DEADPOOL 2 (2018)

 

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

Like the previous entry,  DEADPOOL 2 is so rife with endless jokes at the expense of serious superhero flicks that I've decided to label it and its predecessor as comedies.

After all, it's a given that the imperiled characters in a comedy take their lives just as seriously as those in an adventure film, and at some points I've tended to judge works as comedies based on how often they fire off jokes, which are in tune with the *jubilative* mood of comedy. Yet though I once rated both DEADPOOLS as adventure-films with sizable comedic content, because the clash of violent forces seemed more vital to the franchise than the multitudinous bon mots, I've changed my thoughts on the subject. In fact, this time the film's concentration on violent spectacle went so far that it came close to alienating me from the character's fictional world.

Like most superhero-film fans, I can selectively edit big action sequences (like 2012 AVENGERS) in my mind to avoid the downer that dozens of people surely died in the chaos. But car-crashes are a wee bit more intimate than giant monsters swarming through cityscapes, and I have some problems with the film's moral compass, comedy or not: that it's OK to endanger dozens of innocents, as long as their fates aren't seen, in order to keep one hyperactive victim-of-abuse from turning to the Dark Side and killing all the people he eventually kills.

But back to Deadpool. In the first film, the "merc with a mouth" completed a reasonably happy arc: Guy Fakes His Death to Spare His Girl, But Returns to Rescue Her From a Dire Threat. However, the writers of DP2 evidently felt that they really put the film's half-villainous, half-heroic protagonist through the wringer. Thus Deadpool loses his one true love, and suffers mightily for the first third of the movie before he can be convinced, by Colossus of the X-Men, to channel his pain into public service.

However, the sublimation formula doesn't work so well at the start. Deadpool becomes a "trainee" X-Man, even though he's not technically a mutant, so that means his first case involves reining in a violent mutant at a "mutant rehabilitation" orphanage. The breakneck pace of the film liberates the writers from any responsibility to state the legal and cultural standing of the orphanage. But as soon as Deadpool meets young mutant Russell Collins (a.k.a. "Firefist"). the merc instantly knows that the authorities at the orphanage have abused Russell. Deadpool immediately tosses aside due process and takes bloody vengeance on one of the abusers, but this gets him kicked out of the X-Men and locked away in a special mutant-holding facility alongside Russell and various other Marvel villains (one of whom, Juggernaut, ends up providing some of the gorier violence of the film).

Then the time-traveling avenger Cable shows up at the prison, expressing a sincere desire to end young Russell's life now in order to prevent him from taking many other lives later. As I said, this is a pretty morally bankrupt premise, though it does eventuate in some very cool fight-scenes between Deadpool and his adversary, who is as grimly serious as DP is antic. Deadpool manages to get clear of the prison but Russell remains confined though still alive. Deadpool then dedicates himself to preventing Cable's next attack on Russell. Conveniently enough, the prison authorities decide to move Russell and other prisoners via an armed convoy. This gives Cable a new opportunity for assassination and Deadpool another opportunity to validate his attempt at heroic altruism, while also making certain that the film isn't forced to stage yet another attack on the prison.

In some of the funniest scenes, the loony would-be superhero enlists a bizarre collection of helpers to attack the convoy, some of whom are based on established Marvel characters. As I said, I would have preferred a little less collateral car-damage, though apparently the writers were also okay with wreaking countless injuries, if not deaths, on the nameless prison-guards attached to the convoy. The greater the violence, the more it seems that in the world of DEADPOOL 2, absolutely nothing matters except sparing the victim of abuse from being further corrupted. In fact, even Cable's motive for killing Russell has more to do with his personal interests-- to prevent the deaths of Cable's wife and daughter-- than with protecting any of Russell's other future victims.

The attack on the convoy prevents Russell's death at Cable's hands, but because he's pissed off at Deadpool, the youth allies himself with Juggernaut. The two of them seek out the orphanage, to enact revenge on Russell's principal torturer. Why Juggernaut goes along with this-- who knows? Cable, giving in to Deadpool's infinite abilities to cock things up, makes an alliance with the merc and his surviving aides. DP asks for just one chance to talk Russell out of becoming a homicidal super-villain before Cable kills him, and Cable assents, not believing the merc has a chance in hell. As a viewer, I knew that Deadpool would succeed in his impossible task, though I have extreme doubts about the hero-villain's ability to effect a "talking cure" within mere minutes.

I've frequently defended the superhero genre against hyper-moralistic attacks, so I don't want to make the mistake of judging DEADPOOL 2 by purely moral standards. Morally, DEADPOOL 2 is nonsense, and I'd often say the same of most "do-over" time-travel stories. But DP2 is also problematic in terms of a superhero film's aesthetic power to mount spectacular violence. The technique of the film is flawless in execution, just as it was in the first film. But whereas the first film glories in the hyperviolence for its own sake, Number Two seems more interested in trying to tie all of the wild violence to a Moral Message, which might be stated along the lines of "Protect the Victims of Society, No Matter How Many People You Kill." I also noticed that whereas the first film had some fun dealing with "female-objectification" tropes, Number Two apparently decides that it's more important to play it safe with a half-dozen "homoerotica" tropes. The first film was more even-handed, while this one seems designed to defuse politically correct criticism.

GAMERA VS. BARUGON (1966)

 

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

Though GAMERA had the disadvantage of being filmed in black-and-white, something about the film must have clicked at the box-office-- perhaps the memorable design of the monster, which somehow works despite all the disparate elements. Thus the big turtle gets a reprieve from his Martian exile. GAMERA VS. BARUGON starts with a meteor destroys the spaceship holding Gamera, after which his spinning shell whirls its way back to Earth (apparently the beast's nuclear mutation also allows the creature to survive in deep space).  While the colossal chelonian makes his way back, three Japanese fortune-hunters inadvertently unleash Gamera's first kaiju foe.  They travel to New Guinea in search of a giant opal, which is actually the egg of a giant creature called Barugon. The fortune-hunters hear of Barugon from a high priestess on New Guinea, name of "Karen." She warns the fortune-seekers against trespassing in the forbidden "Valley of Rainbows," which warning they naturally ignore. Apparently none of the present-day New Guineans have ever seen a Barugon, any more than the Eskimos of the first film had ever seen a Gamera, but somehow ancestral tradition has preserved the knowledge of these quasi-prehistoric survivals.

For instance, after Barugon has hatched, expanded to king-size, and gone on the usual rampage, Karen reveals that it usually takes ten years for a Barugon hatchling to grow to maturity.  This leads to a rather dopey explanation as to how Barugon's quick development-- and perhaps some of his fantastic powers as well-- came about as a result of exposure to an infrared sun-lamp being used by one of the treasure-seekers. As BS-explanations in SF-films go, this one's pretty awful, and doesn't even have the virtue of being funny.
Fortunately, though the visual design of Barugon isn't nearly as impressive as that of Gamera, the oversized lizard does display some very cool powers, such as a tongue that sprays freezing mist and rainbow-rays that shoot out of the spines on his back.

There are no cute kids in GAMERA VS. BARUGON, and the male lead-- the fortune-hunter Kano-- is refreshingly mature in realizing that he's indirectly responsible for the deaths of many innocents through his trespass on a sacred precinct. In contrast to Kano, one of his surviving accomplices, Onodera, is a picture of arrant selfishness: since he doesn't witness the egg hatch, he gets the idea that the gem is still out there, and his single-minded obsession leads him to interfere with Kano during one of the armed forces' attempts to vanquish Barugon.  He dies in the jaws of Barugon, while Kano will later be rewarded for his selflessness by winning the heart of the lissome Karen.

Gamera is almost side-lined from his position as "star of the show." The turtle is drawn to the scene of Barugon's rampage by his displays of energy, but is thereafter frozen stiff by the lizard's ice-tongue, and only thaws out in time for the finale. There's no sense that Gamera vanquishes Barugon out of any protective feeling toward humans; it's just a big grudge-match between two monsters who don't think Nippon's big enough for both of them.  When Gamera destroys his opponent, the adults watching don't precisely cheer him, but they don't seem too worried any more about Gamera attacking humans again.

THE NINJA AVENGER (1982)

 

 

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

The best ninja-movies are always IMO those that dispense with logic and just indulge in as much extravagant spectacle as possible. This is definitely not an asset shared by THE NINJA AVENGER, aka THE IMPOSSIBLE WOMAN. Since the lady ninja of the title was billed as "Linda Young," I didn't know that the actress was identical with the minor kung-fu diva Elsa Yeung, though I did recognize two other names in the cast: Don Wong and the Japanese Yasuaki Kurata.

AVENGER's bargain-basement gangster-melodrama is barely worth remembering, much less recapitulating. The film opens with establishing that "Marilyn" (Yeung) carries out hits on witnesses prepared to testify against female gang-boss Madame Nancy Chow. According to the movie's fragmented backstory, Marilyn was once just a secretary eight years before meeting the Madame. Marilyn, who nevertheless possessed formidable fighting-skills, attempted to stop a woman's being raped in broad daylight. The rapists get the drop on Marilyn but Madame Chow just happens to come by, and she sends her criminal henchmen to rout the assailants. Then somehow Marilyn becomes a ninja, using such gimmicks as shurikens, poison darts, and even an exploding toy plane to kill off the Madame's enemies. Did Nancy send Marilyn to ninja school for some reason? If so, in the present day Nancy suddenly decides that Marilyn's become a liability, possibly-- though it's never really stated-- because Nancy fears the cops can apprehend the ninja girl and make her talk. So most of the film consists of the ungrateful crime boss sending assassins after her regular assassin-- one of these being the aforementioned Kurata.

There's also a silly romantic subplot, in that Nancy's brother Willy doesn't know she's been supporting them in their comfortable lifestyle with the wages of crime. Willy falls for Marilyn, but doesn't find out what Nancy's doing till nearly the film's end. When Willy gets caught in a fight between Marilyn and an assassin, Willy gets killed, Nancy dies slaying the assassin, and Marilyn survives to get arrested.

There are at least half a dozen watchable if not exciting hand-to-hand fights, which are AVENGER's only asset-- that, and the amusement value that Marilyn troubles to don full ninja gear for her work but can't be bothered to conceal her bloody face!

JUNGLE MANHUNT (1951)

 

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


My impression of Alex Raymond's JUNGLE JIM comic strip is that most of its stories fall into the naturalistic phenomenality.  However, its adaptations in films and comic books have gone in all possible directions.

Putting aside the 1937 JUNGLE JIM serial, Sam Katzman's low-budget series of potboilers were the first feature-film adaptations of the character.  JUNGLE MANHUNT, the seventh in the series, starts out with the suggestion that it may possess the uncanny phenomenality, as it begins with a peaceful village being raided for slaves by warriors led by "skeleton-men" (men in obvious costumes).  Jungle Jim, a hunter who apparently protects the jungle from evil in his spare time, investigates the raiders while simultaneously guiding a snippy girl photographer in search of a white man who became lost in the jungle.  At one point Jim and reporter Ann encounter a pair of "dinosaurs" (the usual lizards filmed to look big), but though they have nothing to do with the story, their presence alone would push the flick into "marvelous" territory.  However, as Jim and Ann find their way to the raiders' camp, they encounter another science-fictional element, in an evil doctor who's using native slaves to mine radioactive materials.  It turns out that the evil doctor is making synthetic diamonds, and his explanation of the process certainly should have won any 1951 award for Best Scientific Goobledygook.

MANHUNT is at least moderately pleasurable to watch, in that it has a fair amount of action (though none of the natives are Black Africans, instead looking like South Sea Islanders).  Also, Ann is one of the more sharp-tongued heroines, but Jim gets back some of his own by constantly needling her about her mercenary motives for coming to the jungle.  Coming to Africa to look for a lost football player doesn't seem all that blameworthy, but at least their exchanges, and good direction by Lew (THE RAVEN) Landers keep the pot boiling.  In the end Ann hooks up with the lost football player, who's been playing "white god" because he has a paternalistic feeling for the villagers who took him in.  As with most jungle-adventure films there's a strong emphasis on distinguishing the "good white interlopers" from the bad ones.

FARSCAPE: SEASON FOUR (2002-03)

 

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

Following up on the plot-threads from Season Three, the steely Peacekeeper Grayza becomes the Moya crew's new pursuer, though the writers attempt to undermine her slightly by having her accompanied by a lieutenant who's secretly allied to Scorpius. The latter has taken refuge on Moya for reasons I chose to forget, and since I've already expressed my distaste for the character, I'll skip over his dubious participation as a regular with the scruffy protagonists. 

Old three-eyed woman Noranti (Melissa Jaffer) is a far more welcome addition to the cast, and though she's played for humor, she does to some extent compensate for the loss of "den mother" Zhaan. The fourth season also adds yet another new character to the overburdened crew, Sikozu (Raelee Hill), who is another scientist and somewhat duplicates the functions of Jool. (The scripters solve this problem by simply not having the two characters around one another most of the time.) She's also a key element in yet another involved plot involving Scorpius and the race who spawned him, the Scarrans, but this story-line, perhaps because of the Scorpius presence, I found less than engrossing.

One major plotline is that Aeryn remains pregnant for the whole season, though she would have to wait until the two-part telefilm to give birth to her baby by John Crichton. The latter half of the season subjects Aeryn to considerable torments when she's captured by Scarrans, who have become ever more interested in the possibility of using wormhole technology to invade Crichton's home planet. As for the other members, by this time there aren't a lot of surprises with them, which may be one reason the writers kept injecting new crew-members. Thus the better episodes tend to be the ones that stress the ensemble rather than particular character-arcs.

The most ambitious arc is a three-parter involving the Moya crew returning to Earth. "Unrealized Reality" forces Crichton to listen to an alien being's lecture on the perils of time-travel and alternate worlds. Actual time-travel takes place in "Kansas," wherein Crichton and friends end up on Earth in 1985, and is followed by the third part, "Terra Firma," in which Crichton and the others visit the "current" time from which Crichton departed, though by the story's end the Moya crew must return to space. "Firma" later gets some further elaboration in "A Constellation of Doubt," when Moya manages to tap a broadcast from Earth, chronicling the planet's reaction to its first contact with aliens, complete with "celebrity interviews" with said aliens.

All four episodes depend on one's familiarity with the characters, but "Kansas" is the most ambitious, for all that it riffs on the 1985 film "Back to the Future." In the movie, Marty McFly accidentally altered time's true course by alienating the affections of his future mother to himself in place of his actual father, thus forcing Marty to correct the problem by bringing his parents together and insuring his birth. Crichton has similar problems with validating his existence, though in 1985 he already exists as a teenager, moody and rebelling against the authority of his father. The senior Crichton is in danger of dying prematurely if the Moya crew can't prevent him from being assigned to the doomed Challenger expedition, and this leads to some amusing sequences as Crichton's alien allies are forced to pretend they're humans dressed up for Halloween. And just to keep the incest angle in, Chiana-- whose liking for Crichton has been frustrated by his loyalty to Aeryn-- finds a way around that impediment by seducing Young Crichton. Granted, Chiana's not exactly the "mother" type, but she's certainly more experienced than the teenager, and this sequence, not technically necessary for the plot, smacks of "shipping" characters who wouldn't otherwise get together.

The final episodes of Season Four are fairly dark, being dominated by Aeryn's abduction and the Scarrans' plans for Earth. This plotline would be concluded in the telefilm, though I'm sure any number of subplots were left hanging by the series not receiving a full final season.

HOOK (1991)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

In re-viewing Steven Spielberg's HOOK, I found myself thinking that it should have been subtitled, "REVENGE OF THE ADULTS."

As I noted in my essay on J.M. Barrie's original novel, I regard Barrie's story of Peter Pan-- whether in book or play format-- to be a "combative comedy."  It is "combative" because the plot centers around the direct conflict of two dynamic adversaries.  It's also a "comedy," though I found it to be one that revolves less around "jokes" than around what I called a "homey type of comedy." The book's main theme is stated by the gentle irony found in its concluding lines: "and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless."  Over and over Barrie repeats his refrain: the Darling children rarely if ever remember the heartbroken parents they have left behind, Tinkerbelle doesn't even think of expressing appreciation for those who clap for the fairies and bring her back to life, and so on.  But Barrie is making a subtle point: for him the essence of childhood is not the sort of idealized winsomeness of Victorian days, but a divine selfishness, a desire to play ceaselessly without consequence-- except perhaps with girls, whose mothering instincts kick in early.

Prior to my first viewing of HOOK I thought it seemed perfectly natural that Steven Spielberg should do a Peter Pan movie, given that he was often associated with movies that possessed juvenile content.  However, most of those films were works on which Spielberg served as a producer and not director, like 1985's GOONIES (though Spielberg did contribute the story there).  As a director his content "skewed adult"-- and that may have a lot to do with his willingness to do a story about Peter Pan choosing to grow up, an idea with which Barrie himself toyed.

The vision of youth presented by Spielberg and his writers in HOOK demonstrates no interest in Barrie's theme of childish insensitivity; instead, it is the mature Peter Pan, now "Peter Banning" (Robin Williams) who has become insensitive to the needs of his children Jack and Maggie, sired with his wife Moira, the granddaughter of the original Wendy.  In order to age normally, Peter has forgotten his earlier existence in Neverland, and subdues all of his life-instincts as a husband and father by transforming into a workaholic corporate raider.  In the film's best line, the aged Wendy observes, "Peter-- you've become a pirate!"

Somehow Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman), though his ship is stranded in Neverland, learns where Peter Banning lives and steals his children in order to lure Peter Pan back for a climactic battle.  This development may be read as an inversion of Barrie's theme.  At no time do Banning's children yearn after the absolute freedom of agelessness and endless playtime; no sooner are they in Neverland that they want to return home.  Children aren't the ones who need Neverland; it's adults who need it as an anodyne against the pressures of being an adult.

Peter Banning, having no memory of Hook or Neverland, has no idea how to cope with the kidnapping.  Spielberg's solution is to turn Tinkerbelle into Jiminy Cricket, who facillitates Peter's return to Neverland.  Peter still remembers nothing even in Neverland, so his nemesis allows him time to "re-train" himself, so that Hook will be able to kill him in "good form." 

Tinkerbelle leads Peter to the current edition of "the Lost Boys" for his training.  These Lost Boys aren't "innocent and heartless," they're simply boisterous, much like the earlier "Goonies."  In addition to trying to cast off his middle-aged attitudes and his middle-age gut, Peter has to face Rufio, a rival for the  leadership of the Lost Boys.  Meanwhile back at Hook's pirate ship, the piratical villain devises a means to further torment his old foe, as he tries to brainwash Jack into becoming a "mini-Hook."  This is perhaps the only place where the film invokes Barrie's idea of an inherent juvenile selfishness, in that Hook puts pressure on the kids by claiming that their parents don't love them, but only give in to their needs to "shut them up."  Of course neither Jack nor Maggie is unusually selfish, so the failure of Hook's scheme is something of a foregone conclusion.

Though there are a number of charming moments in the film-- I particularly like Maggie's horrified reaction when the pirates gives her an "F" for failing his phony-baloney class-- HOOK suffers from too many incidental characters and a wayward, rambling plot.  The ending is the greatest failing: after building up to the combat of Hook and the rejuvenated Peter Pan, the script has the hero try to walk away from the conflict twice-- even after Hook kills Rufio-- apparently out of some misguided sense of moral rectitude.  There is a clever bit in which Hook is "killed" by his old nemesis the crocodile for roughly the same reasons he is in the Barrie book: so that the hero himself need not commit the final act.  The humor is definitely more oriented toward "boffo jokes" than toward Barrie's form of gentle humor, and because the production seems so ceaselessly high-energy, the audience in 1991 was probably ready for the film to end long before it did.

Dustin Hoffman's Hook rates as the best featured performance here; he's still somewhat foolish, as in the book, but not as incompetent as he is in Disney's PETER PAN. Robin Williams is a mixed bag: he does quite well as "serious, adult Peter," but his humorous moments just sound like outtakes from a Williams standup routine and he's a washout as the rejuvenated, flying-with-his-pot-belly-hanging-out Pan.  Even allowing for the massive change in Tinkerbelle's character, Julia Roberts proves a terrible choice, lacking any sort of fairy-like luster.  Bob Hoskins and Maggie Smith acquit themselves best in their supporting roles.

HONOR ROLL #115, APRIL 22

 Recently Tinkerbelle was accused of having a negative body image, but they weren't thinking of the time she was played by JULIA ROBERTS.

ANTHONY SIMCOE shows no dread of sporting dreadlocks.

After playing against heroes like Superman and even The Vigilante, LYLE TALBOT gained no repute from contending with Jungle Jim (at least twice in the series).

ELSA YEUNG plays a ninja but does no avenging whatever.

BARUGON has his own definition of giving tongue.

In both of the Deadpool flicks, the quasi-animated COLOSSUS has more personality than most of the other support characters.

THE BATMAN (2022)

 

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological*

It wasn't that much of a surprise to see the 2019 JOKER reinterpret Batman's arch-fiend as a dramatic figure, once it was made clear that that film's makers were presenting a sort of "alternate-Earth Joker" who shared a few elements of the Bat-mythos but otherwise was a new creation. THE BATMAN, however, may present twists of favorite characters or on the Bat-origin, but to all intents and purposes this is still a take on the canonical Batman, courtesy of director/co-writer Matt Reeves. Yet unlike most Batman productions, it's not a high-spirited adventure, but a moody drama, almost an implicit answer to Martin Scorcese's recent criticism of superhero films as "amusement park rides."

Like both the 1989 BATMAN and BATMAN BEGINS, this film begins with the hero near the outset of his career. This time the Batman (Robert Pattinson) has been operating in Gotham for two  years, and though he's become friends with police lieutenant (and future commissioner) James Gordon, the rest of Gotham's constabulary deeply distrusts the costumed vigilante. But when a masked maniac called The Riddler kills one high-class victim and threatens to murder others, GCPD is forced to tolerate the Batman, In fact, rather than allowing the hero to play will-o-the-wisp so that he never gets close to the cops, Reeves devotes several scenes to showing the tension as the masked manhunter moves amid lawmen who would dearly love to capture and unmask him.

Gotham, as always, harbors corruption in high places, but while the bad apples are the exception in many Bat-narratives, in this film the corruption is almost a way of life. All of the Riddler's targets are rich politicians who profit from a hand-in-glove partnership with Gotham's crime families, headed by Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) and his right-hand man Oz, a.k.a. The Penguin (Colin Farrell). The Riddler's clues force Batman and Gordon to seek out an unknown informant who can cause the whole house of cards to collapse. During the Batman's investigations, he encounters a karate-kicking lady cat burglar (Zoe Kravitz), known as Selina Kyle but never called "Catwoman." Selina has her own agenda in pursuing Falcone but temporarily works alongside the Bat, with some of the expected romantic chemistry.

Despite the fact that Pattinson's Batman is easily the most acrobatic, fight-savvy live-action Batman ever, the film is not set up to deliver the usual blend of violence and spectacle found in most superhero films. And despite the fact that much of the narrative focuses on the Riddler's continued predations, the film also doesn't have the feel of serial-killer thrillers like SEVEN or SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. The only popular genre to I can fairly compare Reeves' brooding pace is the genre of the naturalistic spy movie. This more dramatic version of Batman exists not in a wild Wonderland where villains play manic games with heroes amid giant-sized displays, but in a forbidding demimonde in which no one's word can be trusted and almost everyone conceals dire secrets-- usually involving the rich preying upon the poor. Yet despite this familiar trope, BATMAN never indulges in the petty Marxism of Christopher Nolan. Selina does have a line about "privileged white assholes," but since this Catwoman is the offspring of Italian mobster Falcone, the remark seems purely personal in nature, rather than an opportunity for the script to virtue signal.

Reeves' vision of Gotham's crime-riddled cosmos is so dark that the film verges on becoming an irony, a type of narrative in which all action is fundamentally pointless. For instance, Batman eventually learns that his own example of vigilantism inspired the Riddler's career, and learns that his father and mother may have been murdered not as innocent holdup victims, but because of the father's implication in the Gotham crime-world. Yet Batman, Gordon and Selina are still able to perform heroically, even in a world where heroism is extremely compromised, which IMO means that this version of the Caped Crusader conforms to the form of the drama.

There's a bracing quality to seeing fabulous characters like Penguin and Catwoman handled in this fashion, but from the first years of the comic book, they existed in a world of fantasy, not reality. Accordingly, this is also one of the few Batman-movies in which neither the hero nor the villains utilize any fantastic super-science. Batman has a handful of uncanny weapons-- his armored costume, a glider-suit, a smoke bomb, and a Batmobile that can be driven electronically (albeit only for a short distance), while the Riddler, who certainly commits his share of bizarre crimes, is confined to such mundane devices as firearms, explosives, and an unusual type of bludgeon that later becomes a major clue to his culminating scheme. Only at the film's conclusion does THE BATMAN make substantial use of spectacle. Yet the spectacle serves the purpose of re-orienting Batman's goals away from his stated desire for "vengeance" and toward the pro-social value of altruism. 

There are assorted small complaints about the script-- Riddler's motive, when revealed, is not satisfying-- but overall it's a strong film. Yet I don't have a burning desire to see another one in this universe, in part because I doubt Reeves could top himself, in part because I think Batman's involvement in the tropes of uncanny and marvelous phenomenality run too deep for any one cinematic success to overturn.

HERCULES VS. MOLOCH (1964)

 

 

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

Though some elements of this sword-and-sandal seem borrowed from Greek mythology, particularly the story of the Minotaur, both the "Hercules" and the "Moloch" are mortals who pretend to be divine figures for one reason or another. And despite all the mythic content, one of the film's alternate titles was CONQUEST OF MYCENAE, as if someone, perhaps director Giorgio Ferrone, thought of marketing the film as a quasi-naturalistic story of archaic warfare.

Mycenae is ostensibly the walled city from which evil Queen Demetra (Rosalba Neri) seeks to conquer all of her neighbors, particularly the rival city of Tiryns. Demetra took control of Mycenae by becoming the second wife of the now-deceased king, and after he was gone she instituted a cult of human sacrifice. Many of the local women-- all beautiful stunners, of course-- are given into the hands of Demetra's son from a previous marriage, who has given himself the name of the Semitic deity Moloch. Instead of being a demi-human monster like The Minotaur, Moloch is a disfigured man who hides his ruined features behind a metal wolf's mask, and he both mutilates and murders his victims because he claims to hate all beauty. In addition to keeping Mycenae in thrall to the cult of sacrifice, Demetra also makes sure that the former king's daughter Medea (Alessandra Panaro) doesn't get any ideas about taking power, even though Medea represents the power of a rival deity, "the Earth Goddess."

While Demetra and her generals plan to invade Tiryns, Glaucus (Gordon Scott), prince of that city, goes undercover, pretending to be a slave so as to gain entrance to Mycenae and to spy on his enemies. He swiftly becomes a gladiator, this being the time-approved method of attracting the attention of lusty evil queens. As one might expect, both the bad queen and the good stepdaughter fall for Glaucus, who further beefs up his reputation by claiming to be the demigod Hercules.

Battles, intrigues and betrayals follow, including major action between the forces of Mycenae and Tiryns. Demetra seems to be set up for a fall when the Earth-goddess trumps her sacrificial cult, striking down Demetra's high priest with a lightning bolt, and so the populace of Mycenae rebels. This would seem to set up a nasty end for Demetra. However, in the version I saw, Neri's character simply disappears. Possibly the production was running low on money? In the big climactic scene where Glaucus descends into an underground cavern to rescue Medea from Moloch, director Ferrone suddenly interpolates a sequence that looks like it was taken (or re-created) from Ferrone's earlier epic, the 1961 BACCHANTES. For about four minutes a bunch of soldiers, whose identity is unclear, find themselves confounded by a group of drum-beating witch-women-- who then disappear when that sequence is over. This leaves the field clear for a nice long brawl between Glaucus and Moloch; one guess who wins.

One last detail is that although some peplum-films make interesting usages of Classic Greek mythological names, the scripters here, including Ferroni, just toss in names with no resonance to their Greek originals. In addition to Glaucus, Medea and Demetra (Demeter), we also get a Pentheus, a Deianeira, and a Pasifae-- the latter name being the only one appropriate to a story about a monster that murders his sacrificial victims.

GODZILLA VS. THE COSMIC MONSTER (1974)

 

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

Since at least three Godzilla films reviewed here include the name "Mechagodzilla" in the title, I'll review the cinematic debut of "the Big M" under the U.S. release title. Said title was itself a substitute for the title "Godzilla vs. the Bionic Monster," which was nixed by legal action from the owners of "The Bionic Woman." (Someone might also have objected on the grounds of false advertising, since Mechagodzilla was just a big robot, and not "bionic" in any real sense of the word.)

Since COSMIC actually introduced not one but two new kaiju, its structure is something of a double detective-story. First, the forgettable human protagonists must not only pursue the clue of a fragment of "space titanium" that will lead them to the alien base where Mechagodzilla was constructed, and where an eminent Japanese scientist is being forced to work for the aliens. Second, the viewpoint characters must also look into the strange prophecies of an Okinawan priestess, who claims that an Okinawan god, King Caesar, is destined to save the world from a destructive dragon.

When Godzilla begins a new rampage, the humans suspect that he may be the dragon of the prophecy. However, the fact that the Big G viciously attacks his sometime ally Anguirus causes the detectives to doubt their eyes. They don't have to wait long to have their questions answered, for another Godzilla shows up, uses his atomic breath to burn the outer skin off the first one, and thus reveals that the marauder is a mechanical impostor, Mechagodzilla, the real "dragon of the prophecy."

In the English translation at least, the matter of King Caesar's provenance remains unclear. Though some of the Tojo monsters were worshiped as gods, the basic rationale of, say, Mothra was that he was some prehistoric survival just like Godzilla, and that he'd simply been co-opted into primitive religion (though Mothra's fairy protectors might be a different story). But not only is the prophecy of the priestess right in all respects, King Caesar actually does seem to be a magical guardian spirit who takes the form of a lion-like humanoid. Maybe this divergence from the sci-fi narrative wasn't good for the King's popularity, for in contrast to Mechagodzilla, Caesar seems to have been wildly unpopular, not getting any revivals until he made a quickie appearance in GODZILLA: FINAL WARS.

The three-way battle that pits Godzilla and King Caesar against the invading aliens' duplicate monster is overall a good fight, though I could have done without the sequence in which Godzilla turns himself into a living magnet. But on balance the film's main accomplishment is to introduce the iconic Mechagodzilla, the only seventies kaiju who would enjoy repeated revivals. Usually the later films ignored ignoring the robot's creation by the forgettable aliens in this film, and instead had the Big M constructed by Earthpeople seeking to counter the natural furies of Godzilla. Since humans could only fight kaiju with their mastery of mechanical weapons, it makes symbolic sense to imagine them casting one great weapon into the image of their mighty foe. In this case, imitation would be the sincerest form of extermination.

RISE: BLOOD HUNTER (2007)

 

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


Stylewise RISE: BLOOD HUNTER (written by Sebastian Gutierrez of SHE CREATURE and GOTHIKA "fame") resembles the hyper-realistic, moody, downbeat vampire dramas of the 1990s, such as 1994's NADJA.  Unfortunately, despite a talented cast-- Michael Chiklis, Carla Gugino and the "blood hunter" herself, Lucy Liu-- Gutierrez doesn't manage to do anything striking with this slightly more badass-themed vampire-adventure.

Sadie Blake (Liu) stumbles across a death-worshipping cult run by vampires, who have only minor similarities to the traditional Stoker kind: they're very strong and can heal most wounds, except those inflicted through the heart stake-fashion.  In addition, they feed (very messily) on the blood of people they hope will never be missed: the villain calls them "pedophilic wannabes and spoiled teenagers."  Sadie is captured and killed by head vampire Bishop and lady vampire Eve (Gugino), but Eve decides to resurrect Sadie because she fought so hard for life.  Other vampires then set Sadie up to gain vengeance on Bishop in order to eliminate their powerful enemy.

All of this sounds reasonably promising, but whether for reasons of taste or budget, Sadie's adventures generate little energy in the badass vampire-slaying department.  In addition, although Sadie moans a lot about being turned into a bloodsucker, her vampire angst carries no personal touches that raise it above the level of pedestrian kvetching.  Asian-American star Liu may have signed on to play Sadie because she's fairly down-to-earth compared to some of the Asian-flavored archetypes she's played in the past.  But Sadie simply doesn't compel the audience, and neither does her vampire-slaying companion, cop Clyde Rawlins (Chiklis).  Rawlins, like George C. Scott's character in Paul Schrader's HARDCORE, seeks to avenge himself for the loss of his daughter to the cult, and eventually becomes Sadie's reluctant backup.  Predictably enough, Sadie isn't the only pretty lady who gets brought back from the dead, but here too, Rawlins' confrontation with his undead daughter are another case of "been there, seen that."

The vampire fantasy is one that's almost tailor-made for deep psychological symbolizing, but Gutierrez's script merely follows the numbers all the way.  The "pedophilic wannabes" line above was about the only piece of writing I found memorable in this deadly-dull undead-offering.

TARZAN'S DESERT MYSTERY (1943)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*

MYTHICITY: *fair*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*


TARZAN'S DESERT MYSTERY finally finds an excuse to avoid African blacks: most of the adventure takes place in a fictional North African community, where everyone appears to be Arabs of some sort, though purely of the "central casting" variety.  This and TRIUMPHS were the only Tarzan films directed by Austrian director William Thiele, and if his mise-en-scene is a little subdued in TRIUMPHS, MYSTERY is a pulp-lover's delight.

As fast-paced as MYSTERY is, the Carroll Young script doesn't neglect some good character moments.  Though Jane is still in England, she sets off the plot-action when she sends a letter via jungle-mail to Tarzan and Boy.  Boy's the only one who can read, so he relates to his adoptive father Jane's message: that she wants him to secure a rare jungle-salve to help the war-effort.  This requires Tarzan to venture into an isolated jungle-region bordering the Sahara and reputedly filled with many strange creatures.  What Boy doesn't tell the ape man is that Jane wants him to stay behind.  Boy fibs, telling Tarzan that he Boy is supposed to go along on the journey.  Tarzan soon figures out the fib, but after remonstrating with the juvenile briefly, does what surely every juvenile viewer wanted and allows his surrogate son to go along.

From there, the action rarely slows down.  We meet itinerant stage magician Connie Boyce (Nancy Kelly), who receives a secret message from a local sheik, a message she's supposed to relay to Prince Selim in a neighboring town.  That town is currently under the dominion of clandestine Nazis Henrdicks and Straeder, who are taking a more subtle approach to exploiting the locals than we see in TRIUMPHS. They currently have Selim buffaloed, but they're anticipating knocking him off.  Later Connie will become their patsy, accused of Selim's death.

I won't detail every fine point of the involved script, but I will draw attention to the way the script creates respect for all forms of life.  Tarzan rescues a wild stallion from the brutal Straeder, and the grateful animal stays with Tarzan, Boy and Cheetah.  Even when Tarzan's party picks up the stranded Connie, she too shows some disrespect for the stallion's dignity by mounting him casually.  After she's bucked to the ground, Tarzan advises, "Next time ask horse."

The marvelous elements show up near the climax: though Tarzan helps Connie escape a public hanging, and will help deliver the news of Selim's murder to the Sheik, he insists on seeking out the weird jungle, with the Nazis in hot pursuit.  The jungle is right out of Skull Island, including not only giant lizards and a giant spider, but also a big man-eating plant. 

This is one of the best RKO Tarzan films, with solid action, lively dialogue-- particularly from the smart-mouthed Connie-- and some sprightly comedy, enough that even Cheetah's antics don't prove too cloying.

FARSCAPE: SEASON THREE (2001-02)

 

 

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

As I noted in my review of Season 2, the character of Pau Zotoh Zhaan is infected with a fatal illness and winds up her membership in Moya's crew by passing away in the early eps of Season 3. Zhaan's passing is well handled, being that she's the first regular character to die. If the fugitives weren't technically guilty of the various crimes of which they're accused, the loss of Zhaan instills all of them with an even greater sense of mortality and morbidity. Not that this keeps any of them from continuing to yell at one another at the drop of a spaceman's helmet.

The producers were clearly in no hurry to find a substitute den-mother, and if anything, the crew started including even more outrageously dysfunctional types. One of these was Stark, introduced in the first season as a jittery maniac who wore half a mask over that part of his face that gave off weird radiation. 

Second was new character Jool (Tammy MacIntosh). She's inducted into the crew when Moya collides with an outer space research vessel, on which (for some reason I forget) Jool is being stored in cryogenic hibernation. Unlike most of the other characters, Jool is an educated academic who sometimes functions as ship's doctor, but she's also prissy in the extreme, thus bringing her into frequent conflict with the hard-edged Chiana. 

With Season 3, the recurring character of Commander Crais gets regular name-alongside-the-title billing with the established ensemble. He's not technically one of the Moya crew, but because Crais is bonded to Moya's unruly offspring Talyn, the ex-Peacekeeper finds himself frequently consulting with Crichton et al as to their mutual defenses against their common enemies. As I noted before, the writers really never get a handle on Crais's raison d'etre. There's a weak attempt to make him seem discontented with his former Peacekeeper lot, but this just seems like copying the template of Aeryn Sun. Actor Lani Tupu does what he can with the character but he may well have breathed a sigh of relief when both he and Talyn are terminated at the end of Season 3. (For that matter, the subplot with Talyn never becomes anything more than an extra source of danger to the travelers.)

Speaking of the common enemies, Scorpius (Wayne Pygram) gets his own origin-story, relating how he was genetically engineered as a combination of genes taken from the race of Peacekeepers (the human-like Sebaceans) and the reptilians known as Scarrans. Despite all the revelations of the hells to which Scorpius was subjected from birth, he never exceeds the status of a one-note villain. The writers found a method to keep Pygram busy by having two versions of Scorpius: the physical entity whose ships keep chasing Moya hither and yon, and a psychic duplicate that resides in Crichton's mind. This makes for a lot of tedious scenes in which Crichton doggedly withstands the villain's Mephistophelian enticements, and by the end of the season the writers find a way to terminate all of these skull-sessions, though Scorpius ends up being sort of a "guest prisoner" in Season Four.

Though the overall feel of Season 3 is uneven, most of the regulars get one or two episodes devoted to their character arcs. In line with the climactic raid on the Shadow Depository in Season Two, Ka D'argo is reunited with his son Ka Jothee. However, the young Luxan expresses animus for the father charged with killing Jothee's mother, and he quickly parts from the Moya crew after transgressing against D'argo by sleeping with his current bed-partner Chiana. Stark gets to pilot Moya when she's pulled into the orbit of a star, and Stark is the only one able to hear the voice of a victimized alien woman pleading for his help. Aeryn is forced to deal with a Peacekeeper pursuit headed by her own estranged mother, and, most memorably, Crichton falls into a dream-fugue wherein he imagines himself, Scorpius and D'Argo as animated characters out of a Chuck Jones cartoon. Crichton and Aeryn finally get together, but predictably for a series high in histrionics, their pleasure is occasioned by new iterations of pain.

Oddly, the last few episodes of Season 3 introduce a loose substitute for Zhaan's den-mother duties: Noranti, an ancient three-eyed female who ends up being something of a counselor-type, albeit with considerable eccentricities. Grayza, a new Peacekeeper commander, takes over Scorpius's authority to pursue the Moya refugees. Rebecca Riggs plays the character with a steely determination that makes her seem more formidable than the scheming Scorpius, and I for one would not have minded if she had taken over from Crais back in Season One.

HONOR ROLL #114, APRIL 22

For the first two seasons and a few in the third, VIRGINIA HEY played den mother to the Moya maniacs.

Tarzan finds mysterious plants and animals in the desert, but there's nothing mysterious about spunky girl lead NANCY KELLY.

Before she was an Angel for Charlie, LUCY LIU fell on hard times as a bargain basement vampire-hunter.

Here comes the last great Godzilla-foe, MECHAGODZILLA.

For once, ROSALBA NERI plays an evil queen who doesn't get killed at story's end.

I for one would never pegged ROBERT PATTINSON, one of the TWILIGHT girl's boy-toys, to play one of the toughest Batmen.

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2016)

 

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

I see that I was incorrect when I made the following statement in my review of last year's CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR: 

The newest iteration of Spider-Man—“on loan” to Marvel Studios from Sony—is more of a mixed bag. The costume and the webbing look good, and after the last two movie-versions, it’s pleasant to see a wall-crawler who continually cracks wise. However, the rest of the hero’s characterization is extremely shallow—which is understandable, in that Marvel Studios have no motive to do anything more with the character than was strictly necessary for their movie’s plot.

Wikipedia reports that "n February 2015, Marvel Studios and Sony reached a deal to share the character rights of Spider-Man, integrating the character into the established MCU." This means not only that, for the foreseeable future, Spider-Man is part of the MCU, but that his depiction is entirely in line with Marvel Studios' long-term plans for the character. And those long-term plans appear to be-- to make him into "Iron Man Writ Small."

I've seen it bruited about that HOMECOMING's concept of Spider-Man is partly indebted to the 2000-2009 series ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN. I read only one collection of these comics, and so I can't speak as to whether HOMECOMING borrowed any specific tropes or ideas, though the comic-series' simplistic rewriting of the Lee-Ditko character seems to resonate at about the same level of mythicity as HOMECOMING. But in a strange bit of hubris, the producers behind the MCU seem to have thought that the proper way to pay respect to the character most associated with the Marvel Brand was to tie him to the mythos of the cinematic Iron Man-- which, of course, is the bedrock on which the MCU stands.

Happily, since two of the three Sam Raimi spider-flicks gave viewers a more than exemplary adaptation of the Lee-Ditko SPIDER-MAN, there's nothing wrong with the MCU doing their "Ultimate S-M crossed with Iron Man" concept of the character. HOMECOMING is a fairly entertaining film, filled to the brim with the trademark Marvel Studios humor, and with loads of eye-popping FX, including a technological upgrade for "The Vulture," an Old Favorite among the ranks of the Lee-and-Ditko rogues' gallery. So it's not a bad film, like AGE OF ULTRON, it's just a little under-ambitious.

Tom Holland is the new Peter Parker, and happily, there is no attempt to retell the iconic origin-story of How He Got Spider-Powers. Though he's aged 21, Holland plays a believable 15-year-old high-schooler, which plays into the central idea of this Spidey as a kid who's Got a Lot to Learn. The events of CIVIL WAR appeared to bring this Parker into Tony Stark's orbit purely to make the wall-crawler into another weapon against Captain America's forces. However, HOMECOMING informs viewers that Stark now sees his relationship to Parker as one of mentor to student, possibly even as father to son (Stark's storied difficulties with his old man are front-and-center here). To cement this new bond, Stark doesn't just give Parker a suit that can do "whatever a spider can:" he gives him a suit that can do almost everything that Iron Man can-- which, for my money, results in making the Spidey-mythos unnecessarily dependent on the Iron-mythos. In addition, if there was any area where the film's humor was more overabundant, it was with respect to jokes about Spidey's difficulties with the suit's capabilities. (The schtick involving an "enhanced interrogation" function was probably the low point.)

Parker's old cast of characters has of course been updated, many with the idea of emphasizing "diversity." However, few of the updates have any substance. The revision of the Vulture is the one exception. Originally just a thief who used artificial wings to commit robberies, this Vulture (Michael Keaton) is a discontented middle-class guy who gets ahold of alien tech and begins using it to sell illegal weapons to career criminals. (The script dances away from any implication that he might also sell to terrorists: apparently this Vulture restricts his clientele to American crooks.) Alien tech makes the Vulture a much more powerful menace than he ever was in the comics, and Keaton delivers an intense performance that counterpoints Holland's softer, more tentative character.

Most of the thrill-ride doesn't have much symbolic significance, but I did find one interesting trope. The first few Spider-Man stories by Lee and Ditko give the hero both a "good father" (saintly Uncle Ben, killed by Parker's act of omission) and a "bad father" (J. Jonah Jameson, who wields economic power over Parker and constantly kvetches about the activities of Spider-Man). HOMECOMING does not bring in Jameson at all, while poor Uncle Ben is only briefly mentioned. Yet, in a fitting turnabout, the web-slinger is still haunted by dueling fathers. True, middle-aged "Bad Dad" Vulture wants to kill Spidey rather than just berate him, but in a nice turn, the villain is also implicated in the life of Parker's support-cast. Tony Stark is more or less the Good Dad, for all that he's not there for Parker a lot of the time. I suspect that this mirroring, though, was mostly dumb luck rather than good planning.

GAMERA VS. GYAOS (1967)

 

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

Although GAMERA VS. GYAOS begins the trend toward Gamera's strange penchant to succor human children, it's probably the best of the original series.  While BARUGON maintains a somewhat murky look throughout, GYAOS's photography displays a palette of bright primary colors, perhaps as part of a desire to appeal more overtly to a juvenile audience.  The film also benefits from Gamera's best opponent: the vicious-looking pteranodon Gyaos, who like Barugon eats people rather than just flames.  The two major fights between the monstrous opponents are also the best choreographed in the original series.

This time no human beings are guilty of unleashing the new monster on the block. Mount Fuji erupts and releases yet another time-buried creature, later named Gyaos for his screeching cry.  Gamera does show up to gobble up the flames released by Fuji, but he isn't involved in the pteranodon's rebirth.

Nearby a more mundane drama is transpiring. A Japanese road-building company is attempting to build a new highway in the neighborhood of Fuji.  To do so they must convince the inhabitants of a small village to sell their land.  Some villagers don't want to leave their long-time homes, while some only want to make the most money they can from a big sale. They appeal to the village-mayor to make their deals for them, but discussions are tabled when it's revealed that there's a man-eating monster hanging around the area.

The mayor's grade-school grandson Eiichi becomes far more intimately involved in the perils, for he's almost one of Gyaos' first victims.  Gamera shows up and not only gives battle to the winged monster, he deliberately rescues Eiichi and even takes him back to the bosom of his family.  The tusked turtle's motivations for doing so are no longer explicable as the spontaneous action of an unthinking beast: Gamera has become, at least on one level, a heroic figure.

Like the other films GYAOS includes some quasi-superstitious pronouncements, like "when animals run away, disaster will follow" and "the gods sent Gyaos to punish us for being so greedy" (the latter comes from the mayor when he realizes that his delays may have cost the villagers the chance to sell their property). These may not be profound, but they do reinforce the Gamera series' aura of modern folklore.  But of course Gyaos' nifty powers-- particularly his ability to shoot a flesh-cutting sonic ray from his mouth-- and Gamera's ability to counter them are the highlights of this kaiju epic.  The conflicts between Japanese traditionalism and progressive capitalism are solved rather easily, but at least this time the little Gamera-phile kid is reasonably appealing.  More annoying avatars, to be sure, were on the horizon.

FARSCAPE: SEASON TWO (2001-01)

 

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

Prior to re-visiting all four seasons of this show, I'm tending toward the view that Season Two was FARSCAPE's best season. Of course, it helps that this was the last season for "den mother" Zotoh Zhaan (Virginia Hey), whose character would expire in the first few episodes of Season Three. While she was around, she provided a calming influence on the rest of Moya's occupants, who from first to last tended to run around the ship yelling at each other.

To be sure, Zhaan's influence wasn't always needed, for the writers did make the protagonists less extreme once they became more accustomed to one another. Certainly there were no more scenes like the one from "DNA Mad Scientist," wherein the crew-members cut off one of Pilot's arms to serve their own ends. Chiana (Gigi Edgley) provides a much needed source of humor, distinct from the more ironic pronouncements by Earth-refugee John Crichton (Ben Browder). More progress is made with the off-on romance between Crichton and Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black), particularly when Crichton is forced to enter into a royal marriage in the three-parter "Look at the Princess." Following the resolution of that story, the romantic angle gets good exposure in "The Locket," an alternate timeline-tale in which Crichton and Aeryn end up spending their lives together in bucolic contentment. Both Aeryn and Pilot are disclosed to have shared a previous history on Moya in "The Way We Weren't," and though Ka D'argo doesn't find his missing son in this season, the final few episodes set up those events to be developed in Season 3. Even Rygel gets some shining moments, functioning as a lawyer defending Zhaan on an extremely legalistic planet.

On the down side, Season 2 doesn't quite find anything vital for the crew's former nemesis Crais (Lani Tupu) to do. I'm sure the actor preferred getting away from the original "Inspector Jauvert" conception of his character, but the writers never manage to make plausible Crais's shift to becoming the pilot-custodian of Talyn, the offspring of organic ship Moya. Scorpius, a new villain introduced toward the end of Season One, becomes the new "big bad," repeatedly pursuing the crew hither and yon, due to the fact that Crichton's brain has received an unwanted download of "wormhole technology" by some super-advanced aliens. Though there's no question that Scorpius, as played by Wayne Pygram, is creepy, his monomaniacal obsession is no better than that of Crais, and over time the character becomes tiresome. Stark, another malcontent who joins the crew in Season 3, appears a few times in Season Two, but he ends up providing no more than just another weird character who yells a lot. He does function well in the season's big "heist" narrative, which provides more sheer adventure than the average episode.

Still, both "The Locket" and "The Way We Weren't" provide strong drama with a strong sense of the anarchic. Possibly their dramatic excellence will be outdone by later episodes, but as yet, these are top of the FARSCAPE line.

HERCULES AND THE MOON MEN (1964)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*

MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological, psychological*

These two peplum [the other was SAMSON IN KING SOLOMON'S MINES] are alike in that they're (1) heavy on the pectotal-pricking deathtraps, and (2) possessed of at least some marvelous elements.  They're different in that (1) one has a decent lead actor and a boring lead villainess, while the other's the exact reverse.

HERCULES AND THE MOON MEN-- directed by Giacomo Gentilomo, whose other familiar credit is co-directorship of another peplum, GOLIATH AND THE VAMPIRES-- is better known to modern audiences thanks to its adaptation into an episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000.  MOON MEN isn't by any means the worst of the Italian musclemen epics, but it's made partly risible by the presence of aliens in a Hercules (originally "Maciste") film, and partly by the blatant "men-in-monster-suits" conceptions of those aliens, to wit:

 

The sci-fi elements overlay what might be called the "Minotaur trope," wherein an evil ruler continually sacrifices helpless victims to the maw of some monster or monsters.  The monsters here are a race of moon men who have crashed on ancient Earth near the city of Samar.  Queen Samarra (Jany Clair) strikes a deal with the aliens: they want constant sacrifices, whose blood they think may revive their comatose queen (though it apparently goes on for some time without having any effect).  In exchange, the evil queen, not satisfied with dominating her own bailiwick, wants to use the aliens' advanced technology to conquer the world.  Naturally, such a threat brings forth the mighty Hercules, played this time by a muscleman named Alan Steel, who generally looks cheerful as he lays waste to the queen's minions and, eventually, the moon men.

Despite her vaulting ambition, Samarra struck me as one of the weaker evil queens seen in these mini-epics.  Perhaps it's because she seems dependent on the aliens to maintain her power.  She meets her inevitable end rather uncourageously, as well.  Gentilomo at least included a couple of extra beauties for the audience's delectation: Samarra's good sister, who has the usual prince-boyfriend, and a lady freedom-fighter who makes nice with Hercules.  However, overall Gentilomo's pacing is pretty slack, which may be one reason it made a good subject for MST3K treatment.

FARSCAPE: SEASON ONE (1999-2000)

 

 

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

If MARRIED WITH CHILDREN was truly first conceived under the rubric "Not THE COSBY SHOW," FARSCAPE could just as easily been termed "Not STAR TREK."

Though the TREK shows occasionally boasted a few sobering episodes, the dominant mood of the franchise was positive and uplifting. FARSCAPE was certainly not the first SF-teleserial with a cast of regular players that boasted a downbeat or ironic attitude. Both THE PRISONER and BLAKE'S SEVEN come to mind as significant predecessors. But FARSCAPE has the color and verve of a traditional space opera, with so many bizarre extraterrestrial forms that next to it, even the STAR WARS films look-- well, like any of the post-Classic versions of TREK in terms of polymorphous aliens.

In one of his many sardonic observations, viewpoint character John Crichton (Ben Browder) remarks that he has little in common with characters like "Kirk, Spock, Luke, Buck, Flash or even Arthur frelling Dent," comparing himself instead to Dorothy Gale. But a comparison to Lewis Carroll's Alice would seem even more appropriate. Astronaut Crichton ventures into space in an experimental craft, the Farscape (which I doubt ever gets mentioned in later episodes). Alice plunged into Wonderland through a rabbit-hole, while Crichton's craft is sucked into a wormhole, instantly teleporting him into a nether region of the galaxy, where illimitable alien races maintain a space-operatic interplanetary culture. 

Crichton enters the new universe with a bang, accidentally crashing into the ship piloted by a "Peacekeeper," a member of a galaxy-spanning security force. The Peacekeeper is slain, but Crichton is taken aboard a Leviathan named "Moya," an organic quasi-cyborg spacecraft, commanded by several fugitives: husky warrior Ka D'argo (Anthony Simcoe), mystic Zhaan (Virginia Hey), imperious dwarf-alien Rygel and the ship's pilot, known only as Pilot. (Both Rygel and Pilot are "played" by Muppet-like figures supplied by the Jim Henson shop, though of course both are voiced by the people working the "strings.")  The fugitives escape their nemesis, other Peacekeeper ships, by using a space-warp, but they accidentally pull one of the Peacekeeper ships along with them. Once they're free of the other Peacekeepers, the fugitives of Moya bring the isolated officer aboard, and find that she's a female name of Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black). More Peacekeepers pursue, commanded by an officer named Crais, whose brother was slain in the accidental collision. Crais is not only set on capturing or destroying the fugitives, he even condemns Aeryn as having been contaminated by contact with the evildoers. Thus Aeryn too becomes a fugitive, with no goal save that of the others: trying to find some way to escape Peacekeeper vengeance in the known universe.

The small crew of Moya have no esprit d'corps at first; they rub each other the wrong way at the best of times, and all of them are particularly irritable with Crichton, the biggest fish out of his own galactic pond. Thus, whenever the characters make planetfall, Crichton gets to be the "dumb guy asking questions," to whom the local aliens can explain all sorts of local customs and biological anomalies. Despite that, though, the fugitives frequently get hoaxed by some planetary culture (an early episode plays like a reprise of Homer's "lotus-eaters" sequence), and not infrequently Crichton helps pull the motley crew together to get all of them out of danger. Halfway through the first season, the crew takes on yet another member: sprightly Chiana (Gigi Edgley), who adds considerable humor to the proceedings. 

Crais, though not seen in every episode, is a constant menace, though toward the end of the season the writers introduced a new Peacekeeper menace, an insidious torturer named Scorpius, who eventually replaces Crais as the Face of Corrupt Legality. I didn't think much of Scorpius as a continuing villain, but I'll set that subject aside in case I get to the later episodes.

The element of FARSCAPE most unlike TREK is that one never knows when the fugitives may succor one another, or suddenly turn on one another. In the first season's most memorable episode, "DNA Mad Scientist," a genetics expert offers the crew a biological map that will guide all of them back to their respective homeworlds. But the mad scientist's price for his services is that the fugitives must give him an organ sample from Pilot-- which entails slicing off an arm from a sentient being. Even though the script rationalizes that Pilot's species can swiftly regenerate, it's an unpleasant scene to watch, showing how deeply the crew-members are motivated by self-interest. Yet in another good episode, "A Human Reaction,"  Crichton plunges through another wormhole and ends up on what he initially thinks is his own Earth. In this tale, Aeryn, D'argo and Rygel all come looking for Crichton out of pure altruism, and they're treated badly by the supposed Earthmen before Crichton dopes out that he's not back in Kansas quite yet.

Now, one salient question is, is "Not STAR TREK" as good in its first season as the first year of Kirk and Spock? And the answer is no. It's a fine, engaging show, with a lot of bracing dramatic interplay. But perhaps because of the high cost of makeup and appliances in all episodes, a lot of stories in this season are either "fugitives get hoaxed by alien cultures" or "fugitives turn against one another from some strange influence"-- the latter plot leading to an awful lot of "bottle-shows." On the positive side, the scripts are always strong in articulating the concept of the living ship Moya and its relationship to its Pilot, particularly when Moya conceives an offspring. 

Still, even if FARSCAPE might not make my list of "ten best SF- teleserials with a regular cast," it would almost certainly make it into the top 20.

PASSPORT TO HELL (1965), MASSACRE IN THE SUN (1966)

 

PHENOMENALITY: (1) *uncanny,* (2) *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair* 
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

All of the Eurospy movies I've come across seem like the writers cobbled them together after watching the first four James Bond films. PASSPORT TO HELL-- which like its sequel is preceded by the spy's code name "Agent 3S3"-- had some of the real-world political content one finds in the more realistic Ian Fleming tomes. Perhaps unfairly, I tend to give the lion's share of credit to director/co-writer Sergio Sollima, who prior to his two spy flicks had written 1961's URSUS, one of the few "sword-and-sandal" movies with some good character progression. In addition, Sollima later went on to direct a couple of well-respected spaghetti westerns.

George Ardisson, who plays superspy Walter Ross in both PASSPORT and its one sequel, would also gain considerable fame as a star of Euro-westerns. but here he pulls off the difficult task of emulating the movie version of James Bond without lapsing into parody. Though Ardisson like Connery gets into assorted bizarre situations, he always seems like a guy grounded in the profession of busting heads and seducing babes for a living. At the opening, Ross's superiors tell him to locate the daughter of a spy-chief, and that he should "blackmail, torture, maybe even marry" the woman in order to get what they need.

More importantly, the spy-ring Ross is chasing was once of immense help to the side of The Allies in WWII, but has "gone rogue" now, so that the good spies need to find its mastermind, Dvorak, even if it means placing his daughter Irmgard in danger. 

To be sure, PASSPORT is only a middling thriller, punctuated by a few toughguy fights but without a solid villain to push against. The only diabolical device in the film is that one of the females in Dvorak's organization makes use of a compact that can stun a victim with projected needles.

The follow-up, MASSACRE IN THE SUN, eschews even minor references to real-world politics, but it still projects a better feeling of overall "toughness" even in its fantastic situation. Both Walter Ross and a Brit agent (Evi Marandi) are separately sent to the small South American country San Felipe, where a dictator has overthrown the former rulers. But neither agent is concerned with the dictator, but rather with a mad scientist to whom the dictator has given shelter. Seems the scientist specializes in making lethal chemical gas, and in due time Ross learns that he intends to use a missile to indiscriminately unleash his weapon on the world.

On the slightly more mundane side, the dictator shows himself both a Hefer-esque player and a fighter for equal rights, for one division of his private army is all female. I didn't catch the name of the brunette leader of the female soldiers-- played I think by one Luz Marquez-- but Sollima's script gives her a lot to d. She chastises a disrespectful male soldier by challenging him to single combat, and beats him down using only a bo-staff. She tries the same thing on Ross, who not only overpowers her but spanks her-- which, quite naturally, leads to consensual sex. Finally, the blonde Brit agent and the brunette girl soldier have a short but brutal catfight near the film's end.

Ross doesn't use many gadgets in either film. However, near the conclusion of MASSACRE he does wear night-vision goggles that allow him to mow down several opposition soldiers. This battle-scene displays much of the hallmark grittiness of the spaghetti westerns, rather than the polished violence of most superspy films.