DC SUPER HEROES: THE FILMATION ADVENTURES (1967/2008)

 

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

                                   

Much as I liked these old interstitial cartoons from the 1960s Filmation Studios AQUAMAN teleseries when I was a kid, I never expected that they’d be given their own DVD. I would have thought that if they showed up anywhere, it would’ve been on a multi-disc DVD for AQUAMAN. For whatever reason, though, there’s now a separate DVD set just for the King of the Seven Seas. Thus, what we have here are six “micro-serials” devoted to popular DC comics-franchises—Flash, Atom, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Teen Titans and Justice League— wherein each franchise got three seven-minute cartoons apiece. Originally each individual cartoon would be broadcast in between two Aquaman cartoons. This program provided the first animated adaptation for all of these features, but the exposure didn’t lead to any spin-offs, though they may have given Saturday morning programming execs a little more familiarity with the DC characters, which MIGHT have abetted the 1970s launch of the long-lived SUPER RIENDS program. That said, whoever produced the packaging of this 2-disc set was apparently confused about who lived in the DC universe, given that the images for the discs’ “main menu” screens include the character Birdman, who originally appeared in his own 1960s show from the Hanna-Barbera Studios.

 

The three ATOM cartoons are among the weakest offerings, since the extremely limited Filmation animation couldn’t really put across the athletic appeal of the Tiny Titan. The one episode of any interest pits the hero against a rogue scientist with control over mutated plants. This villain may have been loosely modeled upon the Plant Master character from the ATOM feature. The other episodes, concerning alien beetle-men and a standard mad scientist, are forgettable.

 

The FLASH cartoons—two of which co-star the hero’s juvenile sidekick Kid Flash—aren’t much better, since the animation couldn’t convey the excitement of running really fast. The biggest trick in the bags of these two Flashes is being able to vibrate through walls, and that trick isn’t enough to give much oomph to episodes about a giant mutated ant and a robot-making mad scientist. Slightly better is a story about an alien criminal speedster named Blue Bolt, who for some reason obtains speed-powers when he touches down on Planet Earth, and who creates havoc on the planet until he’s tossed back into space.

 

The GREEN LANTERN episodes, though, are the best of the offerings, and that may be because the titular hero, in place of fast physical action, employs a lot of fancy rays and energy-constructs in battling other SF-themed foes. It’s the only interstitial cartoon that’s totally faithful to adapting a DC Comics villain, a fellow named Evil Star who has a nice “dueling energy constructs” battle with the hero. The SF-theme also gives this micro-series access to more outre material, such as an evildoer seeking to release space-criminals from a dimensional rift while imprisoning Green Lantern and his friend Cairo in that otherverse. Cairo, incidentally, is a blue-skinned Venusian teenager who works for the Lantern’s other ID Hal Jordan. I assume Cairo was loosely based on "Pieface" Kalmaku, the (fully adult) Eskimo sidekick of the comic-book Green Lantern, though this blue-skinned youth talks hip-talk along the lines of the Justice League mascot Snapper Carr. Cairo provides a small dollop of comedy relief, which is more than Tusky the Walrus ever did for Aquaman.  

 

It was inevitable that a character like Hawkman, with an extremely complicated comics-backstory, would get simplified as much as possible. Thus, this version of the Winged Wonder is an alien scientist who, for no particular reason, lives on Earth masquerading as a Terran scientist while dressing up in hero-gear to fight alien invaders. Filmation rather logically dispenses with the original character’s penchant for archaic weapons and gives him talon-gauntlets that can fire various rays, much like the power bands of Hanna-Barbera’s Space Ghost. (I confess as a kid I quite liked the gauntlets, but I don’t think the comics-character ever used anything comparable.) Hawkman also has an eagle mascot, Skreel, who’s surprisingly not played for any comedy relief. All three episodes deal with routine alien menaces, though one tale boasts an interesting archaic name. Hawkman journeys to an alien world to rescue some Earth-astronauts from the denizens there, who worship a graven image by the name “Pythorex.” This sounds like faux-Greek for “King Python,” so I assume the writer knew of the tradition in which Greek oracles communed with a spirit, sometimes called “Python,” in order to make their predictions. To be sure, neither the statue nor its worshipers predict anything; instead the graven image boasts a forehead-gem that can mesmerize people, which is slightly reminiscent of the three-eyed statue in the 1940 THIEF OF BAGDAD.

 

The Justice League cartoons offer some pleasure in seeing how the scripts juggle the various powers of the heroes—Superman, Flash, Atom, Green Lantern, and Hawkman (but not Aquaman!)—as they ward off more alien threats. The only villain worth mentioning is an extraterrestrial villain named Mastermind, who nearly kills Superman in a kryptonite trap.

 

Sadly, the Teen Titans cartoons boast the dullest scripts, and there’s not as much colorful use of the respective powers of Aqualad, Kid Flash, Speedy and Wonder Girl. These three cartoons’ only distinction is that they’re the first cartoons to adapt a comic-book superheroine, so that Wonder Girl arrived on the adaptation scene before her “sire” Wonder Woman. Not that the Amazon Princess gets much to do, since in one episode, she appears to faint when a huge monster roars in her face!

 

The DVD set also includes a short documentary on the life of Filmation exec Lou Scheimer. However, the set egregiously omits the best thing about the interstitial cartoons: a rousing, albeit extremely corny, theme song, to wit:

Superman! Aquaman!
All the super-duper heroes,
They always fight for what is right!
Live with danger and adventure,
They are Men of Might!

Superman, the Man of Steel
Performs super deeds with ease!
Aquaman's the bold and daring
King of the Seven Seas!

Hawkman, from another planet
Swoops down on the foe!
Nothing stops the Teen Titans
Anywhere they go!

Flash defies the eye to follow
With his super speed!
Against the force of evil
The Atom will succeed!

Green Lantern's power ring
Can accomplish anything!

Superman! Aquaman!
All the super superheroes
Are the Justice League of America,
Men of Might!

RESIDENT EVIL: DAMNATION (2012)

 

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

The animated film DAMNATION-- the second film of its kind, and released in the U.S. slightly after RETRIBUTION-- manages to keep some of that old kickass feel. Again, since I don't follow the games, perhaps I enjoyed DAMNATION better simply because it was my introduction to two new characters, American soldier Leon S. Kennedy and devious spy-girl Ada Wong.  Wong actually shows up in RETRIBUTION as well, but her character in the live-action movie lacks the gusto of the animated version.  In addition, DAMNATION, in addition to the usual slobbering alien-predator mutant monsters, benefits from a strong villain, lady president Svetlana Belikova of the "Eastern Slav Republic."

I can't say that either film's plot stuck with me very long, but DAMNATION scored with me by creating some incidental characters-- albeit characters doomed to perish almost immediately-- a small band of Slav rebels attempting to fight Belikova but also attracted to American pop culture.  In contrast, RETRIBUTION was just the same old group of recurring characters, and so proved a little on the boring side.  Possibly Paul Anderson took it easy with this one while warming up for his supposed big finale.

FLESH GORDON (1974)

 

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

FLESH GORDON is a pretty good sex-comedy send-up of the Universal "Flash Gordon" serials. Reportedly Universal Pictures tried to block it with a plagiarism suit, and this may have engendered the prefatory title-card before the film begins, wherein the producers attempt to convince the public of their deep regard for such "superheroes" as Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Superman and Captain Marvel.

Though I'm sure the producers' main concern was to make a buck, FLESH has its moments if one takes it on its own terms as pure farce, without expecting to see any satirical barbs against the venerable space-opera of comic-strip and movie fame. The narrative's sole concern is to replay the familiar setups of the original 1936 serial-- albeit with a few touches taken from other FLASH movies-- and to jazz up their sexual content.

This isn't altogether inappropriate, for both the early comic strip and the first of the three serials are replete with tons of sumptuous sexual imagery. The other two serials and the strip in its later days become considerably toned down into simplistic space opera, but sexuality was a major part of the early FLASH. Note this tableau from the first serial, showing five of the main players: noble Flash, who wants Dale but who is desired by nasty Princess Aura, while to the side you see both Ming and Vultan, both of whom made unsuccessful assaults on Dale's chastity.

Though FLESH GORDON is never more than baggy-pants comedy, I can appreciate that the producers didn't indulge in a lot of irrelevant silliness, but stuck with their one basic trope: jazzing up the sex in the extravagant situations. Whereas the story originally started out with Earth being menaced by cataclysms brought on by the approach of Ming's wandering planet Mongo, now "Wang the Perverted" of "Porno" bombards the Earth with sex-rays, causing all affected to do the nasty with each other. Flesh, "Dale Ardor" and "Flexi Jerkoff" journey to Porno, though they are hit by the sex-rays en route and enjoy a (not very explicit) three-way. Once the threesome arrive on Porno, Wang takes them prisoner. He decides to keep Dale for himself, to put Flexi to work in the labs, and to hurl Flesh to the arena to be killed. In the 1936 serial, Flash fights two muscular men with fangs, who try to kill him: in place of this, Flesh fights fanged women who might be trying to hump him, kill him, or both. I imagine that this might become tedious for some viewers, particularly since the sex-scenes aren't all that good, but I preferred the repetition of one okay joke in place of a dozen bad ones.

I mentioned that FLESH sometimes borrowed from later serials. The film doesn't parody the devilish Princess Aura, who seeks to seduce Flash away from Dale, but it does, strangely enough, reproduce a MAD-ized version of Queen Azura, who appeared in the comic in 1935, and in the second FLASH serial in 1938. The film gives viewers a "Queen Amora" who can magically vanish like the one in the 1938 serial, and who spirits Flash away from Ming's court, has sex with him, and then gets unceremoniously killed-- which made me wonder why the writers even bothered with her.

Of course, many of the jokes fall flat. I didn't mind that the film's version of Prince Barin is gay-- after all, his main role in the strip is to be Aura's consolation prize when Flash refuses her-- but "Prince Precious" just isn't funny. There are other predictable riffs: ships that look like phalli, "penisauruses," "rape robots," and a gigantic idol who comes to life and flashes the middle finger at his foes. It's all pretty routine, but happily the three main actors playing Flesh, Dale and Flexi play it generally straight, reacting to all the lunacy just as stolidly as the serial-characters. Jason Williams is a particularly good road-company Flash Gordon, and doesn't make the character sappy like the actor who took over the part in 1989's FLESH GORDON MEETS THE COSMIC CHEERLEADERS. Also, Flesh may be in a silly world, but he's given as much combative chutzpah as Buster Crabbe in his day, so this comedy falls into the combative mode.

WIZARDS OF THE LOST KINGDOM II (1989)

 

 

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

As the above still indicates, I watched a MST3K version of WIZARDS II for this review. On occasion I'll find the bot-chatter too distracting from the actual film, but in this case there wasn't any dissonance. WIZARDS II is making fun of itself quite as much as any routine on the Satellite of Love.

The only connection between this film and the original WIZARDS  is that producer Roger Corman ostensibly made money with the first one, and so he greenlighted a "sequel" in name only, directed by Corman's long-time collaborator Charles B. Griffith, who co-wrote the script with one Lane Smith. (Lead actor Mel Welles had also co-scripted an earlier film with Griffith, 1965's SHE BEAST, so I would hazard that Welles might have contributed some of his own lines to the mix.) Not that anyone should be proud of the WIZARDS II script. 

I find myself debating over which WIZARDS was worse. The Ed Naha script for the first film was just as sloppy as the Griffith-Lane narrative, in that both are content to recycle fantasy-tropes at their most stereotypical level. But in Naha's story, there was at least the germ of a Freudian fantasy-- Bad Mommy and Bad Daddy kill Good Daddy, after which Bad Daddy tries to make it with the Good Daddy's Good Daughter. The Griffith-Lane script is designed to do nothing but mark time, giving its heroes a collection of empty quests to complete before the film comes to an end.

Griffith may at least have sought to duplicate one aspect of WIZARDS I. The first flick focuses on the avuncular relationship of a wise old Han Solo figure to a naive young Luke Skywalker character. WIZARDS II spends most of its time on elderly magician Caedmon (Welles) tutoring the Chosen One Tyor (Bobby Jacoby) in magic, so that together they can overthrow Loki, Donar, and Zarz, the three tyrant-wizards who rule the land. (Why give just one wizard a nonsense-name while the other two get the cognomens of Earth-gods? Who knows?) Caedmon converts Tyor to the cause with nearly no argumentation at all, though, being that this is a Corman film, Caedmon may have whispered to the youth that he'd get to see a lot of female booty on the quest.

Not all of the magicians' allies are female. One is a master swordsman, The Dark One (top-billed David Carradine in a really bad wig), and there's another guy, Erman, who appears for one sequence and then vanishes. However, the magi also get aid from a swordswoman named Amathea, played by Lana Clarkson, who essayed a heroine with the same name in an earlier Corman-production, BARBARIAN QUEEN. Possibly Clarkson was cast just so that Corman could once again plunder old footage from that film in order to save bucks on WIZARDS II. Another ally is a dancer (Susan Lee Hoffman), whose big moment consists of breaking a guard's neck with a leg-lock. In addition, Caedmon and Tyor also encounter a trio of captive ladies held by a demoness, and a hot young henchwoman of Donar's tries to seduce Tyor (a motif which may have been borrowed from WIZARDS I).

There's a lot of fighting, with both swords and sorcery, but it's pedestrian at best, though Clarkson comes off best-- certainly better than Carradine, who looks bored even in the battle scenes. As noted before, though this is isn't a full-fledged comedy, the script is full of tongue-in-cheek anachronisms and clumsy attempts at double entendre, as when Tyor threatens the hot henchwoman with a sword, saying, "Show me where the sword is, or I'll skewer you like you've never been skewered before." 

WIZARDS II does have the edge over the previous film in that Two has more familiar faces with which to conjure. Bobby Jacoby, veteran of various teen comedies, was at least a more competent performer than Vidal Peterson, and Welles at least commits to his silly role better than did Bo Svenson. The script brings together, albeit briefly, two actors best known for their villains: Sid Haig of BIG BIRD CAGE fame, and Henry Brandon, who rendered the best portrait of Sax Rohmer's devil-doctor in THE DRUMS OF FU MANCHU. (WIZARDS II was also Brandon's final film.) But since the jokes aren't funny and most of the action is boring, I guess that Naha's WIZARDS wins the contest, such as it was.

PROJECT SHADOWCHASER I-II (1992, 1994)

 

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


I had seen PROJECT SHADOWCHASER III years ago on cable, and for many years had no idea what the other installments were like. YouTube gave me the chance to find out. (Note: Part III is not reviewed here as it is not a combative film.)

The opening film from 1992 is essentially "Die Hard with a Killer Android."  In a near-future setting some terrorists break into a government installation. There they find and liberate an intelligent android being kept on ice. The android, name of Romulus (Frank Zagarino), takes over the gang, and they invade a high-rise hospital in order to kidnap the daughter of the president.  More or less by accident, the authorities also unleash a convict from cryo-sleep, name of DaSilva (Martin Kove). To keep his freedom DaSilva braves the high-rise and begins knocking off terrorists in the approved John McClane manner, with a little help from the aforesaid daughter (Meg Foster). It's a tolerably executed cheesy action-flick with decent direction from Jon Eyres, also the director on the other two in the official series.

Next up is 1994's SHADOWCHASER II, aka NIGHT SIEGE. Although Romulus appears to be destroyed at the end of the 1992 film, again an android-- this time without a name, but identical in appearance and again played by Zagarino-- recruits a bunch of terrorists. With this gang he proceeds to take over a nuclear plant, apparently in the hope of triggering armageddon. This time the tough McClane-clone is Frank (Bryan Genesse), a janitor at the nuclear facility, who for no clear reason is a master of the martial arts.  Of the three films, this one puts forth the best hard-hitting fight-scenes, particularly a face-off between Unnamed Android and Forgettable Janitor-Hero at the conclusion.  Female lead Beth Toussaint is both a physicist at the plant and a working mom, so of course her young boy arrives during the chaos in order to up the tension a bit.

JUNGLE JIM IN THE FORBIDDEN LAND (1952)

 

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

JUNGLE JIM IN THE FORBIDDEN LAND is in essence another "elephant's graveyard" tale of the sort that launched Tarzan into the sound era.  The villains, led by a nasty female mastermind named Denise (Jean Willes), hatch a plan to defy the governmental protection on elephants and to massacre many of the animals for their ivory.  For some overcomplicated reason
Denise and her buddies need the aid of a race of prehistoric giants-- two of which are in captivity-- who can lead them to the elephants.  Jungle Jim, on his way to the giants' land with an acerbic lady scientist in tow, naturally gets involved.

The "Jungle Jim" films never attempted to stress environmental concerns as much as the contemporaenous "Bomba" films, but FORBIDDEN does at least touch on such concerns.  In keeping with most jungle films, the evil rapacious whites are seen as the exceptions to the rule, as against the essentially benevolent (though in this film, often rather stupid) white ruling government.

The giants-- a big hairy male and a smaller hairy female-- don't really do very much in the story, although the male goes on a couple of rampages and has a brief bout with former Tarzan Weismuller.  The most enjoyable aspect of FORBIDDEN is the performance of Jean Willes as the venal Denise, who turns on the man who made her his ward (a patent father-substitute) and has him killed when he obstructs her plans.  She ends up being killed by the male giant, the sort of development that might contain a  Freudian theme or three.

HONOR ROLL #112, MARCH 26

 JEAN WILLES has some trouble with a damn dirty ape-man.

If FRANK ZAGARINO played Romulus, what happened to his brother Remus?

MEL WELLES, last of the roadshow Gandalfs.

JASON WILLIAMS shows off his Flesh for his fans.

In this animated tale devoted to evils residential, Alice goes down some rabbit hole while ADA WONG takes up the slack.

Fun fact: DC's WONDER GIRL received an animated adaptation long before there was one for her "big sis" Wonder Woman.

BATMAN VS. THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2019)

 

 

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

I have not read the crossover-comic on which this video is based, but a quick perusal of the comic's writeup on Wiki suggests that the DVD follows the broad outlines of the comic's plot. The Ninja Turtles and their venerable foe The Shredder end up carrying their grudge fight from the Turtles' version of New York into Baman's Gotham. After the inevitable "fight because of a misunderstanding," Batman, two of his Bat-Brood, and the four terrapin terrors team up against Shredder, his ally Ra's Al Ghul, and most of Batman's regular rogues' gallery. The heroes win and everybody goes back to their normal worlds.

I suspect that the nature of the video may have encouraged its scripters to really lay on the jokes with a vengeance. The original TURTLES comics, for all the absurdity of the premise, pursued their course of "serious funny animals" in the style of Frank Miller with only minimal humor as I recall. However, all of the cartoon and live-action adaptations played up the wild and crazy aspects of the four Turtle brothers, and for better or worse, most people think of the characters as dominated by comedy. 

But in the case of BATMAN/TURTLES the video, it's a welcome change from all the super-serious Batman DTV flicks. Batman of course remains bereft of a sense of humor, but Batgirl and one version of Robin are around to make certain that Michelangelo doesn't get all the funny lines. But the action-scenes are given good attention as well, particularly the early face-off between the Caped Crusader and the ninja teenagers. A long mid-film struggle pits the good guys against most of Batman's enemies, all mutated by the all-purpose mutagen, "the Ooze," brought to Gotham by the evil Shredder, and most of this sequence is strong, though I could have lived without seeing Mister Freeze mutated into a polar bear. This sequence, with its extensions of the Bat-rogues, is also the main reason that the video gets a "fair" mythicity rating-- although it of passing interest to hear Ra's Al Ghul make an arch comment on Batman's tendency to induct "children" into his crusade, given that the Turtles are, like Robin and Batgirl, more or less adolescents.

In contrast to many Bat-films, this one captures some of the innocent absurdities that once dominated both the Batman feature and comic books generally.

KILL BILL 1-2 (2003-04)

 

 

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

SHERIFF: "If you was a moron, you could almost admire [the carnage]."

_________

KIDDO: "Are you calling me a superhero?"

BILL: "I'm calling you a killer. A natural born killer [...] All those people you killed to get to me-- felt good, didn't it?"

___________

Because Quentin Tarantino (henceforth QT) is so well known for his snappy dialogue and mastery of ultraviolent action, many viewers tend to overlook certain other propensities. One such is QT's ability to dramatically shift the perspectives of his apparently simple characters in order to force audiences to make their own evaluations as to how villainous or heroic they may be.

KILL BILL, for all of its signaling to different genres and story-tropes, is first and foremost a revenge-fantasy, a trope-category that transcends genres. The "carnage" referenced in the first quote above takes place when the pregnant Beatrice Kiddo (Uma Thurman) is almost murdered by the titular Bill (David Carradine of KUNG FU fame) and his gang of professional assassins, a level of mayhem that ought to inspire almost anyone to seek bloody vengeance. Yet Kiddo is not the innocent victim seen in most revenge-dramas. She too was one of Bill's killers, and although QT never shows Kiddo plying her trade, she is, as Bill says in the second cited quote, "a natural born killer." The viewer has no way of knowing if Bill is correct, for QT reveals nothing regarding Kiddo's early development, not even supplying any reason as to why she chose the life of an assassin. Her story-arc is all about the future.

Kiddo attempts to leave behind the killer's life in order to make a better life for B.B., the daughter she conceives by Bill. She attempts to fake her own death and to subsume her old life by marrying an ordinary small-town guy. But Bill finds her in the midst of a wedding rehearsal, so he and his top four aides slaughter everyone in the party and almost kill Kiddo. Only one life is deliberately spared, since apparently Bill somehow manages to remove the unborn B.B. from her wounded mother's womb via Caesarian section. But for most of Part I, Kiddo-- who awakens from a coma four years later-- does not know that B.B. still lives. Thus she goes after all those who attacked her and her child, starting with the four top aides before going after Bill himself. Yet the question that Bill will raise in Part 2 is suggested by the events of Part 1: in seeking bloody vengeance, is Beatrix Kiddo even a hero, much less a "superhero?"

Kiddo certainly comes off as heroic compared to the outright villains, though, to be sure, by the time she awakens, two of Bill's top aides have left his service, just as Kiddo intended to. Bill's aide O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) is not only the only character in the film to get a substantial "origin story," she becomes, with Bill's covert help, the queen-pin of the Japanese Yakuza. Yet QT doesn't begin with Kiddo's spectacular assault on O-Ren and her many henchmen. He saves that for the film's climax, while the opening action sequence shows Kiddo ruthlessly track down one of the retired henchwomen, Vernita Green (Viveca A. Fox), now settled down in suburbia with a husband and daughter. Even though the viewer still empathizes with Kiddo, this setup is meant to throw some doubt into the justice of her quest. 

Vernita's defeat. though seen first, actually takes place after Kiddo's Japanese adventure, including her acquisition of a fabulous Japanese samurai blade, with which she defeats O-Ren and her gang of henchmen, all of whom wield only swords and seem not to have heard of firearms. Here too, despite the audience's tendency to view Kiddo as a hero, she takes a certain pleasure not only in dismembering many of O-Ren's lackies, but also in claiming ownership of their severed limbs. 

Part 2 veers in a different direction. The triumphant Kiddo next goes after the other aide who left Bill's service, Bill's brother Budd (Michael Madsen). Despite possessing only very basic resources, Budd neatly mousetraps Kiddo and consigns her to a living death; that of being stuck in a coffin and buried alive. This leads to a long flashback in which Kiddo thinks back to her training under Bill's previous tutor Pai Mei (Gordon Liu)-- which sequence becomes relevant when the viewer learns that the martial master taught Kiddo a maneuver that gets her free of the coffin. Before Kiddo can take vengeance on Budd, her last hench-foe, Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) kills Budd-- after which Kiddo vanquishes Elle with a short but intensely violent battle-- thus leaving the heroine's path clear to face her ultimate foe.

Having laid out some of the ways in which Kiddo's vengeance-quest is rendered problematic, I'll refrain from spelling out the encounter of Kiddo and Bill, except to say that Bill gets more than ample time to tell his side of the story, in which Kiddo again doesn't quite come off as spotless, much less an altruist after the examples of American comic-book superheroes.

And yet, QT almost certainly does not mean for the viewer to take Bill's discourse at face value. Bill associates superheroes and natural born killers only on one basis: that both of them exist outside the realm of ordinary people, what Bill calls "worker bees." Kiddo never tries to counter any of Bill's arguments; her sole desire is to avenge her injury by Bill and to reclaim B.B., in order to keep the four-year-old child from being corrupted. (To be sure, even the little girl isn't entirely "innocent" in QT's world, as one learns from the tale of Emilio the Goldfish.)

But although Kiddo's altruism doesn't go beyond her concern for her daughter, her existence is a refutation of Bill's concept of the superhero. Bill makes most of her discourse about Superman, but Kiddo is really Batman. Batman learns the ways of crime to fight crime, and Kiddo learns the ways of death to fight the minions of death. The "worker bees" will never know it, but their world has been made better by the elimination of these evildoers, opening up more possibilities for the future.

All of the principals are excellent in their roles, but of course Uma Thurman and David Carradine take the top honors, with the part of Bill appearing as both a homage and an undercutting of Carradine's classic role of Kwai Chang Caine from KUNG FU. QT's eclectic sampling of musical themes is never less than accomplished, but my particular favorite appears in the Death of Bill, scored with an excerpt from Ennio Morricone's "Return of Joe" from the otherwise unremarkable spaghetti western NAVAJO JOE.

 

FUTURE FORCE (1989)

 

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

You have committed a crime and are presumed guilty. You have the right to die. --John Tucker, FUTURE FORCE.

If the writer of FUTURE FORCE had concocted more brain-fried lines like this one, the film might deserve inclusion in the Edward Wood Hall of Fame. Certainly the basic idea is more ambitious—albeit in a dumb way—than dozens of other direct-to-video flicks, both with and without David Carradine. It’s because of that idea that FORCE even earns a “fair” mythicity rating, though the execution is no better than it has to be.

Tough future cops with “Dirty Harry” delusions of grandeur were nothing new even in 1989, but FUTURE FORCE, rather than directly imitating some popular model, inverts its chosen template. The original ROBOCOP of 1985 was noteworthy in that it gave viewers a futuristic conflict between a government-sanctioned police force and an ambitious corporation seeking to privatize police services. Director David A. Prior, scripting with another writer, ignores this sociological conflict and posits a near-future setting in which sanctioned cops simply don’t exist any more. What’s taken their place are COPS—Civilian Operated Police Services—which are nothing more than bounty hunters, generally dressed in the grungy fashion seen in contemporary reality-shows about the profession. Prior’s script has no interest in asking how such an organization can be deemed in any way accountable to society, for this is just a particular incoherent take on “frontier justice” transferred to a not very futuristic setting. The first ROBOCOP played to this myth-trope as well, but it did so with intelligence, as did the British comics-series JUDGE DREDD, whose penchant for instant justice also resembles the attitude of Carradine’s hero John Tucker.

There’s no evidence that Carradine had any special regard for the project: throughout the film he’s a pretty lame hero, looking paunchy, wasted, and bored. But Prior, though unable to spring for a robotized cop on his budget, does give the private cop a rather memorable assert: a robot glove. When John wears the glove, he can shoot laser beams and other rays at his opponents (mostly low-life crooks). And near the film’s conclusion, after John’s been knocked silly by a big plug-ugly, the hero manages to pull out a special remote, looking like some fancy TV-control, and summons his glove into battle. The sight of Carradine lying on the ground and working the remote while the glove flies to his aid, both punching and strangling the thug, is the film’s one memorable scene.

ALMIGHTY THOR (2011)

 

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

I’m no fan of Marvel Studios’ largely botched adaptation of Marvel Comics’ franchise character The Mighty Thor. Still, even the least of the three big-budget films, THOR RAGNAROK, offers a little more entertainment than this straight-to-DVD mockbuster.

Director Christopher Ray—son of Fred Olen Ray, whose credits also include reams of undistinguished schlock—hangs his narrative on that most popular of Nordic myths, the threat of Ragnarok, the utter destruction of the world. And how does he handle this portentous matter? With lots of tedious photography of people either running through woods, or running through some big city (presumably L.A) whose streets have no nearly no people in them. Loki (Richard Grieco) kills off his father Odin and one of his brothers in order to possess the Hammer of Invincibility. Younger brother Thor (Cody Deal), who manages to seem callow in spite of his impressive pectorals, swears vengeance on Loki. However, since he doesn’t know how to fight, a Valkyrie named Jarnsaxa (Patricia Velasquez of the MUMMY movies) succors the son of Odin. The two of them spend most of the movie running from pillar to post on a formless quest that the writer seems to be making up as he goes along. The script tosses in a few raggedy versions of Norse myths-- the weavers-of-fate known as the Norns, and some hellhounds given indifferent life by bad CGI. For what it’s worth, “Jarhsaxa” is the name of Thor’s wife in one myth. However, the writer’s book on Norse Mythology for Dummies must have been missing some pages, since he also works in the non-Norse name of “Hrothgar,” maybe just to prove he’s read BEOWULF.

The only actor who even tries to bring a little chutzpah to this mess is Grieco, who does his level best to exude unremitting malice, since this version of Loki is no trickster, but just a really mean, mean guy. The actor’s close-ups are most effective on those occasions when the film’s makeup department succeeds in keeping his skin a deathly shade of white.

TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA (1975)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological*


I didn't enjoy TERROR the first time I saw it, but decided that before re-viewing it. I'd give a look to Steve Ryfle's thoughts on this film, the last of the "Showa series," from Ryfle's book JAPAN'S FAVORITE MON-STAR.

Ryfle made a pretty intelligent defense of the film, finding its script to be superior to most of Godzilla's other 1970s offerings, and that its potential had been undermined by budget cuts. In addition, the American version, the one that usually shows up on TV screens here, made the Japanese version far more incoherent, The most daunting example of this that the main villains of TERROR-- the so-called "Black Hole Planet 3 Aliens," seen in the preceding film GODZILLA VS. THE COSMIC MONSTER-- are conflated with the aliens from MONSTER ZERO. Why did the American editors do so? My guess would be that because the actual aliens in the original TERROR look pretty wimpy, the editors chose to excerpt the neat-looking aliens from ZERO to give the villains more heft.

For the final time in the Showa series, we have aliens who have decided that Earth is a plum ripe for picking, and who justify their aggression by nattering about humankind having treated the old planet badly. On top of bringing back their previous creation, the always snazzy-looking Mechagodzilla,, the Black Hole dudes also acquire the services of a mad Japanese scientist, Doctor Mafune. The doc long ago discovered a new breed of surviving dinosaur, whom he named "Titanosaurus," but apparently he couldn't produce the monster in the flesh. The scientific community embittered Mafune by mocking him, though their scorn seems unusual, given that a new mutant dinosaur seems to pop up every other year in the Toho-verse. Anyway, the nastiness of other scientists motivates Mafune to turn against his own people, though some seeds of future discontent are planted when the aliens begin acting rather high-handed. Not only do the Black Hole guys start using Titanosaurus as their own catspaw against Godzilla, they also turn Mafune's daughter Katsura into a cyborg, programmed to help them control Mechagodzilla. This naturally plays havoc with Katsura's love life, as well as eventually turning Mafune against his alien masters.

Most of the human characters are incidental, and though Katsura's subplot has potential for tragedy, the treatment yields only shallow melodrama. The film's sole merit is in the battle-scenes between Godzilla and his two opponents. Mechagodzilla always looks great, though he doesn't really move a whole lot. In contrast, Titanosaurus is a highly mobile antagonist, but his design, right down to his squalling battle-cry, is something less than winning. Only Godzilla himself gains points this time out, for though he's not a figure of terror that he was in his early years, at least he's not a clownish, world-saving superhero-monster. He just seems to be a big ornery beast protecting his chosen stomping-grounds-- though certain future versions of the character would eventually restore the Big G to his lost glories.

THE SPY WHO LOVED FLOWERS (1966)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*


The second and last Superseven film is not really much better, but it has a slightly lighter tone. Stevens tells a shop-girl that he's a superspy named James Bond, knowing that he won't believe her.. and he's saddled with Genevieve, a female agent who seems less than competent, much like the female lead in THE WRECKING CREW.  This time Superseven is given a less than heroic mission: to go forth and assassinate three people who know too much about a super-scientific McGuffin. However, perhaps to keep Steven sympathetic, this plotline is dropped in favor of his chasing around after a villain code-named "the Great Dragon." (Flowers are involved in the spies' recognition of one another, thus explaining the title, but I forget the details.) Sadly, the guy who turns out to be the Dragon is pretty colorless. On the up side, one of the Dragon's agents is a Chinese woman named Mei Lang, who shows much more character than anyone else in the film. (She's played by French-born Japanese actress Yoko Tani). Mei Lang has not just one but two catfights with Genevieve, but while they aren't great fights by any stretch, they are a little unusual in that both spies make generous use of karate chops rather than slaps or punches.

The sci-fi weapon that the two sides are fighting over is never seen in action, but one of Stevens' superiors helpfully explains that the gizmo is capable of short-circuiting the power in a whole city, and that one recent blackout was the result of the gizmo getting a field-test. Even though we don't see the weapon, everyone seems to believe it really exists, so I suppose I must rule that its presence makes the film marvelous in phenomenality. If it weren't for the blackout dingus, though, FLOWERS is disappointingly bereft of spy-gadgets.

HONOR ROLL #111, MARCH 26

YOKO TANI has a thing for spies who bring her flowers.

Forty-seven years gone by, and still one's bothered to revive TITANOSAURUS.

"I want my Mummy," cried PATRICIA VELASQUEZ when she felt almightily sore at her part in this movie.

It's not every villain who can pull off fighting a disembodied hand, but ROBERT TESSIER did pretty well.

UMA THURMAN kills more than just Bill in these films-- maybe Death itself?

On their visit to Gotham, THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES get a look at what a real rogue's gallery looks like.

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (2009)

 

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

In my previous X-film reviews, I've noted that the filmmakers showed little ambition with regard to building a stable X-MEN brand. Instead of implementing scripts that allowed the major franchise-characters to play off one another, the filmmakers chose generally formulaic storylines, the better to plug in whatever new characters suited their grab-bag fancies. The producers never seemed to think that a stable ensemble might be a good thing, and so X-characters would come and go with little discernible pattern. Some of them, like Cyclops, left simply because the actor became engaged by other projects, and Fox Studios, already stuck with one breakout star in the franchise, probably did not want to put any of the other thespians under a long-term contract, given their opinion that they could plug in just about any character into any situation without alienating the superhero-movie fan.

The “breakout star” to which I referred is of course Hugh Jackman, whose talents made certain that the character he played outshone all of the others in the fluctuating ensemble, just as the comic-book character had outstripped his comrades in four-color popularity. Presumably one or more of the filmmakers anticipated duplicating the Wolverine popualrity, since the first film in the series makes the question of his dubious origins a primary narrative concern. Two films later, Fox decided to do a film centered only upon the character's origins, while tossing in a few random X-characters in order to lure in suckers who thought they were getting another mutant-ensemble film.

I've not re-read any of the “Wolverine origin” tales in some time, so I'll make no comparisons between the comics and ORIGINS. But the movie script seems concerned with little more than connecting some of the narrative dots established in the previous films.

Take for instance the sketchy picture of Wolverine's earliest-seen years, growing up in rural Canada circa 1845 alongside two vague parents and a half-brother, Saber-Tooth. (Obviously both characters have everyday names, but I'll stick with their superhero cognomens for clarity's sake.) After a hazy family falling-out, the brothers venture out into the cold, cruel world, and learn that they both have mutant powers, slowing their age-rates and gifting both with “healing factors” that allow them to heal all wounds. In addition, both have “claws” of one sort or the other, though the film must grunt and groan to get viewers to the place where the hero gets his adamantium upgrade.

Wolverine and Saber-Tooth both display animalistic rages, though the hero naturally seeks to control his more than does the future “evil mutant.” To judge by the film's temporal montage, the two brothers do absolutely nothing for the next hundred-plus years but serve in assorted military conflicts-- until we get to the latter part of the 20th century. Aroundthis time, the brothers are co-opted to join an American “Black Ops” team, composed entirely of mutants and headed by William Stryker, familiar to viewers as A Guy Who Knows Stuff About Wolverine's Mysterious Past.

The other mutants are, for the most part, randomly chosen minor players in the long-running X-saga, with one exception: Wade “Deadpool” Wilson, whose comic-book version enjoyed breakout success as well. However, the writers make this version of Deadpool into a figure of little importance, existing largely to provide a formidable opponent for the end-scenes, but not one well integrated into the story.

The Black Ops team spells the end of Wolverine's military career, as he finally gets disgusted, leave the team behind, and gets a lumberjacking job in Canada. He even gets a beautiful girlfriend, who, since she's not in the earlier films, practically has “red shirt” tattooed on her skull. No moviegoer will be the least bit surprised that the bad spymasters don't just leave Wolverine to his own devices. Stryker pays a call on the Canadian hero, relating that Wolverine's half-brother has started targeting the other members of the old team for no particular reason. In addition, most moviegoers, having already seen Stryker in a bad light, will suspect that he's not doing Wolverine any favors with this warning.

Sure enough, Saber-Tooth appears to kill off some people, including the lovely girlfriend, but it's all part of a larger deception, aimed at giving Wolverine a desire to upgrade his powers so as to be avenged on his half-brother. Stryker's plans make very little sense in terms of achieving any real-world goal; they're all about connecting those continuity-dots. Once Wolverine has his adamantium claws, the film devolves into an unholy mess about Stryker trying to create the ultimate mutant by crossbreeding powers, or something equally stupid. Supposedly the whole scheme is being funded by the U.S. Government, though they've only sent one general to oversee the operation, whom Stryker simply knocks off when it's convenient.

The film's only saving graces consist of Jackman's incredibly committed performance, shining through the dreck like a light-beam through fog, and a boxing-scene between the hero and the film's version of long-time X-enemy The Blob. The rest of it is just a big farrago of clumsily-executed FX-scenes and lots of poorly executed characters. The nicest thing one can say about ORIGINS is that it was so bad, the series had nowhere to go but up after this.

ROBOC.H.I.C. (1990)

 

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

I hadn't seen ROBO C.H.I.C. since I rented the VHS, probably forty years ago. I remembered only that it was a pretty lame comedy, and didn't even know then (as I know now) that star Kathi Shower didn't even complete the film, so that her scenes had to be finished by another actress. The only time it came onto my radar again was when I heard that the film had been re-issued on DVD, but its owners, in order to avoid being sued by the people behind the ROBOCOP franchise, they re-titled the film CYBER C.H.I.C. 

Then it happened that some kind (?) soul downloaded the original VHS recording onto YouTube, sans any "cyber" changes. So I gave it a look, wondering if it might fall into the "so bad it's bearable" category.

My verdict is that though ROBO C.H.I.C. is too dull and repetitive to compete with truly demented movies like TROLL 2, one might get some laughs from it if one smoked a little weed first. However, to disclose my current sentiments, my current un-favorite film is the nearly forgotten TERMINATION MAN, which I abhorred because it capsulized all the limitations of the "deal film." ROBO C.H.I.C. isn't good in any way, but at least it's not a "deal film." Rather, it's just another "film on the make."

So what's the C.H.I.C. about? There's absolutely no spoof of ROBOCOP here. Wacky inventor Sigmoid Von Colon decides to create a female robot (Shower at first, later Jennifer Daly) for no particular reason. There are a handful of nude scenes while Colon works on his new toy, but he seems mostly insensible to her charms. He doesn't give her a name, nor does he plan to show her off to the scientific community, but for some reason he does install a laser ray and a sonic boom device in her artificial chassis. He spends a huge amount of time teaching the robot girl assorted bits and pieces of human culture, but he doesn't have any thought about making her into a crimefighter until the two of them witness some thugs hassling a lady. Of her own accord, the humanoid woman beats up the lowlifes-- and then Colon dubs her Robo C.H.I.C. and decides she would make a good crime-crusher.

Conveniently enough, a wimpy mad bomber named Harry Truman Hodgkins (Burt Ward) undertakes to hold the city for ransom with strategically placed nuclear bombs, which Hodgkins alone can control with his codes. Trouble is, the police, led by a short commander with compensation issues, are total morons and they arrest him without worrying about the city's destruction. However, various criminal elements decide to kidnap Hodgkins in order to leverage his invention. Robo C.H.I.C. goes looking for the mildly irritated bomber and has an assortment of totally unconvincing fights along the way. Toward the end a gang-boss hires the services of a rival scientist (played the film's only other "name," Jack Carter) to zap the cyber-crimefighter, but eventually the heroine vanquishes the bomb threat, and everyone's happy, even the short policeman.

Despite the badness of both the fights and the jokes, this film qualifies as a combative comedy. Both of the screenwriters were also the film's directors, and neither shows the slightest sense of comic timing, even when a tiny number of the jokes have a little promise. As dumb as the POLICE ACADEMY films were, at least their makers knew what effects they were going for. Oddly, the writer-directors also toss in a number of learned-sounding references into the film, having characters discuss such esoteric matters as entropy and George Bernard Shaw, albeit ineptly. That's why I call this a "film on the make," in that its makers were willing to try any stupid strategy to score in the marketplace-- which as a rule only works once in a blue moon.

STEEL DAWN (1987)

 

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

In contrast to many “Mad Max” imitators, STEEL DAWN is ably filmed and displays an impressive budget. However, simple competence is often not enough, which may be the reason the movie flopped in theaters, even though star Patrick Swayze had just gained major credits from his role in DIRTY DANCIN’.

STEEL DAWN looks as if someone, be it director Lance Hool or writer Doug Lefler, studied the first “Mad Max” film (the one without all the hyperkinetic stunts) and crossbred it with 1953’s SHANE. Swayze’s tight-lipped hero Nomad has a mysterious, tortured past, but he puts aside his loner status to defend a small farming-community from a greedy land baron (Anthony Zerbe).

In SHANE, Alad Ladd’s loner-hero takes shelter with three defenseless farmers: a man, his wife, and their young boy. DAWN keeps the young boy to register wide-eyed admiration of the stoic fighting-man, but now there’s no husband, for the boy’s mother Kasha (played by Swayze’s real-life wife Lisa Niemi) is a widow. There’s a loose husband-surrogate in Tark, a tough Meridian guy who hopes to get in good with Kasha, but though Tark’s duly humiliated by Nomad’s heroic superiority, he doesn’t complicate the potential Nomad-Kasha romance.

Some early scenes also present a subplot-conflict: Nomad’s martial mentor is murdered by foul means. By sheer dumb luck the assassin just happens to be working for Zerbe’s character, allowing for Nomad to take care of both plot-concerns at once.

Swayze handles the martial arts battles and the swordfighting with aplomb, but his character remains a cipher, as do all of the other characters despite the participation of professionals like Zerbe and Brion James. Further, the original story of SHANE ended with the hero leaving the community he saves in part because he’s in love with the farmer’s wife, a married woman. DAWN keeps the same ending, but because Kasha’s a widow, there’s no inherent reason for Nomad to take his leave.

Both script and direction are simply pedestrian, except for one promising scene at the opening. Nomad is seen out in the desert, meditating by standing on his head. Three raiders—apparently post-apocalyptic mutants, though the script doesn’t say so—tunnel through the desert sands to attack the solitary traveler. If the rest of the film had measured up to the lively whimsy of this scene, Hool and Lefler might have produced something as good as the 1979 George Miller original.

WIZARDS OF THE LOST KINGDOM (1985)

 

 

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

It's amazing that this mishmash sword and sorcery flick, one of several Roger Corman had shot in Argentina, did enough business (presumably on home video) that the producer okayed a second in-name-only sequel four years later. Principal director Hector Olivera had earlier completed a somewhat more efficient S&S opus for Corman, BARBARIAN QUEEN. But Olivera and writer Ed Naha (later of TV's ADVENTURES OF SINBAD) seem totally out of their respective depths with this sort of magical fantasy. Naha reported that only 58 minutes of the footage was useable, so "Cut and Paste Corman" had various FX-scenes (and musical themes) from both DEATHSTALKER and SORCERESS edited in to pad the running time. 

To be sure, the scenes that were *meant* to be in WIZARDS are not much less confusing than the egregious edits. We start with the almost de rigeur overthrow of a typical medieval kingdom by usurpers. Evil sorcerer Shurka (Thom Christopher) teams up with his lover Queen Udea (Barbara Stock) to kill off Udea's monarch-husband and to slaughter all the loyal servants in some of the most ludicrous mass fight-scenes seen in a S&S movie. 

Only three characters survive the carnage. One is Princess Aura (Dolores Michaels), daughter to the late king by a previous marriage. Shurka keeps Aura alive so that he can marry her and secure his right to the throne-- a move that eventually brings him into a predictable conflict with Udea. The other two are Simon (Vidal Peterson), son of the court wizard Wulfrick and a minor mystic in his own right, and Gulfax, a big furry white humanoid who just happens to look like a cheapjack Wookie covered in white cotton. While the usurpation is in progress, Wulfrick gives Simon a magical ring, tells the boy to go look for the magical sword of a previous ruler, and teleports the kid and his faux-Wookie away. Shurka shows up and duels the magician to death, and from a safe distance Simon witnesses his father's demise via a convenient scrying-pool. Boo hoo, trauma trauma.

I have to interrupt the plot-summary to remark on Simon and Aura. First, they're engaged to be married, even though Aura's royalty and Simon's presumably a commoner. Second, though the script doesn't mention their ages, they both have a jailbait look to me. This makes it really weird not only when Shurka expresses his plans to marry Aura, but also when a woman of mature years (Maria Socas) later tries to put moves on Simon. (Admittedly, she's an "insect woman" planning to kill him, But Still.) Michaels' age is not listed on IMDB, while Peterson is supposedly 17-- though he's such a small, willowy guy that he looks 14 at most. 

Peterson's age is also relevant in that he projects absolutely no authority in the role of Simon, even though he's one of two main characters. The other is not Gulfax, who disappears from the story whenever it's convenient for the script. Instead, Simon stumbles across Han Solo-- excuse me, I mean Kor the Conqueror (Bo Svenson), an itinerant swordsman whose every remark seems cadged from the original STAR WARS. (My favorite is when he tells Gulfax, "Get the lead out, fuzz-face.") I suppose Naha was shooting for the older brother/younger brother vibe that George Lucas channeled with Solo and Skywalker. But where Peterson comes off as lacking in passion, Svenson projects only a "just doin' it for the check" lassitude. It doesn't help that Kor waffles between being an altruist and an "anything for a buck" kinda guy. 

Of course, Naha does the Simon character no favors. The minute before Simon gets teleported out of danger, he clumsily drops the magic ring, and so in his peregrinations with Kor, Simon can only occasionally wield effective magic. Maybe Naha was shooting for irony, since Shurka sends his soldiers out looking for Simon and the magic ring, and the damned thing is sitting in a gargoyle's mouth in Wulfrick's sanctum. (How'd it get there? I doubt even Naha knows.)

Anyway, Simon and Kor wander around having peripatetic adventures. Some of them are fights with emissaries from Shurka, who has so little faith in his soldiers that he sends the insect-woman after Simon moments after Simon and Kor knock off all of the swordsmen. But other encounters come out of nowhere. Simon, having read LORD OF THE RINGS, tries to revive a handful of zombie soldiers to help overthrow Shurka. However, the dead won't obey the punk magician, and Kor must drive them away with his sword, after which he lectures the young bungler. Later, a mystical lady who has nothing to do with the plot tests the two adventurers, and when they succeed, she gives them a sort of "rainbow bridge" passageway to reach the castle of Shurka. 

By that time though, one of Shurka's minions finds the magic ring and gives it to the evildoer. However, Simon and Kor infiltrate the castle, so that Simon gets the ring before the evil wizard. Simon then magically duels Shurka until the young wizard is victorious. (Not sure why he even needed that legendary sword in the first place.) The desultory CGI effects are staged roughly after the fashion of a similar scene in 1962's THE MAGIC SWORD, in which two wizards, Basil Rathbone and Estelle Winwood, duel each other with cheap but still more impressive FX. The film ends with the tearful parting of Simon and Kor, since the wandering swordsman just doesn't feel comfortable hanging around with the people he's helped save. The next-to-last scene shows a bunch of liberate people celebrating their victory in the courtyard. In one parapets above, Aura waves alongside some unknown woman (not Udea, who's threatened with death but not killed), while in another parapet, White Wookie Gulfax celebrates with one of-- Shurka's demonic dwarves. Huh?

Thom Christopher is the only actor who brings a certain brio to his unrewarding role. There's some meager amusement when Kor has his own "Peer Gynt" moment, getting tracked down by a gang of trolls who plan to either eat him or make him marry their equally ugly sister. But on the whole the film is more fun to dis than to watch.