MIL MASCARAS VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY (2009)

 

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

At this time this is the only solo feature I've seen for the luchador Mil Mascaras ("Thousand-Masks"), and as it happens, this was one of three movies filmed in English  and directed by two Americans, ostensibly as a tribute to the luchador tradition. This particular wrestler came to the game of superhero films slightly later than Santo and Blue Demon, and his character was swiftly caught up in the teamup trope, as with 1971's CHAMPIONS OF JUSTICE, which is the earliest film I've seen with the thousand-mask hero.

Not having seen the earliest solo films with "Mil" (as the hero's supporting characters call him in MUMMY), I don't know how closely this work hews to the movies of the late sixties. But the script for MUMMY does not make Mil a "man of mystery" to the extent that Santo and Blue Demon are. True, Mil has a heroic wrestler-ancestor, which is probably a trope borrowed from some of the Santo movies. But though Mil is a connoisseur of fine wines and at least an amateur scientist, he's first and foremost a man who wrestles for a living and who becomes a superhero as needed. One of MUMMY's earliest scenes shows Santo at a restaurant with his girlfriend, getting the big kiss-off because the lady doesn't think she can live with his heroic career. Mil has moments of doubt and talks a bit to his ghostly ancestor (or imagines that he does). But when duty calls, Mil steps up to defeat the new menace, joining forces with the necessary authorities-- the police, the U.S. military, and a scientist-buddy named "Professor." (The scientist's pretty daughter Maria ends up being Mil's romantic consolation prize by the film's end, though she's maybe a third the age of the wrestler.)

As the title indicates, the enemy this time is an Aztec Mummy, though he's nothing like the shambling horror from the "Aztec Mummy" series whose first entry came out in 1957. Modern-day cultists use a blood sacrifice to bring back this unnamed corpse back to life, and the Mummy proceeds to use a magical scepter to sap the wills of his pawns, with the long range end of conquering the world. I confess I never quite understood the evildoer's scheme, for he spends a lot of time with some rather low-level crimes-- possibly in line with the film's budget, even though production values look better than those of most Mexican luchador flicks. But the Mummy's makeup looks great, so I believed that eventually he and his cultists could eventually pull of his ambitions. Mil battles the Mummy's forces and eventually is captured by the villain's forces. Mil then escapes thanks to a rescue by a bunch of other wrestlers (some of whom had been in their own film-serials, like Neutron and El Hijo del Santo), and fights the Mummy in a strong climactic battle.

Since the villain is not even marginally similar to the monster from the earlier serial, the Mummy's presence doesn't contribute to this film's qualifications as a crossover. The appearance, however short, of luchadores who had appeared in feature films does ring the crossover bell, though I would imagine that the wrestler billed as "Neutron" was not the guy who portrayed the hero back in the 1960s series.

SPIES STRIKE SILENTLY (1966)

 

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

Before watching this 1966 Italian-Spanish Eurospy thriller-- whose literal name in Spanish is more like "spies kill silently"-- I noticed that it was directed and co-written by Mario Caiano, who performed the same duties on one of my favorite giallos, 1972's THE EYE IN THE LABYRINTH.  I don't think this knowledge prejudiced me to give SPIES special favor. Yet some might think it significant that it's the first Eurospy whose mythicity I've rated above the level of "fair."

I was rather impressed by the way SPIES begins; not with the spy-hero getting his latest assignment or villains ripping off some complex. Instead, following a colorful theme-opening (replete with checkerboard-patterns seen in other parts of the narrative proper), we see a peaceful conversation in Beirut between two pretty girls and an older man with the name of Doctor Rashid (a peculiar name, since the rle is played by Andrea Bosic, who doesn't look the least bit like a Middle Easterner). They chitchat for a while. mentioning that Rashid is a scientist-- and then we get the introduction of the main hero, Mike Drum (Lang Jeffries). Some mysterious murders have been committed, and one of the victims was the daughter of a vital scientist. So Drum investigates-- and almost immediately, someone starts shooting at him.

Aside from the chitchat, most Eurospies proceed similarly, as if the spy-hero was a military commando who was empowered to seek out and destroy the enemies of his country. While SPIES does have that element as well, it really does feel more like a thriller emphasizing the uncertainty of the spy business. Drum's intelligence contacts in Beirut aren't thrilled to be working with an American agent; they think he's going to believe himself to be James Bond. In due time Drum proves that he's got the stuff, and although he does eventually cross paths with both of the sexy women from the opening sequence, Drum doesn't really seduce them in the approved Sean Connery style. Moreover, as in more realistic espionage tales, there's at least some concern that one's allies may turn into enemies at the drop of a hat.

Like both the book and movie DOCTOR NO, SPIES starts out looking like a mundane adventure-tale, only to ratchet up into wild metaphenomenal fantasy in the second half. Probably no one will be surprised that the urbane Doctor Rashid is a scientific mastermind seeking to use a special device to control people's minds. But some may be surprised when the villain actually does succeed in taking control of the hero's mind and sending him on a mission of murder, which mission is only foiled by the hero's dumb luck. While under this hypnosis Drum is seen marching along with dark glasses on his eyes, making him seem more like an automaton. Rashid gets a florid villain's speech in which he reveals a Nietzchean ambition to control all the little people:  "I look upon mankind from a superior level." Rashid isn't given any real background, but he shares Doctor No's Napoleon-complex, eventually comparing himself to "Prometheus Unbound." In the big climax, he shows off a ray-device that can not only overrule human wills but also has a double function as a disintegrator-- which pretty much telegraphs the script's intention to have someone get disintegrated.

Caiano's control of colorful backgrounds is quite impressive given what must have been a humble budget. The film's only flaw is that none of the action-sequences are first-rate, though the final struggle between Drum and Rashid evokes a few memories of the battle between Bond and Goldfinger in the Fleming book.

RENFIELD (2023)

 

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

As I write this, RENFIELD has already underperformed in the American box office, meaning that even great box office abroad won't keep the film from being viewed as a major failure. I found it only a moderately entertaining experience-- possibly because it's the first gore-comedy to have appeared in American theaters since Covid-- but I would have liked to see headliner Nicholas Cage hit one out of the park with his first major-studio role in the past eleven years.

I'd venture to say that this is often the fate of movie scripts that fall into development-hell, and then get picked up with a new angle in mind. At least the person doing the revision was the original source of the pitch made back in 2014, when Robert Kirkman attempted to sell an updated Renfield as part of the then-ballyhooed Universal "monster-verse." When that version was sidelined by the failure of the 2017 MUMMY, Kirkman tried a second pitch, stressing a comedy send-up of both the quintessential vampire-servant and the quintessential vampire.

It's current-day New Orleans, one in which a criminal organization,the Lobo Family, holds near-total power over the police department. Only one courageous police officer, Rebecca Quincy (Awkwafina), seeks to take down the Lobos, not least because she suspects that the Lobos' heir apparent Teddy (Ben Schwartz) killed Rebecca's father. 

But the Big Easy soon plays host to a greater evil. For over a century, R.M. Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) has served Count Dracula (Cage), both made virtually immortal thanks to the Count's fabulous powers. Following Dracula's defeat by Van Helsing (supposedly in the early 20th century), the vampire fled England with Renfield, his last servitor. Unlike the Renfield of both the Stoker novel and the 1931 film, this version of Renfield shares Dracula's agelessness. It's not clear whether or not Renfield has ever been vampirized by the Count as he is in the Lugosi film, but the script calls the unfortunate pawn a "familiar," which apparently gives him some vampire-like traits but none of the undead's weaknesses. For a century Renfield has helped his master set up in various locations from which Dracula preys on innocent victims. However, at least once or twice before, vampire-hunters have driven the duo from their hideouts, and so Renfield brings the coffin-bound aristocrat to New Orleans for new "bleeding-grounds."

Unfortunately for Drac, while he recuperates from his last clash with the forces of good, Renfield has enough time on his hands to learn about the American concept of co-dependent relationships. The idea of a vampire-servant becoming addicted to pop-psychology is a thin premise indeed, and it wears out its welcome very quickly.

By chance Renfield runs afoul of the Lobo Family-- and because a familiar can boost his strength and invulnerability to colossal heights by munching on bugs (sort of Renfield's version of spinach), the murderous thugs always get the worst of the encounters. In the second of these gory battles, Renfield interferes with Teddy Lobo's attempt to ice Rebecca. Their meet-cute is more like "meat-cute," given Renfield's ability to tear men's limbs off, but Rebecca thinks he's sweet. 

Teddy Lobo escapes the carnage but tracks Renfield to his master's hidden redoubt, and this ends up forging an alliance quicker than you can say "super-villain team-up." Around the same time Renfield imagines that he can just leave the Master of Vampires flat, and this works about as well as one might expect. But although Dracula re-asserts his authority over his servant by slaughtering Renfield's support-group, this ends up being the last straw that forces Renfield to do his own team-up, as he and Rebecca make war upon the Count and his new gangsta-familiars.

As I've indicated, there's a lot of gory action here, made funny just by its very over-the-top nature. The spotty attempts at characterization are neither funny nor affecting, though; neither Renfield nor Rebecca ever seem like anything more than walking cliches. Hoult is at least engaging playing the worm who turns, but Awkwafina is shrill and tedious at every turn. In a scene where Rebecca awakes after having suffered a gunshot-wound to her arm-- one which Renfield patches-- Awkwafina plays the whole scene without the slightest intimation that her arm pains or even inconveniences her.

But Cage's Dracula is an island of flamboyant glory amidst these seas of mediocrity. In many ways Cage is often closer to Stoker's vampire than most other cinematic versions. Stoker's Drac is not a charmer, not a lovelorn romantic. He's a ruthless brute who expects others to sacrifice their lives for his betterment. He's fascinating because he has amassed so much power, and Cage plays to that conception in every scene. Cage's Count is only different from Stoker's in that this vamp has a sense of mordant humor; he loves mocking Renfield's paltry efforts at self-determination. Yet in many ways he's as locked into medieval patterns of thinking as Renfield is. Why doesn't he try to amass some political power long before the encounter with the Lobos? The real answer is that Kirkman's script wants to keep Dracula an archaic figure, utterly out of touch with modern customs. A more skillful writer might have advanced the notion, as Stoker does, that being undead makes it tough for him to think outside the coffin, so to speak. I don't imagine Cage will ever have another shot at playing the master vampire, though, so this comical take on a million "I vant to suck you blood" tropes will have to suffice.

BABYLON 5: A CALL TO ARMS (1999)

  

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

The last of the BABYLON 5 movies (not counting a spinoff, LEGEND OF THE RANGERS) was itself primarily a lead-in to a spinoff series, CRUSADE, which lasted but one season. To maximize CRUSADE's potential, writer J. Michael Straczinksi-- ceding the director's chair to someone else, one Michael Vejar-- didn't content himself with another "long filler-episode," but attempted to link the new series to the most momentous conflicts of the ongoing series.

I don't remember what happened to the Garibaldi character (Jerry Doyle) in that series between this film and the previous RIVER OF SOULS, but now he's associated with developing a fleet of space destroyers for Earth defense purposes. Elizabeth Lockley still commands Babylon 5, and its former captain John Sheridan is now President of Earth. In order to get Sheridan back out on the field of action, he joins with Garibaldi to oversee the resting of one of the new ships. 

To foreshadow a new menace, an early introduced character, a "technomage" named Galen (Peter Woodward), sends premonitory dreams of destruction to Sheridan, so that he'll know that his visit isn't going to be confined to breaking bottles over ships' noses. Galen becomes a featured character in CRUSADE, as does a new visitor to the station, a tough-girl thief named Dureena (Carrie Dobro). Dureena doesn't really play a big role in the main story, aside from lending a fresh viewpoint at a crucial moment, so Galen must have been a helluva prophet to know how she'd become vital to Earth's defenses.

None of the movies ever directly involve the epic "War of the Shadows," but CALL does introduce a new menace that was an ally of that earlier foe: a species called the Drakh. These new players are never seen on camera here, but only by their offensive action: a "death cloud" that infects Planet Earth's inhabitants with a slow-acting nanovirus. Said virus had to be slow-acting, because the new CRUSADE series will focus on finding a cure for the virus. 

Despite a strong performance by Boxleitner, Straczinski's script is one of his dullest and the new enemies are perfunctory villains. I have not watched CRUSADE since its initial broadcast, but I remember it as nothing special. My final verdict on the movies is that none of them are better than adequate, and that anyone who wanted to see BABYLON 5 at its best had better buckle down and plow into the episodes, which are the only time the franchise enjoyed any outstanding moments.

RETURN OF THE LEG FIGHTER (1976)

 

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

I don't think, as per the American title, that "leg fighter" Shan (Dorian Tan) actually returns from anywhere, and the original Taiwanese title doesn't even use any of the same words. What we do get is one of the many attempts to merge the kung-fu revenge drama with a detective tale.

The viewer gets to see the inciting murder of Shan's father and brother by a mysterious swordsman garbed in black robes and a black hood. Once Shan learns of the murder, he drops whatever he's doing-- actually, there's no indication that he has any existence beyond being related to the murdered duo--and he begins making the rounds of local kung-fu clans to track down the man known as "The Devil Swordsman."

He has a brief encounter with a character played by the celebrated Lo Lieh, who promptly disappears, but makes somewhat better allies in Ti Lung and Doris Lung, though he does have to fight Doris over the usual misunderstanding. Shan learns that years ago, a masked Devil Swordsman with a formidable (maybe magical) sword was conquered by a coterie of fighters from various clans. However, the masked man's body disappeared, so it's not certain that he perished.

While Shan investigates, he witnesses a couple of poison dart attacks, and he interviews a famous assassin, The Poison Scholar, but the assassin is slain without revealing any new clues. Nevertheless, eventually Shan and his allies uncover the villain, who I believe was impersonating the original Swordsman and pretending to be a cripple confined to a sedan.

Most of the metaphenomena are uncanny, such as the various poison darts and other weapons, such as knives that Doris's character can toss around like boomerangs. However, even if the villain's sword didn't suggest some vague magical power, the scene in which he somehow levitates his whole sedan several feet in the air indicates some serious marvelous mojo. Overall, LEG FIGHTER's major asset is half a dozen fight-scenes in which Doris Lung Chung-erh shows off her skills.

WOLF DEVIL WOMAN (1981)

 

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

First, I have to correct some false information I purveyed in my 2012 review of MATCHING ESCORT. I stated that this film, starring Taiwanese kung-fu diva Chang Ling, appeared in 1983, prior to the subject of this review, Ling's 1982 WOLF DEVIL WOMAN, and that ESCORT seemed to re-use some of the sets of what I thought the earlier film. Ten years later, I don't know if I actually read a false history of the two films, or if I assumed ESCORT came second because some markets retitled it WOLF DEVIL WOMAN 2. But IMDB states that ESCORT was in 1981, and that it was also the first of three films (another source says four) that Chang both starred in and directed. This makes sense, for ESCORT is much more ordinary film than DEVIL. Since ESCORT was said to have been a box office flop, I can imagine Chang and her crew trying to gear up to make their next effort as wild and attention-getting as possible.

This Teleport City review asserts that DEVIL was based on a 1958 wuxia novel that was also the source for numerous  wuxia films, notably Ronny Yu's 1993 BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR. That novel, going by the Wiki summary, deals with a vigilante swordswoman who has a love affair with a young nobleman, but when they fall out her hair turns white, making her fundamentally inhuman, a state that can only be reversed if she eats a rare ginseng root. I can't tell if some of the other details associated with film adaptations stem from the 1958 novel or not-- the idea that the swordswoman is raised by wolves before being taken in by a criminal clan, for instance.

Since there aren't very many adaptations of the novel prior to Chang Ling's film, I speculate that the actress-- who had been wildly popular on Taiwanese television, and who was surely seeking to build a new rep in the film world-- tailored the contents of the novel to suit her needs. I have the impression that there had been earlier Hong Kong films with "wild child" protagonists, but in any case Chang devotes nearly half of DEVIL to creating the persona of her wolf-girl, eventually given the name "Snow Flower." Snow Flower is never adopted by any kind of clan, hanging out with the wolves from infanthood to adulthood. For some reason she wears clothes, including a cowl made from a wolfskin, and she lives in a snowy cave with her wolf-mother. (Since a real wolf would die in the time it takes for a human to grow to maturity, maybe Snow Flower imagines that the wolf in her company is the one that adopted her.) 

How does she get there? Well, funny thing. There is an evil cult, headed by a masked magician named "Red Devil." (In an early VHS translation, the villain was called "Blue Devil" and made to talk like Yosemite Sam, while characters with names like Lee and Wong were named "Rudolph and Rudy.") Red Devil plots to rule the world by terrorizing the local gentry. In addition to surrounding himself with ninja-style assassins, he also sacrifices human beings by making voodoo dolls of them and then subjecting the dolls to various torments. He keeps their corpses on display, which apparently alienates two new adherents, a husband and wife, causing them to flee the cult, their newborn child in hand. The Devil's agents pursue, but the parents-- who are apparently kung-fu masters-- conceal themselves by creating an avalanche to cover themselves and their child. (How do they do it? Oh, they ram their heads against a snowy mountainside.) Providentially, before the Devil's pawns can unearth the bodies, a pack of wolves come along, drive the cultists away, and unearth the still-living infant. Oh, and for good measure the mother-wolf feeds the infant a magical ginseng root, from which she will later manifest supernatural powers.

So that's all in the first ten minutes. Clearly, to keep this review from going on four times the norm, I'll have to confine myself to the high points. Fortunately, DEVIL is an episodic flick, so I'm doing no violence to the plot in excerpting the best bits.

*Nobleman Lee and his retainer Wong come to Snow Flower's stomping grounds, looking for the rare root to use against Red Devil. Not only do these worthies name Snow Flower and teach her to speak Chinese in a few days, Lee-- also a kung fu wizard-- observes that the girl walks hunched-over from living with wolves. So he uses super-fu to straighten her spine.

*Lee goes back to his father to report his failure, and the ninjas show up to kidnap him. Red Devil uses magical gas to turn Lee into his slave.

*Snow Flower wanders into some town and gets drunk. This triggers the super-powers in her body, and her hair turns white. She tosses villagers around like insects but they subdue her and dunk her in the well. Wong rescues her, and moments later she becomes a well-dressed swordswoman who can ride a horse. She only shows a few vestiges of her wolf-persona. Once she leaps into the air with one of Red Devil's men and tears the guy apart the way she earlier tore a rabbit apart. Also, her weapon of choice is a long rope with a wolf-claw at either end, which works surprisingly well against Red Devil's animated fire-bolts and hopping vampires. (These are the revived bodies of the corpses on display in Red Devil's sanctum.)

There's a part of me that really wants to rate this wild opus as having good mythicity, just because it takes the sentimental love-story of the novel and crossbreeds it with a zany wild-child adventure. But the script, which was probably concocted on the fly, doesn't indicate that Chang-- also said to be the writer-- had any insight on the novel's use of Chinese folklore. But if I had a "fair-to-good" category, WOLF DEVIL WOMAN would be top of the list.

HONOR ROLL #186

 Call him BLUE DEVIL or RED DEVIL; either way, he's bad news for all heroic wolf-women.

CHANG SHAO CHUN is-- well, he's in this movie.

JERRY DOYLE gets the honor of representing the fifth of the five-- five BABYLON 5 telefilms, that is.

"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gol darn it, people like NICHOLAS HOULT."

LANG JEFFRIES might not be a big name, but at least he knows how to strike silently.

Many masks had MIL MASCARAS, but the Aztec Mummy had only one masquerade: that of making himself sound like the classic fifties fiend.

THREE SUPERMEN AGAINST THE GODFATHER (1979)

  

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

The collaboration of Italy and Hong Kong for 1973's SUPERMEN AGAINST THE ORIENT wasn't quite bad enough, so the Italians took their property to Turkey, to see if the Turks could make an even worse movie. They succeeded.

This incoherent mess starts off with a scientist inventing a time-machine and briefly jaunting back to Byzantine times. But that's the last time-traveling you see, as the rest of the film is all about a Mafia "godfather" who sends his goons to steal the machine. He's being challenged for power by his daughter and her lover, who steal some of his drugs, and I think the godfather wants the time-machine to... find the drugs? Anyway, this time there's a new agent in charge (Turkish actor Cuneyt Arkin), but he acts like he's been around for other entries. He complains that he's always getting crossed up by his two partners (Sal Borghese and Aldo Canti, the latter returning to the franchise for the first time since the first film).

After the set-up, it's just one boring slapstick scene after another, in which the heroes' bulletproof costumes never get a work out, since none of the alleged gangsters ever shoot at them. There are a lot of scenes in a hospital, where I think the scientist is a patient for some reason, but those scenes merely exist so that a sexy nurse can get pursued by both heroes and gangsters. The only reasons to watch this, if you're not an insane superhero completist like me, would be to see an English-language superhero flick from Turkey (famous for its unlicensed adaptation of various franchises) or to watch Spanish actor Aldo Sambrell trying to do something with the nothing role of the Godfather.

FUTURE WORLD (2018)

 

 

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

I'm astonished to see so many negative IMDB reviews of this simply average post-apocalyptic flick. Haven't any of these people seen how aggressively dull most post-apoc have been? THE SISTERHOOD?  STEEL DAWN? NEON CITY? All three of these apoco-chips mediocrities appeared much closer time-wise to George Miller's defining 1981 apoco-masterpiece, THE ROAD WARRIOR, so their shortcomings are perhaps less excusable, given that they had a great contemporary model from which to draw.

Possibly one of the film's offenses is a common one in low-budget filmmaking: the "bait and switch" in which a filmmaker constructs a story around characters played by relatively unknown actors, while advertising "names" in the cast who actually don't do much. WAR is definitely guilty of this strategy, since three of those names, Lucy Liu, Snoop Dogg, and Milla Jovovich all essay supporting roles (though Jovovich won some plaudits for playing an aggressively nutty character far removed from her RESIDENT EVIL heroine). However, at least top-billed James Franco chews a lot of scenery as the movie's villain "Warlord," in addition to co-directing the movie with Bruce Thierry Cheung, also one of the film's co-scripters. 

Franco's evil guy leads a band of avaricious, motorcycle-riding raiders forever seeking new conquests, one of the main tropes of the post-apoc adventure-tale. The corollary trope is that of the raiders' potential victims, and here as in other such stories, said victims are an isolated, almost pastoral community. This desert-refuge bears the heavy-sounding name of The Oasis, though as a consequence of the low budget we don't see more than the ruling Queen (Liu), her literally-named son Prince (Jeffrey Wahlberg), and one or two retainers. Queen is deathly ill, but Prince thinks that he can find a cure in yet another rumored community, Paradise Beach.

Meanwhile, one of Warlord's illegal acquisitions is a female robot named Ash (Suki Waterhouse). Warlord programs the AI to be both his lover and his pet assassin, allowing her to execute one of his demented followers. Then, in one of the script's murkiest plot-threads, Warlord somehow finds out that Prince and his retainer have recourse to a commodity known as "bullets," and that the two men are on the way to a sex club run by "the Love Lord" (Snoop Dogg). Warlord and Ash get to the club first and make an arrangement with the pimp to betray the newbies, who are just looking for directions to Paradise Beach. 

Curiously, instead of simply jumping Prince and his friend, Warlord sends Ash to pick Prince's brain first, which she does by playing kissy-face with the youth. However, the simulated love-making triggers a reaction in Ash's artificial brain. After Warlord and his raiders kill Prince's retainer, Ash rescues Prince and flees in a dune buggy. Warlord tries to fry Ash's circuits with a control zapper but it only has a limited range, though Ash's responses become somewhat confused thereafter.

Prince and Ash make it to Paradise Beach, which community is run by the capricious Drug Lord (Jovovich). She makes Prince-- who, frankly, looks like a strong wind would blow him away-- to fight a big mofo in an arena. Prince only survives because the crazy woman gives a weapon, and once he wins, he earns the reward of a cure for his mom. However, Drug Lord has decided to keep Ash for herself, and she has a small militia to back her up. Chastened, Prince starts to leave, but doubles back for Ash-- though in his absence, Ash finds another female robot and enjoys a little girl-robot-on-girl-robot action. Drug Lord, who wanted to think of Ash as her virgin daughter, gets torqued, but before she can do anything, Warlord picks that moment to invade Paradise Beach. After a brief fight between the two mad Lords, Jovovich's character dies, and Warlord takes possession of Ash and tries to overtake Prince as well. The outcome is no great surprise, though it's a minor novelty that Prince and Ash, despite their affection for one another, don't end up as a romantic twosome.

To be sure, the two leads don't earn many bones in the action department. Prince has some basic heroic traits but remains more of a poetic idealist than he is a fighter. Ash is clearly stronger than the average female, but her three fights are short and display only basic choreography. The actors, like the lines they read, strain for a soulful quality, but the writing is too mediocre to get beyond platitudes, as when Ash asks Prince to explain to her the concept of "souls." The same criticism applies to the directors' shots of the apocalyptic desolation: they're not as bad as many reviewers suggest, but they more "arty" than "artful." So while I don't expect the flick will ever earn greater acclaim down the road, I give it a modest recommendation just because it's not as dull as the majority of films in this subgenre.

NEW TALE OF ZATOICHI (1963)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

Twice I watched NEW TALE OF ZATOICHI, the third entry in the series, to see if I could glean some of the stellar qualities others saw in it. But I still didn't think it was as dramatically strong as either the original ZATOICHI or its sequel. 

TALE might have seemed a little stronger to me if the story had elided some of the side-plots, as when Zatoichi (Shintaro Katsu) encounters an impoverished musician and his family, or ferrets out a local gang of thieves. The main action stems from all the events that transpire when the traveling masseur-swordsman, weary of killing the various opponents who have plagued him, returns to the village where he learned his sword-skills. 

Once he finally makes it to the village, Zatoichi re-encounters his old teacher Banno (Seizaburo Kawazu), as well as Banno's sister Yayoi (Mikiko Tsubouchi). The masseuse is disturbed to learn that Banno wants Yayoi to marry a wealthy man she doesn't love, not least because Zatoichi had a crush on her years ago. Further, Yayoi reveals that she reciprocates his feeling. However, Banno won't stand for interference with his plans, and may be willing to challenge his student to keep Yayoi in line. As a secondary threat, the brother of a man Zatoichi previously slew wants revenge-- though oddly, the thing that offends the sibling most is not simply his brother's death, but the enormity of his being killed by a blind man. However, viewers looking for outstanding swordplay will be disappointed with this entry.

Despite the wandering script, Katsu does his usual excellent job in defining the character, full of regrets for his sinful life. TALE is one of many Japanese films to transplant an ethos of modernity upon a medieval setting. Not only is Banno portrayed as a tyrant for controlling his sister's marital destiny, Zatoichi confesses to Yayoi that he's patronized prostitutes in his sinful life, which a real man of the period probably would not have regretted. Naturally, there's no happy ending in store for the blind masseuse and his former love, so it's on the next adventure in the series.

BLACK SCORPION (1995)

 

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

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

From glancing over the IMDB credits of director Jonathan Winfrey and writer Craig J. Nevius, it looks to me as if the BLACK SCORPION telefilm and its sequel are the standout accomplishments of their respective careers. That might seem like faint praise, but it's not meant that way. The two SCORPIONS are very nearly the only memorable entries out of the thirty telefilms that appeared under the Showtime ROGER CORMAN PRESENTS rubric-- and, perhaps more significantly, they do a better job of emulating the Tim Burton BATMAN films than did Joel Schumacher in the same year of 1995.

SCORPION's heroine Darcy Walker (Joan Severance) is first seen as a little girl whose cop-father (Rick Rossovich) reads her the classic story of The Scorpion and the Frog. Walker then leaves Darcy home alone (Darcy's mother is never mentioned) while he answers a call to pursue armed (and manically overacting) thieves. Walker wounds the two crooks and transports them to an ER, where they manage to take a doctor hostage. Walker recklessly shoots at the thugs and hits the doctor first, though managing to take out the crooks as well.

Fast-forward eighteen years. Darcy's become a Los Angeles cop like her father was-- and I say "was" because Walker got fired from the police for killing the doctor. Walker's become a commonplace security guard, though he still believes that, just as the scorpion of the fable had its own irreducible nature, his nature is that of a defender of the social order. Darcy, for her part, is a by-the-book cop, though, this being a Corman movie, she first appears in a hooker-getup as part of a sting operation to snare a murderous pimp. Darcy's snitch, a prostitute named Tender Lovin', claims that the lady-cop's handsome partner Michael (Bruce Abbott) has a thing for Darcy. The dedicated policewoman doesn't want romantic involvement (Electra complex, anyone?) and resents Michael's gallant gestures. Her feminist ire proves justified when Michael is too protective of her and messes up their operation. Later the brutal pimp will have the honor of being the first victim of a very different kind of sting.

After a brief introduction of the precinct where Darcy works, as well as her future ally the tech-head Argyle (Garrett Morris), Darcy goes to a bar to meet her security-officer dad-- but for the last time. Moments after Walker has complained about lawyers being the enemies of the police, in walks a lawyer from the D.A.'s office, who promptly shoots Walker dead. Later the attorney has no memory of committing the crime, and when Darcy tries to make him talk, her weaselly superior expels her from the force.

Around the same time, a heavily armored villain known as Breath-Taker assembles a motley crew of oddball crooks to commit some "random crimes" in L.A.-- though his real plan has something to do with establishing an anti-pollution enterprise in Smoggy L.A. Town. Though the crimes could be easy ways to acquire capital, their real purpose is to give a new heroine a concerted threat to battle.

For Darcy won't abandon her cop-nature simply because she's fired. She dons a skimpy black costume (complete with a hair-braid), somehow gets hold of boot-jets and a ring that shoots an electrical charge, and proceeds to fight crime as a costumed vigilante. You might think she would be the one to proclaim her scorpion-identity to the world, but it's her prostitute-snitch who dubs her Black Scorpion because the heroine's hair-braid reminds the witness of a scorpion's tail. (?) A little later, she confides in former car-thief Argyle and he becomes her tech-wizard, even constructing her a "Scorpion-mobile."

In the heroine's first bout with two of Breath Taker's minions-- a pair of flamboyant lady wrestlers-- Black Scorpion is defeated and almost captured by police. She gets away after wrestling around with former partner Michael, planting a kiss on his lips before knocking him out with a punch. Being a vigilante loosens up Darcy's erotic urges, and she pursues her former partner aggressively. However, like many an avenger before her, Darcy finds that her masked identity has overshadowed her real one, for Michael's obviously a little more taken with the Scorpion. Later in the story, Black Scorpion obliges Michael's slight SM tendencies by cornering him in his apartment and having a little rough trade with him.

Breath Taker announces to the city a rather incoherent plan: he threatens to release poison gas throughout the city, but he'll allow citizens to purchase gas masks. Darcy and Argyle figure out that his real scheme is to use a hypnotic gas, administered through the masks, to take control of the populace. It's still not a believable scheme, but at least it leads the good guys to Breath Taker's real identity: a cardio-pulmonary specialist with the epic-sounding name of "Noah Goddard." But it can't be Noah Goddard, because that (ta-da) is the doctor whom Darcy's father shot to death.

Of course Goddard isn't dead, though his lungs were so damaged by gunfire that he has to wear heavy armor and a mask to continue breathing. The script doesn't explain how or why Goddard faked his death, but it does bring us full circle by stating that he used his hypno-gas to compel an innocent attorney to shoot Darcy's dad-- little realizing that by so doing, he would create his own nemesis.

Though Nevius' script is riddled with holes, even leaving out the ones I've already mentioned, he delivers on many favorite tropes of the superhero genre. The vigilante who commits crimes to defeat criminals. The hero's regular identity, eclipsed by his/her own idealized image. The villain with a mysterious connection to the hero's father. Nevius also sticks assorted campy incidents into his script-- for instance, one of the lady wrestlers won't fight the heroine until her wrestler-partner "tags" her. But there's not really a "camp" vision here as there was in the better BATMAN '66 episodes, so all of these incidents are just comic relief.

All of the villains tend to overact while the heroic types underact: even mouthy Garrett Morris' character is relatively restrained as the tech-sidekick who joins the Scorpion's crusade-- well, Just Because. Severance handles the action scenes well enough for a performer who clearly was not a martial artist, and her height does make her fairly convincing, particularly in her domme-scene with Michael. Unfortunately for his character (though perhaps fortunately for the actor playing him), Michael learns Darcy's secret, which meant that he had no more utility as a character. Thus Michael vanishes from the Scorpion's world in both the 1997 sequel and the 2001 teleseries, though both Tender Lovin' and Argyle remain part of said cosmos.

LUPIN III: FROM SIBERIA WITH LOVE (1992)

 

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

This TV-special apparently aired in Japan with the subtitle "From Russia with Love," but to lessen confusion I'll go with the less Bond-derived version.

This is a solid comedy-adventure that's distinguished from most Lupin III tales by having a fairly formidable villain. This time Goemon pursues a separate course than the other members of the regular ensemble (Lupin, Jigen, and Fujiko), though he ends up uniting with the other three toward the end of the story.

As often happens, Lupin's passion for finding new scores puts him on the trail of a legendary store of gold sent to the U.S. from Russia during the final Czarist years. Lupin's research in a public library involves a dalliance with a busty librarian, but this is soon broken up by the relentless Inspector Zenigata. Lupin and Jigen escape the dauntless detective and seek out a young woman, Judy, who has further info on the gold cache's location. I confess I didn't follow exactly how the gold, which was given to a Russian emigre to the U.S., ended up in the hands of a very special bank whose depositors are all underworld figures. However, once Lupin enlists the aid of his inamorata Fujiko, the plan to rob the bank of its Russian gold begins to come together.

There are, of course, other crooked types conspiring to get the prize before Lupin. Two thugs are sent by the Mafia to monitor the situation (what, the Family couldn't spare more than two mooks?) A more formidable foe is Rasputon, supposedly a descendant of the Mad Monk of Czarist Russia. Goemon gets involved with Rasputon when the villain steals the samurai's precious sword, compelling Goemon to obey his will. Further, Rasputon possesses the power to read minds and anticipate what any enemy intends to do against him, making it difficult for the samurai to request help from his posse.

Though Zenigata doesn't appear as often as in other Lupins, the writers contrive a lot of good comic action for the resourceful thieves, including a couple of double-crosses. There are some involved set-pieces involved in the concealment of the huge gold cache, and these strain credulity after all the relatively naturalistic heist explanations. But compared to many Lupins, SIBERIA is fairly restrained, with Rasputon's psychic talent furnishing the narrative's only marvelous content.

ANGEL SANCTUARY (2000)

 

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

Given the ending of this OVA series, consisting of just three half-hour episodes, I must assume that the makers had some hope of being able to adapt the whole sprawling ANGEL SANCTUARY manga-series, but that the fiscal support just was not there. The OVA series does appear to be somewhat more streamlined, so a complete adaptation might have eliminated some of the manga's draggy sections.

In my review I noted that the SANCTUARY manga was clearly aimed at teen girls with a taste for androgynous males. The art-style selected for the animation is a little more mainstream, which means that it's somewhat easier to tell the characters from one another. The protagonist is high-schooler Setsuna Mudo, who pals around with his buddy Satsuya and secretly lusts after his younger sister Sara. In the manga all three are eventually revealed to be reincarnations of angels, though the OVA focuses on how the essence of the female angel Alexiel dwells in Setsuna's form (allowing him to sometimes manifest big angel-wings). 

In a very non-canonical version of the War in Heaven, Alexiel rebelled against both God and his angels, including her brother Rosiel. She did so because she felt the angels had done an injustice to the opposing forces of the demons, and Rosiel descends to Earth with the intention of causing Alexiel to rejoin him in heaven. At the same time, two of the demons from "Gehenna" want to enlist the powers of Alexiel for their own purposes. One of these, Kurai, is a young girl who dresses like a boy, while the other, Arachne, is a male demon dressed like a female, so the OVA is without question faithful to the mangaka's affection for cross-dressing.

The three-part tale adapts the first three or four volumes adroitly enough, so far as I can recall, and by so doing it avoids one of the faults I found in the manga-series. The initial conflict of the series is that of Setsuna's transgressive feelings for his sister Sara, and her eventual reciprocation, but over time this dramatic trope tends to get lost in the manga's unending tide of similar-looking angels and demons. But the adaptation cuts off just at the point when Sara has been slain by one of Rosiel's emissaries, so that her soul is condemned to hell for her sin of incest. Setsuna is wary of being manipulated by various forces on both sides (including a phantom-entity named after the Qabalistic concept Adam Kadmon). Yet Sara is so vital to him that he swears allegiance to Kadmon in exchange for being sent to Hades to rescue Sara, and that means that his body has to be slain for Setsuna himself to become a spirit. Given that there's no doubt that he will survive the transition in some heroic fashion, this isn't the downer it might sound like, and it does have the effect of giving the transgressive love of the siblings an equally heroic vibe. Like the manga, even the shortened form of SANCTUARY is just fair on the mythicity scale though.

HONOR ROLL #185

 Where SETSUNA MUDO goes, trouble follows.

RASPUTON found that by virtue of misspelling his name he sacrificed the Rasputin resistance to death.

JOAN SEVERANCE takes a big stab at fighting injustice.

MIKIKO TSUBOUCHI tries to be "the sighted leading the blind."

There's no future in the world of SUKI WATERHOUSE.

CUNEYT ARKIN made the Italians an offer (for a really cheap movie) that they couldn't refuse.

REVENGE OF THE NINJA (1983)

 

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

Prior to REVENGE OF THE NINJA the Cannon group issued ENTER THE NINJA, which, while watchable, is mostly notable for introducing martial-artist-turned-actor Sho Kosugi to American audiences. Kosugi had made about three films prior to ENTER, but evidently he impressed Cannon with his performance as the villain in that film, for here he's the hero. Similarly, though this was not the very first directorial role for Sam Firstenberg, it was his first martial arts movie, made about two years before Firstenberg launched the popular AMERICAN NINJA series.

Without inflating the significance of REVENGE, it does actually have a fairly tight plot in comparison with the average Cannon schlock. Since most of writer Jim Silke's cinematic outings were not all that interesting, maybe he or one of his producers decided they really wanted to expand on the mythology of the cinematic ninjas. Here we have two ninjas for the price of one-- one bad and one good-- and both of them make heavy use of all the exotic weapons associated with the medieval clans: caltrops, blowdarts, and the ever popular shuriken.

Kosugi plays Cho Osaki, one of the last members of a modern-day ninja clan in Japan. He's befriended by Braden (Arthur Roberts), one of the few Caucasians trained in ninjutsu, but a clan-feud breaks out and costs the life of Osaki's wife. Distraught, Osaki takes his young son Kane to America. He starts up an art gallery devoted to Asian art, in partnership with Braden. Though Osaki forswears the way of the ninja, he and his son continue training in the various martial arts, and even Braden's associate Cathy (Ashley Ferrare) joins them in some bouts, though it appears that she'd like to have a "bout" of a different kind with Osaki.

Braden, however, is using the gallery as cover for a heroin smuggling ring, concealing the dope in some of the art-figurines. However, Braden butts heats with local Mafia boss Chifano, who wants to ace Braden out and deal directly with the suppliers. Braden dons his ninja gear and starts killing members of Chifano's family to make the mobster capitulate. Kane witnesses Braden kill Osaki's aged mother and the boy flees for his life, and Chifano sends men to steal the dope from the gallery, thus bringing about a fight between Osaki and Chifano's goons. This "turf war" plotline is reasonably efficient about bringing the two ninjas into conflict over the good ninja's son, while allowing for the slaughter of a lot of the bad ninja's gangster-enemies.

Now, although this isn't your average Cannon film, where all the action erupts without cause to keep the audience happy, there certainly are some oddball setups. In one, Osaki and a policeman buddy randomly go looking for the missing Kane, confront a group of scummy looking layabouts in a park, and get into a fight with them, though the bums really have nothing to do with the boy. More amusingly, Braden uses ninja hypnosis on Cathy to make her capture Kane when he shows up at the Osaki dojo-- and the duel between a very skilled grade-schooler and a semi-trained grown woman is certainly not something you see every day.

Overall, the fight-scenes in REVENGE are much better than the average American chopsocky, particularly the climactic contest between Osaki and Braden. On a minor point, the credits bill Kosugi as both Osaki and "the Black Ninja," though no one calls Osaki that, and both of the ninjas here wear the same ebony attire. "The Black Ninja" is also the name bestowed on the villain of the next collaboration between Firstenberg and Silke, NINJA III: THE DOMINATION, which makes REVENGE OF THE NINJA looks like a John Ford film by comparison. 

THE SCORPION KING: BOOK OF SOULS (2018)

 

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

After the mediocrity of SCORPION KING 4, I would not have believed that anyone could do much with this played-out franchise. But Don Michael Paul and his two writers made at least a decent if unexceptional formula-flick.

Naturally the most absurd tropes from the fourth film, that all magic in this sword-and-sorcery world was really super-science, is discarded. Paul et al even place this version in a dour desert-world that resembles the milieu of the original movie, and even visually evokes the 1982 CONAN THE BARBARIAN at times. It's another new actor taking over the role of barbarian Mathayus, Zack McGowan, but he'd worked with director Paul before on the fourth of the current of the current DEATH RACE series, so possibly McGowan benefited from that experience here.

Almost all jokiness is cast aside, and the mood is more like the third installment, with Mathayus mourning lost relations. He doesn't really care much that the despot Nebserek has gained control of the Fang of Anubis, a sword guaranteed to give its wielder supreme power. In fact, Nebserek's soldiers invade Mathayus's village to capture the famed Scorpion King. A warrior princess, Tala of Nubia (Pearl Thusi), frees the reluctant hero and invokes the name of her dead father, one of Mathayus's past allies, to gain his help. In the name of vengeance, the hero agrees.

Tala only has a vague prophecy about how the Fang of Anubis can be countered, through some usage of the "Book of Souls." On their way to find the Book, the duo fall into the clutches of a desert-tribe, the Black Arrows, who always execute trespassers. Mathayus challenges the tribe's warriors to chase him down in a hunt. The chieftain agrees, with the result that Mathayus manages to overcome all the hunters without taking their lives-- which ensures that the tribe as a whole lets the hero and his companion free. This seems like a time-burning device, but the tribesmen do appear later to help the good guys battle the forces of Nebserek.

They arrive at a secluded temple, inhabited only by Amina, an immortal woman (possibly some offspring of the world's gods) and her golem-guardian, a huge man of clay named Enkidu (Nathan Jones). (The Enkida of Mesopotamian myth is not a golem, but is created from clay in roughly the same way Yahweh gives rise to Adam.) Though Enkidu tries to keep his charge confined to the temple as his "programming" commands, Amina reveals that she herself is the incarnation of the Book of Souls. Therefore to help Mathayus and Tala conquer the evil despot, she deserts the temple. Enkidu reluctantly follows, for though he's big and immensely strong, he fears fire, which can turn his clay body into stone.

It's a slow slog to the big confrontation scene, but SOULS does deliver a pretty good end-battle, with Mathayus squaring off against Nebserek while Tala takes on the villain's female lieutenant Khensa (Mayling Ng). I can't claim that either Mathayus or Tala are very interesting characters, though I suppose the absence of a predictable romance-arc is a small blessing. Yet Enkidu, the inhuman servitor with a fear of torches, provides a few moments of levity along the way. I won't reveal the outcome of Amina's arc, but it has a decent dramatic pathos for a sword-and-sorcery film. My verdict is that though no one would place SOULS high on a list of good S&S movies, at least it would be a fair finish for the King of Scorpions.

THE SCORPION KING 4: QUEST FOR POWER (2015)

 

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

Although Victor Webster is back for his second outing as Mathayas the Scorpion King, the producers decided to get rid of Number Three's vision of a broody hero and to revert back to the jokey, freewheeling approach of the original movie. Trouble is, it's a mostly dismal sword-and-sorcery retread with no good humor and mostly ordinary action.

Mathayas once again puts himself at the service of a royal patron, trying to steal a magical item from the treasure-vault of a minor tyrant (Lou Ferrigno). Ferrigno's only in the movie for the length of his fight with Mathayas and his partner Drazen (Will Kemp), and in truth the two-on-one fight with Ferrigno is the movie's high point. After the tyrant is bested, Drazen betrays Mathayas, leaving him imprisoned while making off with the magic doohickey. It turns out that Drazen's actually the son of another king, the enemy of Mathayas' patron.

Though the hero wants vengeance, his king instructs him to broker peace with Drazen's father. Drazen has the Scorpion King locked up, during which time the hero meets saucy wench Valina (Ellen Hollman). Then Drazen offs his old man, planning to claim the talisman's power for himself, and frames Mathayas for the crime. Mathayas and Valina escape Drazen's sanctuary, and Valina talks the muscleman into getting help from her eccentric scientist-father Raskov (Barry Bostwick).

Yes, that's right; I said "scientist"-- for in the movie's biggest deviation from the other films in the series, supposedly all the "magic" in this world is really science-derived, according to Raskov. The hero and his new girlfriend kill some time listening to the wacky old guy and fighting with some other tribes before they try to obtain the secret concealed by the talisman. All the phenomena they meet are one form of super-science or another, so I'm not sure what advantage the writers gained by claiming this is a "sword and science" world.

Webster's just okay as the muscle-brained hero, and Hollman's about the same, though at least the director and writers give her character quite a few fight-scenes against both male and female opponents. Michael Biehn, M. Emmet Walsh and Rutger Hauer also appear in minor support-roles, for what that's worth.

RAMPAGE (2018)

 

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

I didn't have much to say about this 2018 Dwayne Johnson popcorn flick. I didn't know until reading up on it that it was an adaptation of an arcade game, which of course I have not seen, but whatever the source it just looks like a big-budget version of the many "colossal critter" films that litter the streaming services. 

Most colossal critters are spawned by hubris-filled experiments by either governmental entities or by private corporations. One interesting wrinkle here: though most space-oriented lab foulups have been linked to the government, the behemoths of RAMPAGE come about because a gene-splicing company conducts experiments aboard a private space station. This must be some sort of response to recent increased corporate presence in Earth's atmosphere. 

So a mutated rat tears up the private station of a gene-modification company and several cannisters of this animal-mutating "ooze" fall to Earth and begin turning regular critters into kaiju, such as a giant crocodile and giant wolf (neither of which, sadly, get kaiju-style cognomens). The third victim of the genetic pathogen in a gorilla named George, who will end up being something of a cross between King Kong and Mighty Joe Young. Prior to his infection George dwells at a San Diego wildlife sanctuary, supervised by his human buddy Davis Okoye (Johnson). Okoye being an environmentally sensitive tree-hugger, he's well and truly pissed when his ape-buddy (who can communicate through sign language) turns into a monster and gets sequestered by the U.S. government.

All three city-smashing monsters are brought together in Chicago, thanks to the CEOs of the gene-mutation company, Claire Wyden (Malin Akerman) and her brother Brett (Jake Lacy). They hope to harvest the pathogen from one of the monsters in order to sell it on the tech market. Okoye, accompanied by hot scientist Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris), do their best to prevent the villains' triumph and to save the normally good-natured gorilla. In the midst of all the spectacle there's a paltry subplot about how Okoye doesn't get along as well with his fellow humans as with animals. 

The film was a modest success but I found it a little too predictable to register on the fun-meter, while I only give it fair mythicity because of all the various cosmological details about the animal kingdom. It did occur to me to wonder how much longer Johnson can successfully mine his "big cuddly muscleman" routine, though. Since his starring debut in 2002's SCORPION KING, Johnson seems as if he looked around at Arnold Schwarzenegger's success with his more comical, less hardcore roles and thus decided to go that route all the way. Not that many successful actors don't pick a popular film-persona and keep coming back to it, but Schwarzengger for one was able to vary his act more than Johnson ever has. 

Oh, yeah, and since George survives (not really worth a "spoiler," is it?) there's talk of a RAMPAGE sequel. I won't hold my breath waiting.

BABYLON 5: THIRDSPACE (1998)

 

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

If a viewer was intrigued by mentions of a "war of shadows" in the BABLYON 5 pilot or the first telefilm, one won't get much out of the rest of the movies, for that conflict was played out only in the episodic series. THIRDSPACE debuted during the fifth and last season, but stayed independent of the series. Unfortunately, what one gets is just an overgrown "filler episode."

In fact, THIRDSPACE feels a bit like the famous Classic Trek episode, "The Naked Time." Everyone on Babylon 5 is spazzing out because of an outside influence, but it's not a contagion. An ancient artifact, potentially one that can harness a new method of hyperspace travel, is brought aboard the station. But before any discoveries can be made, the artifact begins broadcasting malign vibrations that turn residents into submissive thralls. 

Thanks to the station's resident telepath Lyta (Patricia Tallman), the heroes eventually learn that the artifact is a token of a hostile extra-dimensional race. The universe's oldest aliens, the mysterious Vorlons, are children next to the Thirdspace beings, and the Vorlons deemed the Thirdspacers as virtual gods. In a variation on the Tower of Babel stories, the Vorlons built one of the hyperspace gates, but suffered invasion by the evil aliens-- who are gearing up to invade once more.

As exciting as this potentially sounds, the movie is very talky. Commander Sheridan (Bruce Boxlietner) and his consort Delenn of the Minbari (Mira Furlann) have little to do, and so the burden of the story falls mostly on Lyta, Ivanova (Claudia Christian), and a regular from later seasons, Zack Allan (Jeff Conaway). Conaway is such a bad actor that he drags down every scene he's in, making the perfunctory script even more obvious. About the only time the movie perks up a bit is when a doctor investigating the artifact (Shari Belafonte) is enthralled by its influence and gets into a short fistfight with Ivanovna.

THE FUGITIVE (1963)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

With the fourth installment of the Zatoichi movie series, the formula's getting a little stale. Once again Zatoichi has a price on his head. Once again he seeks out a new town, and once again he meets an old love. But this time there are fewer references to old-time Japanese cultural practices, which is one of the things that made the series distinctive from many swordsplay films.

After Zatoichi earns a little money in a wrestling-bout, a clumsy assassin attacks the blind masseuse. After defending himself by killing the man, Zatoichi learns that a new bounty has been placed on his head, and that the dying would-be assassin leaves behind a sole relation, his mother. Zatoichi travels to the town to inform the parent of her son's passing. Though the mother forgives the swordsman, the local Yakuza, who seem to be the ones who placed the new bounty, try to nerve themselves up to attack the formidable hero.

Two romantic arcs dominate the drama. A B-plot is devoted to a young girl (Miwa Takada) in love with a same-age Yakuza leader, who wants him to give up the criminal life. The A-plot involves a woman named Tane (Masayo Banri) who was once Zatoichi's lover but now lives with the Yakuza's pet samurai. Guess which plotline has an unhappy resolution.

There are snatches of decent dialogue but it's very talky. In the film's most notable scene of "superlative skill," the blind man demonstrates his sword-skill by cutting a bottle in half-- lengthwise from top to bottom, and while a Yakuza is still holding the item.