice appears to die in the setup scenes, only to disclose that this martial female is one of many Alice-clones being put through their paces by the new bad guy, Professor Isaacs. The clones, despite developing telekinetic abilities, just don’t seem to share the mojo of the original heroine, which makes it imperative for the mad scientist to find Alice.

 

Alice—who also now sports telekinesis among her other bio-engineered attributes, is seen wandering the desert on her own, with no explanation of how she parted company with the surviving escapees from APOCALYPSE. Jill Valentine will show up in a later entry, but after assorted adventures the wandering warrior happens across a convoy of trucks seeking a haven from the viral effects. This convoy just happens to include two of the survivors from the first sequel, Olivera and L.J., while also introducing to the film-franchise another game character, Claire Redfield (Ali Larter). Alice’s new talent comes in handy to dispel an attack by mutated crows—one of the few animals seen having been victimized by the outbreak—and thereafter the heroine seeks to help the survivors find a safe haven.

 

Isaacs sends zombies to attack the caravan in order to capture Alice, but though most of the innocents die, Alice and a few others escape and mount an attack on the villain’s facility. Isaacs escapes after being bitten by a zombie, and by the time Alice arrives at his facility the mad scientist has become a mutated monster. The heroine naturally triumphs and then gains control of Umbrella’s stock of still viable Alice-clones, promising to use them against Umbrella’s higher-ups.

 

EXTINCTION is not nearly as strong as APOCALYPSE in terms of its action-sequences, and the decimation of the world here is little more than an excuse to provide the fighters with a new environment. This entry is an okay timekiller, nothing more.

FIREFOX (1982)

 

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


This Cold War spy-drama was adapted from a novel I've not read, by one Craig Thomas, an early innovator in the subgenre of "techno-thrillers." I found the film version pretty much bereft of thrills, as it's directed by star Clint Eastwood with a leaden hand.  For my theory the sole interest of FIREFOX is that it's the closest superstar Eastwood has ever got to what I've called the "superhero idiom."

Unlike the generation of action-stars who followed Eastwood-- principally Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis-- Eastwood largely stayed away from "metaphenomenal cinema" once he attained stardom.  Prior to FIREFOX, his best-known metaphenomenal exploit was that of playing the unnamed "jet squadron leader" who destroys the big spider of 1955's TARANTULA. After becoming a star, Eastwood characters sometimes fought psychotic villains, but they were of a naturalistic streak, whether they manifested as stalkers like the female psycho of 1971's PLAY MISTY FOR ME or the master assassin in 1993's IN THE LINE OF FIRE.  HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER presents a mixed bag in that the film suggests that Eastwood's avenging hero may be a ghost returned from death, though apparently this was not the original intention of the script.

The titular Firefox is a revolutionary new Soviet plane gifted with super-technology, in that it can become invisible to radar and can respond to the pilot's direct thought-impulses.  In a plotline better done in the STAR TREK episode "The Enterprise Incident," the Americans send Russian-speaking Air Force veteran Mitchell Gant (Eastwood) into Soviet territory.  Gant masquerades as a Soviet pilot in order to gain access to the Firefox project.  He is aided in this by Soviet dissidents, most notably those of Jewish extraction.  At one point Gant asks one of them if he isn't angry at how the U.S. uses him, knowing that the dissidents involved will probably die.  However, the fellow thinks it's worth it to take a shot at the evil KGB.

The film's emphasis on suspense over action leads me to label it a "drama" rather than an "adventure," even though there's precious little of the sort of personality conflict that usually dominates drama.  Gant has been traumatized by his experiences in Vietnam, symbolized by his regret at having seen an innocent young Vietnamese girl perish. His antipathy for killing-- perhaps intended as a change from hardasses like Dirty Harry-- causes him to miss the chance to kill a Soviet officer named Voskov.  Later, when Gant successfully steals the Firefox, Voskov follows Gant in a second Firefox-prototype.  This results in the film's one moderately strong action-sequence, in which Gant triumphs.  The film certainly intends the narrative to build to this clash, making it a "combative drama."  But there's no real emotional payoff, either in terms of Gant's emnity for Voskov or in terms of his purging his personal demons.

Oddly, in the latter part of the same year, 1982's FIRST BLOOD would introduce to film audiences a much more popular Commie-fighting hero, the redoubtable John Rambo.  Eastwood was certainly pursuing some anti-Communist themes here, but in his quest to keep things relatively realistic, he sapped his storyline of any potential for either high adventure or suspenseful skullduggery.

IMMORTALS (2011)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, metaphysical*

Tarsem Singh's IMMORTALS must make a little more effort [than WRATH OF THE TITANS] to provide a setup, for it’s presenting its first-time take on the adventures of the hero Theseus, who like Perseus finds himself caught between a clash of gods and Titans. However, the script provides little in the way of continuity or explication, so that as with WRATH the audience gets what amounts to a big-screen video game.

Most of the scenes in IMMORTALS Theseus feel cribbed either from Letterier’s CLASH or from Zack Snyder’s 300. Theseus—who in Greek mythology was the son of a mortal woman by Poseidon—is simply a mortal bastard who may or may not have been sired by a god. In the humble village where he is raised, the other peasants believe him the sire of soldiers who raped his mother. Theseus’ mother is a believer in the gods while her son is a skeptic. And though she’s right about the existence of the gods, in contrast to the real myths the gods barely interact with mortals. Zeus takes an interest in Theseus for his courage and fearlessness. But Zeus has a strict non-interference policy: gods are not supposed to interfere in the affairs of mortals unless the gods face danger from the peril of the Titans.

Hyperion, leader of a band of non-Greeks given the odd name of “Heraklions,” wishes to lay waste to the Greek nation not only by force of mortal arms but also by releasing the Titans from their rocky tomb. To do this he needs a magical god-weapon called the Bow of Epirus—supposedly forged by Herakles, who in real myth wasn’t exactly known for blacksmithing—with which he can blast open the Titans’ prison. One of Hyperion’s forays takes him to Theseus’ village, where he cuts the throat of the hero’s mother and sentences Theseus to the salt mines. In essence he becomes a symbolic “evil father” like the figure of Acrisius/Calibos in CLASH. However, Hyperion’s obsession with destroying the Greeks is given no more depth than the Persians’ lust for conquest in the Snyder 300.

Transitions take place with no regard for continuity. The oracle Phaedra—love-interest to Theseus, who somehow meets her on his way to the salt-mines—advises Thesesus to venerate his dead mother by going back to the village and burying his mother. This is one of the few sequences where the characters seem like archaic Greeks, reminding one of the Greek horror toward leaving the dead unburied seen in ANTIGONE. But the only real reason the sequence exists is so that he can discover the Epirus Bow hidden in a big rock inside the burial crypt. Who put it there? Was it supposed to be a test of Theseus’faith, which he passed by burying his mother? The script doesn’t bother to say.

Similarly, though logically one might expect Zeus to want to blast with lightning an impious mortal for seeking to free the Titans, instead Zeus wants Theseus to do the deed without help from the gods. To that end Zeus will even kill his own deific family members if they transgress his non-interference policy, though conveniently for the script, Zeus lets some of the gods help Theseus out of tough spots before the thunder-god lays down the law. This seems like a long way to go just to see a particular mortal accomplish his heroic goals—though to be sure, this is in line with IMMORTALS’ clumsy theme: that heroes’ glorious deeds are the only true source of “immortality.”

At some point Hyperion gets the Epirus Bow and approaches the walled city that bars his way to the Titans’ prison. Hyperion and Theseus face off in a pre-battle negotiation of terms, during which Hyperion plays Darth Vader and invites the hero to come over to his dark side, without success. The city’s ruling council is filled with the usual prating politicians seen in 300, and Theseus is forced to override them in order to lead the soldiers into battle with Hyperion’s forces. The battle even employs a version of the Spartan “hot gates” strategy from the Snyder film.

There follows a big battle involving mortals, gods and Titans, but Singh takes a mechanical approach to the battles, apparently emulating 300’s similar fight-choreography. For me this is the polar opposite of the kind of visceral thrills adventure-films should offer, and Singh succeds in this department even less than Zack Snyder in 300.

IMMORTALS outclasses WRATH in making some attempt at a theme. But the later film bungles it so badly that the comparison becomes moot.

GHOST ROCK (2003)

 

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


Any time one looks up an IMDB listing for a given film and finds a martial artist/actor listed as one of the "writers," one should be pretty sure what one is getting.  And sure enough, despite the Old West setting, GHOST ROCK is your basic American chopsocky with minor supernatural content.

In large part GHOST ROCK is cribbed from Clint Eastwood's 1973  "American spaghetti western" HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER.  In that film a man murdered in a corrupt town apparently comes back from the dead to avenge his murder.  Wikipedia claims that the original intent of the script was a naturalistic one, and would have revealed that avenger Eastwood was the twin of the murdered man.  That sensible explanation was dropped, with the result that in the film released the audience never got any rationale for the avenger's appearance.

In contrast, GHOST ROCK provides both a naturalistic and a supernaturalistic avenger.  Twenty years prior to the main body of the story, a gang of outlaws raid a small ranch.  A little girl is killed and the boy who knows her survives to seek vengeance twenty years later in the town of Ghost Rock.  However, for no explicit reason the little girl, grown to womanhood, shows up in town, fully armed and also seeking revenge on the outlaws.  She's literally a ghost, but thanks to budgetary constraints, she never walks through walls, allows bullets to pass through her, or the like.

Naturally there's no telling why it takes both natural-hero John (Michael Worth) and supernatural-heroine Savannah (Jenya Lano) so damn long to find the murderers, particularly when their leader Pickett (Gary Busey) is hiding in plain sight, serving as the mayor of Ghost Rock.  In addition, to make the presence of martial arts in the Old West slightly palatable, Ghost Rock has a substantial Chinese population, who are maltreated by Mayor Pickett and from whom John learned his non-American fighting-skills.  In addition to a second male martial artist who works for Pickett and gives John his best fights, even a couple of local prostitutes show off a couple of kung fu moves.  While no one would ever call the teleseries KUNG FU historically accurate, compared to this rampant silliness it's a veritable model of probity.

Lively gunfights and kung-fu battles make this dumb-fun western watchable but never memorable.  It does try to throw in a little humor, but sometimes the film's jokes are more peculiar than funny, as when saloon-madame Mattie (Adrienne Barbeau, currently pushing seventy years in age) is challenged to knock out a man with one punch, as if this is a common occurence in Ghost Rock's version of the Old West.  A commentary on Barbeau's fame as a "tough girl," or just giving the actress some extraneous "action" to perform to justify purchasing her services to enhance the film's "marquee value?"  On a star-spotting side-note, Worth-- best known to mainstream audiences for the syndie teleseries ACAPULCO HEAT-- is joined here by Christa Sauls, another HEAT veteran.

FEDERAL AGENTS VS. UNDERWORLD INC. (1949)

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

FEDERAL follows roughly the same approximate pattern, but generates its uncanny aspects via references to the past rather than to futuristic technology.  FEDERAL begins in the made-up country of Abistahn, where villainous revolutionary Nila (Carol Forman) seeks to obtain two artifacts-- human hands made of gold-- which can be used in conjunction with an ancient statue so as to reveal a massive treasure.  With that treasure, she plans to found a criminal organization of mammoth scope, "Underworld Inc."  It sounds like something on the scale of Fu Manchu's "Si-Fan," but unfortunately Nila's only allies are dimwit gangster Gordon (Roy Barcroft) and a few other plug-uglies.  Still, Nila's mini-organization is only matched by a couple of "federal men" and a female ally, so the sides are evenly matched.

The fights are better staged than those of the same year's RADAR PATROL VS. SPY KING, and Alyn's character is a little more breezy, but the cliffhangers are still lifeless, until the last few chapters, by which time the action has moved back to Abistahn.  The introduction of a new villain at the eleventh (serial) hour injects some added life in the story, as he dopes out how the "golden hand" artifacts can be used to activate ancient mechanisms in the statue so that it will disclose the treasure.  The doom of Nila comes about due to the activation of the statue, which also contributes to the final chapter's stronger showing.

HONOR ROLL #106, FEBURARY 14

ROSEMARY LAPLANCHE doesn't think this gag very funny.

JENYA LANO plays a "good monster" in the form of a ghostly avenger in this wacky western.

No immortality for KELLAN LUTZ in a less than immortal fantasy.

Famous for playing an evil Nazi, RONALD LACEY transitioned to a Communist doctor.

ALI LARTER joins Milla in beating back all those Evil Residents.

"His superpower is being a rich goofball," if you can believe LEGO BATMAN. 

GREEN LANTERN (2011)

 

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

When it's good, GREEN LANTERN is a dazzling rock'em, sock'em space opera that's true to the Silver Age comic series.

When it's bad, GREEN LANTERN is a minefield full of what Harold Bloom might call its "anxieties of influence."  Those anxieties include not only GL's relationship to other popular films, superhero and otherwise, but also to many of the influence-anxieties spawned by the many raconteurs who have worked on the comic book.

My initial viewing of GREEN LANTERN in the theater was relatively positive, so I was surprised to see such vehement dislike for the film, especially on fan-forums.  I decided to wait on reviewing it until I could find time to screen it on DVD.

The film's biggest problem is the hero himself.  The original Silver Age hero was largely a flat character with a few interesting "tics" (daredevil pilot, charmer with the ladies).  Over time, in response to greater demands for detailed characterization, Hal Jordan was eventually supplied with a backstory about a pilot father who died tragically.  The 2011 film takes this daddy-issue anxiety and essentially re-interprets the Green Lantern mythos in almost Freudian terms.  Not a half-hour of the film goes by that doesn't have someone fearing the loss of a father or mentor, fearing their lack of approval, or even-- in the case of subsidiary villain Hector Hammond-- hitching his star to an evil alien "god" who turns out to be a Satanic "devouring daddy."

Overt psychologizing should generally be approached with a light touch in superhero fiction.  It worked well enough in Geoff Johns' GREEN LANTERN: REBIRTH graphic novel, which in 2004 resuscitated the hero from a long period of over-involved continuity escapades (none of which are relevant here, except to note that Johns' star was so elevated by REBIRTH that it's reported he became an adviser on the film-script).  Similarly, the script for Sam Raimi's 2002 SPIDER-MAN made light use of the psychological idea of "sibling rivalry," briefly portraying Harry Osborn's frustation when his overbearing father Norman dismisses Harry and focuses his paternal approval on a young man, Peter Parker, to whom Osborn's not even related.

The film, unfortunately, does not take such a light touch.  Its Hal Jordan (essayed competently but not quite persuasively by Ryan Reynolds) is a self-absorbed "danger junkie" whose latent daddy issues mark him as closer to the "child-men" of Judd Apatow comedies than to any heroic archetype.  His relatives and his ex-girlfriend/boss Carol all worry about him incessantly: why can't Hal straighten up and fly right?  Carol even explicitly calls him a child, and the script's attempts to make Hal sympathetic through reference to his trauma at witnessing his dad's death don't pan out. 

Despite all this, the film tells us (even though Hal himself takes a overly long time to believe it) that Hal has the Right Stuff.  An introductory montage explains the origins of the Guardians of the Universe and their purpose to maintain order with the Green Lantern corps, who fight evil using power rings filled with the "green power" of the will.  However, in the film's metaphysical rewriting of the original comics-mythos, "green power" is opposed by the "yellow power" of fear, which saps the will and leaves one unable to function.  And just as the Lanterns incarnate the positive green power, a colossal entity named Parallax incarnates the power of fear.  It's eventually revealed that Parallax is a mutated Guardian who had the foolhardiness to break into a "forbidden chamber" with the idea of mastering the yellow power; instead, it mastered and corrupted him.

An outstanding Green Lantern named Abin Sur-- mentor to a younger Lantern, name of Sinestro-- manages to confine Parallax temporarily within a star-sector, but the monstrous creature begins to break free.  Abin Sur escapes but is struck by a poisonous yellow effluvium from Parallax.  Dying, he plummets to Earth and commands the ring to seek out "one without fear": Hal Jordan. 

Back in space, the Green Lanterns, having failed to keep Parallax confined, still find the time to summon their new appointee to the Guardians' planet to apprise him of his duties and give him some bootcamp-style training.  Sinestro-- whom comics-readers know as GL's perennial villain-- is a good guy at this point, but disdainful of his mentor's selection, for Sinestro senses the new hero's latent fears and goes out of his way to discourage Hal.  In a move that doesn't inspire the viewer with much confidence in the protagonist, Hal does temporarily give up and go back to Earth.  For some reason he's allowed to keep the ring and power battery, which comes in handy when he changes his mind in time to save Carol from danger.

Elsewhere on Earth, xenobiologist Hector Hammond assumes a role rather like that of Harry Osborn in the SPIDER-MAN films, in that Hector has a senator-father who treats his son like a loser.  To complete the Norman Osborn trope, the senator also extolls Hal over his son--in Hector's presence-- in no uncertain terms: "There are thinkers and there are doers, and you're a doer!"  To be sure, Hal himself arouses envy in Hector, in that Hector was in love with Carol but lost out to Jordan.  (Possibly the writers were building on the first comic-book Hammond tale, in which Hector competes with Jordan for Carol's affections.)  But surely it's Hec's "bad dad" who is most responsible for his son's travails: the senator uses his influence to have Hector assigned to examine the corpse of Abin Sur.  The yellow effluvia infects the scientist, who becomes a big-brained mutant with mental powers (a somewhat more grotesque rendering of the comics-villain).  He sells out body, soul and planet to aid Parallax-- whose first target, on escaping confinement, happens to be Earth.

In our Freudianized culture there's been so much emphasis of father-trauma that it is hard to do anything original with the trope, especially in a superhero adventure.  Still, the confrontation of Hector and Hal plays out as overly artificial.  In their second squaring-off, Hector captures Carol in order to neutralize the hero's ability to strike back. "I Ioved her from the moment I first saw her," says Hector. "But she could never see me, as you were always standing in the way."  Hal, having tried and failed to convince the enthralled scientist that they're both brothers under the skin ("I know what it's like to be afraid"), offers Hector a new temptation: to "be like me," implicitly to give himself an ultimate makeover if he'll trade Carol's life for the power ring.  (As a side-note, in the comics Hector Hammond was the first villain to ever gain control of GL's power ring, albeit temporarily.)  Fortunately GL's will proves superior and he orders the ring to vanquish the demented scientist.  A few moments later, Hector is killed when Parallax devours him for having "failed me".  Poor Hec; just couldn't stay away from demanding father-figures.

On top of all this father-anxiety and devilish temptation, at one point the Guardians themselves are tempted to follow the lead of Parallax: to tap into the yellow power in order to defeat Parallax.  Sinestro, mentor of the Green Lantern who first confined the fear-demon, yields to temptation as well, advocating use of the yellow power.  Green Lantern manages to talk the Guardians out of using the weapons of the enemy against the enemy, but then-- for reasons that weren't all that clear to me-- he's left to defend his planet from Parallax alone.  When Hal triumphs, the script repeatedly emphasizes that he does so not because he was free from fear, but because he manages to conquer his fears with his will.  Ironically, in a coda during the credits, it will be Sinestro-- who boasted of his freedom from mortal fear-- who goes against the Guardians and dons a ring of yellow, foreshadowing his conversion to outright villainy for purposes of a sequel.

As I said at the review's beginning, GREEN LANTERN is not a bad film in the least, but it may have been a mistake to rethink the concept in such strikingly Oedipal terms-- at least, if the scripters could only handle such issues in pedestrian fashion.  With SPIDER-MAN, the emphasis on good and bad fathers appears in that character's mythos from Story One.  But GREEN LANTERN in its conception had a more abstract appeal.  Temptation is a strong theme from the Silver Age stories, which moderns like Geoff Johns have elaborated into a complex comic-book mythology.  But Freud's "family romance" seems to have very little relevance to the Green Lantern mythology, and many of the film's overblown pronouncements on the nature of fear come off as mere truisms.

Nevertheless, the CGI here gave us a great-looking film, and was surely the only method by which the spectacular effects of the power ring could ever be rendered in live-action.  Rumor has it that a sequel will be made, if only because it'll be less expensive now that the CGI-programs have already been written.  I hope it comes to pass, for now that the producers have got viewers over the hump of "the origin," they may be really be able to cut loose in Part 2.