BEHIND THE MASK OF ZORRO (1965)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

BEHIND THE MASK OF ZORRO is a pleasant Zorro-pastiche. Like many of the Italian adventure-flicks cranked out in the 1960s, this one, directed by Ricardo Blasco, has a stylistic sameness about it, but it does deliver a few strong swordfight-scenes. Tony Russel, an actor of American birth (though he had Italian roots), puts across the requisite charm, and the production manages to work in more lovely ladies than the plot technically needs.

Though the plot follows the broad outlines of the Hollywood Zorro-films, the producers rang in some changes: the hero no longer sports the name Diego Vega, and instead of being a fey caballero, he's an apparently subservient valet who waits on the very people who are plundering California. (Did the producers fear the wrath of Disney, even though the Zorro teleseries had ended six years previous?) In the dubbed version I saw, the film's climax includes one memorable humorous moment: Zorro's assistants dress up like Russians (I forget why) and their spokesman speaks in gibberish that largely consists of Russian proper names piled atop one another.

MERLIN AND THE WAR OF THE DRAGONS (2008)

 

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

I only glanced at a couple of IMDB reviews while checking specs on ths film's personnel, but I saw enough to make me wonder if any of those reviewers have ever seen a really bad movie. This DTV flick with the long-winded title-- henceforth abbreviated to WAR-- is just a competent but unexceptional formula effort, with decent if not exceptional performances. WAR's main point of interest is that it chooses to mine the Arthurian mythos at a point most such movies don't focus upon: the period during which Merlin was schooled in magic by a perceptor, and first gained access to the sword Excalibur, later to be bestowed upon Arthur.

In a 12th-century poem, it's established that Merlin was born of a mortal woman by her intercourse with an incubus, and later tutored in magic by a wizard named Blaise. WAR opens with the same basic  situation. Rather than allowing Baby Merlin to be slain as demon-spawn, a wizard known only as "The Mage" (Jurgen Prochnow) adopts the child, and the infant is next seen as Teen Merlin (Simon Lloyd-Roberts). However, The Mage also adopts a second orphan, Vendiger (Joseph Stacey), and so the two orphans grow up as virtual brothers. Not surprisingly, the introduction of Vendiger supplies the movie with its villain, the bad seed who doesn't honor his adoptive father's teachings. He also lures Merlin into reading from their adoptive dad's magical book, and this sets up most of the future magical occurrences, including the titular "war of the dragons."

The Romans have recently withdrawn from Britain, so dozens of petty chieftains are vying for power, though we only see two, noble Vortigern (whose army includes the future father of Arthur, Uther Pendragon) and ignoble Hengest. (We also barely see much in the way of armies; it looks like both warlords have about ten soldiers under their respective commands.) Vendiger allies himself to Hengest, and displays his stolen magical spells by conjuring up a dragon with which to fight Vortigern.

The Mage backs Vortigern, but he also needs an edge, and that's Excalibur. He sends Teen Merlin to the sacred lake, where dwell two magical sisters, Nimue and Viviane. Both names occur in Arthurian lore, often as variant names for either the Lady of the Lake or a sorceress who beguiles Merlin. The Mage cautions Merlin, who is half-god, not to fall into the clutches of the fairy-folk. The young magus receives some ambiguous attentions from both sisters (who are, to be sure, the weakest actors in the movie), but no real threat manifests, and Merlin fetches Excalibur back to the battle front. In the meantime, though, Evil Vendiger kills The Mage, though he lives long enough to charge Merlin with stopping his bad brother for good. 

The dragons look OK, but they don't really have a big impact on the story, which is really just about a Good Father, His Good Son, and His Bad Son. There's a very short scene with a female warrior who talks with Teen Merlin a bit, but no romantic arc appears either. Prochnow endows The Mage with a good gravitas despite the simplistic character.

TARZAN LORD OF THE JUNGLE (1976-79)

 

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

Filmation Studio's TARZAN LORD OF THE JUNGLE enjoyed 36 episodes spread out over four seasons on CBS-TV. As of this writing, only Season 1, consisting of 16 half hour episodes, has been released to DVD. Yet somehow I feel confident in making a summary statement about the entire series--

TARZAN was to Filmation what JONNY QUEST was to Hanna-Barbera.

I refer not to the overall level of craft or to audience reception, but to my perception that the Filmation raconteurs pushed themselves far more than they ever had before (with adaptations like SUPERMAN and AQUAMAN) and certainly more than they would in future. 

Of course, with a show produced for Saturday morning television, there was no way Filmation could include any of the visceral violence of Burroughs, even putting aside the company's budgetary limitations. But in lieu of fight scenes the producers used rotoscoping to lend a sense of pleasing grace to animals and to the ape-man himself. 

There were other compromises. Though 1976 wasn't as afflicted with political correctness as current cartoons are today, LORD's producers evidently shared the same intuition that guided Disney's 1999 TARZAN: if you don't have any Black Africans in the stories, no one can complain about how they are depicted. But unlike the Disney version, Filmation's LORD compensates by having the ape-man run across assorted "lost races," though not nearly as many as Burroughs himself created. Thus the stories usually concern Tarzan meeting some sort of exotic society-- a race of ten-foot-tall giants, or one made up of antique Vikings, or knights in armor, or worshipers of a long-lived woolly mammoth. There's even a passing reference to the land of Opar, the lost kingdom Burroughs himself utilized most often.

My favorite episodes, though, are the two involving the lion-worshipers of Zandar ("Cathne" in Burroughs' TARZAN AND THE CITY OF GOLD). This was one of the author's best Tarzan books, and though of course the cartoon couldn't deal with any of the more mature elements, I appreciated that the animators did a great job designing Nemone, one of the many pagan queens who threw themselves at Tarzan's bare feet.

It's here that Burroughs' protagonist gets his first incarnation as "Tarzan, Eco Warrior." To Filmation's credit, the ape-man's love for his jungle kingdom-- which extends to having a strange rapport with animals other than apes-- comes across as heartfelt in the scripts, so that the ecological themes aren't intrusive. There are of course some weaker stories, which in my opinion tend to be the ones with SF-elements, particularly Tarzan's two close encounters with extraterrestrials. 

It also helps that Tarzan uses most of the animal-names in the ERB glossary without stopping to explain any of them, and in place of the overly wacky chimp from the movies, Tarzan's main companion also hails from the books, the semi-cowardly monkey N'Kima. There's no Jane in the first season, nor any other romantic dalliances for Tarzan, but there are a number of female support-characters who are generally portrayed as possessing strong agency, maybe more than a lot of Burroughs heroines.

CIRCUITRY MAN (1990)

 

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

CIRCUITRY MAN is one of three films written by the sibling-team of Robert and Steven Lovy and directed by the latter brother. The two apparently continued to work in low-budget cinema in other capacities, and this is a shame, because their first collaboration stands as one of the better "cyberpunk noirs" in American science fiction.

A narrative crawl informs the viewer that in post-apocalyptic 2020, most of the surface world has been devastated and the remnants of humanity live in underground cities, where the last frontier is the human mind. That means that the various underworld cliques trade in such dubious commodities as computer chips meant to stimulate the brains of customers who "plug" into them. In underground Los Angeles, Lori (Dana Wheeler-Nicholson) formerly worked as a bodyguard and smuggler for one gang, headed by the corpulent Juice (Lu Leonard). Lori left Juice's employ to sell fashion designs to whatever passes for legitimate society (never seen, to keep the budget low). But Lori makes the mistake of looking for love in the wrong place, and her bed-partner betrays her to Juice's henchman Yoyo (mannishly clad Barbara Alyn Woods). Yoyo drags Lori to meet Juice, who pressures Lori to accept a special commission, to transport a cache of computer chips cross-country to New York for a big score. 

During negotiations, the cynical Lori meets Romero (like "Romeo") Danner (Jim Metzler), a "synthetic" normally employed as a "pleasure droid." Juice, being the sort of villain who boasts about previous misdeeds, tells Lori that she once manipulated Danner into being her runner on a job in order to liberate his girlfriend. The big catch: there is no girlfriend, only a programmed memory of one, downloaded into Danner's mind to make him tractable.

Lori needs a wheel-man to help her survive the underground catacombs connecting the various cities, and to avoid moving onto the surface, where humans can only survive with oxygen gear. The aggrieved young woman plays upon Danner's programmed fantasies so that he helps her, though clearly she's also intrigued with the handsome synthetic's rep as a man who can pleasure women. Unfortunately, rival crook Plughead (Vernon Wells) tries to hijack the chips, kills Juice (though she gets better later), and teams with Yoyo to knock off the two couriers.

Though the budget is low, the Lovys use a variety of clever production tricks to create the illusion of a future world. While being chased by Plughead-- so called because he has computer-jacks sprouting from his skull-- Lori and Danner start to bond as beleagured outsiders, and Lori becomes conflicted about using Danner for her own ends, just like Juice. The travelers meet a tunnel-rat, Leech (Dennis Christopher. providing wonky comedy relief), and he joins their band, being the only one who can provide oxygen tanks, with which to escape pursuit on the deadly surface.

There's also not a lot of budget for action FX. Lori, strangely nicknamed "the muscle bitch" even though she's not overly ripped, does a few basic fighting-moves against lowlife opponents, and at the conclusion Danner has a gun-duel with Plughead. But the focus is the love story, and though Lori is absent in the sequel, CIRCUITRY MAN is dramatically more satisfying than any dozen futuristic DTV flicks of the decade.

XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS: SEASON THREE (1996-97)

 

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

Season Three begins the series of generally serious stories that fans term "The Rift." Had the entire season followed this theme, I would probably judge it as possessing good mythicity. However, the various comedic interludes keep the overall level merely at "fair." There's an increased emphasis on "subtext" in this season.

THE FURIES (G)-- The writers' reworking of the Orestes myth is considerably more successful than the second season's meretricious takes on the narratives of Ulysses and of the Athena-Poseidon quarrel. Ares persuades the Furies-- the judges of Greeks who commit sins against their families-- that Xena has failed to avenge the slaying of her father. The Furies strike Xena with madness, and though some of her distracted actions are humorous in nature, on the whole the warrior princess is tormented by her irrational urges. The master stroke in Ares' plan is that the slayer of Xena's estranged father, whom she barely remembers, was her mother. Thus, like Orestes, if Xena kills the slayer, she will still be consumed by the Furies' vengeance. But whereas Orestes's sin is purged by the gods in mythology, Xena must use what remains of her wits to out-think Ares, by accusing him, her former mentor, of being her real father. A commentary states that the writers thought of presenting Xena's hoax as the truth, but changed their minds because the "shared universe" already had a demigod hero. Ares makes a speech about how the only true victory is of those strong enough to "twist" reality to serve them, and his use of the phrase "beyond good and evil" suggests the usual bad reading of Nietzsche.

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT (F)-- Lucy Lawless gets to exercise her comic chops big-time in this reprise of "Groundhog Day." I find the XENA episode funnier than the movie, thanks in part to lots and lots of Joxer. There's a rather singular use of the phrase "seize the day."

THE DIRTY HALF-DOZEN (F)-- Gabrielle, whose good effects upon Xena's character are constantly touted, gets to see how "Bad Xena" changed six formerly ordinary individuals into career criminals. Xena recruits these half-dozen former followers for a vital mission. The heroines and their unruly allies must foil Ares' current plan to hurl the world into war by gifting a petty warlord, Agathon, with near-impenetrable metal armor for Agathon's soldiers. Comedy and drama intermingle as Xena and Gabrielle must ride herd on their aides, some of whom are perfectly willing to turn on their former benefactor. There's a minor theme thrown in, wherein Gabrielle wonders if her identity is innate or was forged by the influence of Xena, like the Half-Dozen. Katrina Hobbs, also on HERCULES, has a nice role as a man-hating hot babe.

THE DELIVERER (G)--  Were the allusions to the monotheism of Israel in the previous two seasons turn out to have been a setup by the writers and producers for this turn of events? The episode takes place at the time Julius Caesar has invaded an area of Gaul termed "Brittania." After Xena and Gabrielle rescue a mild-mannered slave named Krafstar, he gives every impression that the "One God" he worships is related to the Judeo-Christian faith. Xena, motivated by her grudge against Caesar, drags Gabrielle to Brittania with the goal of rendering aid to Caesar's enemy Boudicea (who ruled a tribe in eastern Britain, not Gaul). Ares tries to persuade Xena not to help the acolytes of the One God, trying to evoke her loyalty to Greek culture, but his arguments fall on deaf ears. Sure enough, Krafstar's true allegiance is to a demon-god, Dahak, and Dahak has selected Gabrielle as the innocent pawn he will impregnate, in order to have a half-mortal scion on Earth. Gabrielle's violation is in some sense made possible when she knowingly kills an acolyte in self-defense, giving up her "blood innocence"-- somewhat homologous with virginity, even though Gabrielle is not a virgin in the sexual sense. Xena can't prevent her friend being subverted by Dahak but she does destroy a demon-bodied Krafstar. The episode ends with the two women not yet aware of Gabrielle's supernatural violation.

GABRIELLE'S HOPE (G) -- It doesn't take long for the heroines to figure out that Gabrielle is now "in the family way." While trying to arrange passage back to Greece, the companions are harried by "banshees," who apparently have some investment in the fortunes of Dahak (even though in the previous episode Krafstar states that Dahak would wipe out all the "old gods"). Brittanian villagers condemn Gabrielle as a witch, but a strange contingent of knights renders some aid. These warriors are portrayed as symbolic anticipations of King Arthur's knights-- they even have a Round Table and a stone with a sword in it, which is presumably going to remain in place until Arthur is born a few centuries later. The demon-child comes to term quickly and is born, with yet more crypto-Christian symbolism, in a manger. Gabrielle names the girl-child Hope, but Hope is pure evil and kills a knight while she's still in swaddling clothes. Xena becomes convinced that the child must be slain, but Gabrielle hoaxes her friend by faking Hope's death. This gambit allowed the writers to suspend the demon-child plotline and give viewers a breather from the heavy drama that would dominate the arc's conclusion.

THE DEBT, PTS 1-2 (G)-- Xena must discharge a blood debt in the distant realm of Chin, and the more Gabrielle learns about the reasons, the more she dislikes hearing about the foul deeds of "Old Xena." Those deeds occur some time after the heroine's betrayal by Caesar, when she and her warlord-lover Borias led raiders into Chin. When Borias sought to forge a pact with either of the local petty rulers, Ming Tzu or Lao, Old Xena, despising the idea of peace, is rude to both Ming Tzu and his ten-year-old son Ming Tien, and then to Lao's emissay, his wife Lao Ma. Old Xena kidnaps Ming Tien for ransom, but Borias betrays her.

Lao Ma, not unlike M'Lila in DESTINY, intuits some greatness in Old Xena and rescues her from Ming Tzu. DEBT PART 1 features a scene one might call "lesbian-adjacent," since Lao Ma saves Old Xena from drowning with a little "mouth-to-mouth" oxygen. Current Xena doesn't precisely tell Gabrielle who she wants to avenge-- though it's not surprising that it's Lao Ma, slain by the new ruler Ming Tien-- but Gabrielle actually warns Ming Tien before Current Xena can kill him. This is also potentially a major move in the "subtext canon," since it can be deduced that on some level Gabrielle is jealous of the intensity of Current Xena's loyalty to a dead woman (lover?)  PART II fills in some of the narrative blanks, showing that Old Xena converted young Mien Tien to evil by twisting his nature, just as Ares purportedly did with Xena. Significantly, Lao Ma's death is given Christian iconography, as the Chinese woman is sacrificed on a cross-altar, garbed in white and refusing to use her power to escape. In the end, Xena escapes Ming Tien's power, but lets Gabrielle think she spares the corrupt ruler, when in fact she covertly takes Ming Tien's life-- an act that will have repercussions in THE BITTER SUITE.

THE KING OF ASSASSINS (P)-- And boom, just like that, after four very heavily dramatic episodes, we're back to wacky comedy. Xena puts in a quick appearance at the opening and then doesn't come back until the last quarter of the episode. Gabrielle, Joxer, and "king of thieves" Autolycus must endeavor to stop Jett, Joxer's evil brother, from assassinating Queen Cleopatra. I can't say two Joxers were better than one.

WARRIOR... PRIESTESS... TRAMP (P)-- Yeah, four Xenas IS too many, even if Princess Diana sits this one out. This time Lucy Lawless plays warrior Xena, tramp Meg, and Hestian priestess Leah, a prissy-pants who judges any woman who's not a virgin. This time an evil schemer wants to use Meg to masquerade as Leah to bring about the slaughter of the Hestian priestesshood  for some reason. Lawless created a lot of distinct toss-off characters on the show but Leah's not one of them. Good action scenes but no baby-juggling.

THE QUILL IS MIGHTIER... (P)-- Again Xena is absent for over half of the episode. Ares is pissed off about Gabrielle for some reason, so he manipulates Aphrodite into enchanting Gabrielle's scroll, so that everything written there becomes literal truth. There's quite a bit of building on the idea, established in COMEDY OF EROS, that Joxer secretly loves Gabrielle while she's utterly unaware of his feelings. Otherwise, lots of silly-pants goings-on.

MATERNAL INSTINCTS (G)-- "I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me."-- EXODUS 20.5.

It's not a jealous god, but mortal passions which end up costing the lives of children for the sin of the parents. In a curious inversion, though, Gabrielle's child perishes because of Xena (who brought about Gabrielle's impregnation by taking her to Britain for vengeance on Caesar) and Xena's dies because of Gabrielle (who allowed her demon-child to live, and so was responsible when Hope slew Solan). 

Hope also frees Callisto from her prison, largely to keep Xena busy, though Callisto is also a "child sinned against," loosely created by the evil of Old Xena. Hope and her demon-father are not as dramatically vivid as Callisto, who finally gains the vengeance she desired against Xena, only to realize that her triumph is hollow. In addition, the episode still delivers lots of kick-ass action. Though this could have been a good finish for Callisto's first arc, she appears again at the season's conclusion.

THE BITTER SUITE (S)-- The density of the imagery here, mostly derived from the Tarot, makes this the only episode of a serial TV show whose mythicity I rate as not just good, but "superior." Because SUITE is so complex, I won't attempt to shove all that complexity into a paragraph or two here, but will just recommend some of the online studies of SUITE, as on the Xena-site WHOOSH. Just summarizing the plot-action then: the rage Xena and Gabrielle harbor for one another propels them into a world of musical fantasy, wherein they must work through their issues before they can return to the living world. The episode isn't perfect, but its most problematic aspect is that once the show hit this level of dramatic and mythopoeic intensity, almost everything else seems like weak tea by comparison.

ONE AGAINST AN ARMY (F)-- Xena not only has to stop an army of invading Persians, she has to worry about finding a cure for her poisoned partner Gabrielle. Excellent fight-scenes, though even the best choreography can't make probable the Warrior Princess defeating a full detachment of soldiers.

THE FORGIVEN (P)-- When the heroines seek to recover a priceless religious urn, their biggest headache is dealing with Tara, an obnoxious girl who wants to replace Gabrielle as Xena's sidekick. It has lots of catfights and "no such thing as a bad kid" dialogue, not much else.

KING CON (P)-- Joxer is severely beaten by the thugs of a casino owner, Titus. Xena and Gabrielle enlist the aid of two swindlers, seeking to fleece Titus of his riches with a "long con." Ted Raimi does one jokey routine at the beginning but spends the rest of the episode recovering from his injuries.

WHEN IN ROME (F)-- Xena takes a stand against Caesar again. However, instead of seeking pure vengeance on the Roman, she seeks to liberate Caesar's captive, the rebel hero Vercinix of Gaul, scheduled to be executed in Rome at the Circus Maximus. Xena and Gabrielle kidnap Crassus, one of the three lords with whom Caesar shares the rule of Rome, hoping that Caesar will prize his need of an ally over that of a rebel execution. Yet Xena knows how crafty Caesar is, and lays contingency plans. These plans don't keep her from having to fight armed horsemen in the arena (a throwback to countless gladiator movies). As a side-dish, Gabrielle, not having learned anything from her adventure in Chin, believes Crassus when he claims to be innocent of fomenting slaughter. Naturally, her childlike innocence is betrayed-- though this time, Gabrielle takes an action to make sure Crassus is punished.

FORGET ME NOT (F)-- In a story that would've been more apt coming right after BITTER SUITE, Gabrielle feels so tormented by her bad experiences that she seeks out the temple of the Goddess of Memory, to exorcise all of her poisonous recollections. Yet for some reason the sidekick's spirit goes on a quest to explore the evil memories, while Joxer takes charge of Gabrielle's body, fully functional except for lacking any sense of past events. While Joxer fantasizes about "re-programming" his crush to love him back, Gabrielle's spirit is hassled by a mental construct that looks like Ares. The comedy-section with Joxer is adequate, while the Big Reveal of Gabby's torment is predictable. She realizes she really wanted to punish Xena during THE DEBT because the young sidekick was jealous of Xena's regard for Lao Ma. Xena herself only has a few new scenes at the end, not counting a handful of clips from Gabrielle's "memories."

FINS, FEMMES, AND GEMS (P)-- Even for a wacky comedy episode, this one's all over the place. Aphrodite sends some goons to steal a mystic diamond, so the heroines, plus Joxer, give pursuit. The love-goddess zaps all three do-gooders with an "obsession-perfume," causing them to become obsessed with whatever was in their minds at the time. Gabrielle turns incredibly vain, Xena becomes a nut about fishing (particularly with the New Zealand variation called "kite-fishing"), and Joxer fluctuates between acting like a monkey or like Tarzan. The goals at stake are confusing and most of the slapstick is un-amusing. O'Connor's egomaniac act is nice though.

TSUNAMI (F)-- Xena and Gabby relive THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, sort of. When the heroines see their bud Autolycus on a ship taking convicts to an island prison, they intervene and get stuck on the ship. A tsunami strikes, turning the ship over and obliging the survivors to figure out some logical way to escape the slowly sinking vessel and to reach land. The dramatic arcs of the guest stars, including that of Autolycus, are forgettable.

VANISHING ACT (F)-- Now this is what the Autolycus character was meant for: heist stories. There's a golden statue, Pax, whose existence is crucial to the peace of several neighboring villages, and one night the statue goes missing. Xena and Gabrielle want to find the statue to preserve the peace, but so does Autolycus, because he fears that his fame as "King of Thieves" will be endangered by such a stellar rip-off. But to add a sop of altruism, the rival thief is also a villain who killed Autolycus' brother. Xena and Gabrielle both masquerade as buyers for the missing artifact, with Lawless delivering a fun over-the-top perf. 

THE SACRIFICE PTS. 1-2 (G)-- Though the trope of "ultimate innocence births ultimate evil" is still strong enough to endow this two-parter with high mythicity, the script is extremely rushed and inconsistent with respect to character continuity.

X and G stumble across a sacrificial cult, whose main sacrifice is an old friend of Gabrielle's, Seraphina. The heroines witness the rebirth of Callisto, and at first think she's become the object of the cult's worship. But a reborn Hope (how? who knows?) is the true cynosure, and when enough sacrifices are heaped up to her, she will be able to admit her demon-father Dahak into the Earth-plane. All of this activity MAY stem from Ares making common cause with Dahak. He's apparently overcome his repugnance for the demon-lord's plan to obliterate the old gods, as long as he Ares survives, and he increases his worth to Dahak by coupling with Hope, who has now assumed the adult form of her mother Gabrielle. Supposedly Hope will then bring forth a demon army able to conquer Earth. The big question, though, is whether this time Gabrielle will make the right choice regarding her demon-daughter's survival-- which she does, though it leads to a cliffhanger conclusion for the season. In order to reduce the odds somewhat, Callisto has now become so beset by divine ennui that she desires oblivion more than anything, and when Hope doesn't deliver on her promise quickly enough, she switches to Xena's side. But, appearances to the contrary, all three vile villains survive to menace the world again in future seasons. 

THE PREDATOR (2018)

 

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

THE PREDATOR re-united two alumni of 1987's THE MONSTER SQUAD, and in the same basic positions: Black as director and as co-writer of the script with Fred Dekker.

Surprisingly, this thrill-ride of a movie isn't a reboot, but allegedly takes place between two previous sequels in the PREDATOR franchise, as well as loosely setting events for one or more additional "in between" stories. 

Contra Martin Scorsese, I deem it no insult to call a film a "thrill-ride. That's primarily what the original PREDATOR was, not a deep and abiding insight into either an alien culture or into what I termed in my review "male-bonding culture." Indeed, PREDATOR 2.0 works in a fair amount of that culture, as I'll address shortly.

I frankly don't recall what movie introduced the notion that the Predator aliens sometimes raid Earth for human DNA samples. I thought most of the time they just wanted exotic trophies. But it's a very big part of 2.0 that the first of two Predators visits our fair planet for that purpose, so I'm assuming this is not a new trope to the franchise. 

I rather liked the opening, in that there's no attempt to dance around the physical look of the visitor. in marked contrast to the first film, which scored points for leaving the Alien's Big Reveal for last. This particular Predator fails to count coup on his human quarry, though. Army Ranger McKenna (Boyd Holbrook), in the midst of a hostage rescue, knocks out the unruly alien and then atypically mails some of the creature's armor to his home in the States. Maybe McKenna anticipates the treatment he's going to get from his superiors, for although the government sends the Predator to a research institute, the same officials treat McKenna like a madman and send him to a happy farm with five other maladjusted soldiers.

Fortunately, before McKenna and his new PSTD buddies are shipped off the grounds of the institute, the Predator breaks loose from the lab, sparing only one scientist, Bracket (Olivia Munn). McKenna manages to wrangle the crazies and Bracket into allies as he hijacks a bus and speeds back to the house of his estranged wife. McKenna has learned that the armor he sent to his own residence has been re-routed to his former location, and he correctly fears that the freed extraterrestrial may endanger McKenna's wife and son. On the way Bracket reveals that the captive critter apparently had human DNA in his genes, though she doesn't know why.

There's a subplot about McKenna's son being an autistic who possesses a savant-like ability to understand Predator-tech; Shane Black got some blowback from this concept and it could have been dumped. The film's real focus is indeed the "male bonding" that takes place even between soldiers who barely know one another, and how they end up battling not McKenna's original sparring partner, but a second Predator who kills the first and then tries to erase all traces of his people's presence.

The putative motives of the inscrutable ETs never make a lot of sense, but Black and Dekker (heh) provide lots of good action scenes, and in this case I'm glad they didn't feel constrained to work a female soldier into the mix. 2.0 made decent money so the possibility of a sequel to this sequel seems strong.

HONOR ROLL #231

Even two Predators aren't enough to raise a sweat for BOYD HOLBROOK.

The third season of Xena came close to being "all HUDSON LEICK, all the time."

Just two crazy post-apocalyptic kids in love: JIM METZLER and DANA WHEELER-NICHOLSON.

Nice to see one of Edgar Rice Burroughs' few good villains, QUEEN NEMONE, make her animated debut.

JURGEN PROCHNOW, tutor to starring wizards.

TONY RUSSEL tries his hand at masked swashbuckling.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2014)

 

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

I seem to remember that this reboot got an unusual amount of fan-hate back in the day, though I admit I didn't see it in the theater. I stated my opinion the TMNT franchise back in my review of the 1990 live-action adaptation-- that it's fun but lightweight. As long as the four jive-talking terrapins and their rat-daddy keep their standard characterizations consistent and there's lots of high-octane action, what's to hate?

Possibly 2014 got some hate just because it's become standard for critics to despise anything produced by Michael Bay. I've seen my share of Bay films that were so hyper-active that they were visually incomprehensible. But 2014, directed by Jonathan Liebesman and scripted by three writers that seemed to get the Turtles mythos pretty well, was quite easy to follow. Of course, the conflict is standard Supervillain 101. This time, the Shredder (Tohoro Masamune) isn't interested in petty matters like seducing young teens to a life of crime, as he was in 1990. He, his Foot Clan, and a new mad scientist (William Fichtner) go straight to the city-blackmailing option, planning to unleash a radioactive mutagen on New York. 

Of course, being the righteous reptilians they are, the Turtles start assailing his operations, and this attracts the attention of reporter April O'Neil (Megan Fox). In fact, 2014 somewhat improves upon the usual origin in which April has no common backstory with the five mutants. Here, she's the daughter of a scientist who was involved in the experiment that created the mutagen, and he was killed by colleague Eric Sacks (who has "bad guy written all over him from his first scene). In April's first encounter with the vigilantes, she recognizes their names, having known all five experimental animals in her dad's lab. It's pretty improbable when the script claims that rat-sensei Splinter actually remembers April from before he was mutated, but since I liked a lot of the humor (particularly the joke about the "99-cheese pizza"), I'll give that one a pass.

I also thought that all the big honking action-scenes were well done though not exceptional, and commensurate with what Michael Bay's fans expect of his films. The script is weak on the motivations of both Shredder and Sacks; they shake down cities just because they can, and Shredder's daughter Karai (Minae Noji) is reduced to the role of a bare functionary. Shredder wouldn't make my list of great comics-villains, but on occasion he does have a grandiose quality. 2014 just turns him into a human Transformer for the big fight-scenes.

Fox makes a decent support-heroine here, and Will Arnett provides a lot of "confused guy over his head" humor. I take away a few points because the Foot Clan aren't dressed as traditional ninjas, which is really about the only charm they have. The film was a box office success but the follow-up was less so, killing this reboot series, though another would appear seven years later.

BATMAN: ASSAULT ON ARKHAM (2014)

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

ASSAULT comes very close to being a "Suicide Squad" movie in which Batman happens to guest-star, since he's absent for long stretches of the DTV film. But the Caped Crusader dominates the latter half of the story, and besides, his mission-- to find the Joker's dirty nuclear bomb before it destroys Gotham City-- is more important to the narrative than the muddled assignment given the Squad. The project is said to have been inspired by the success of a videogame series, BATMAN: ARKHAM, though I'd speculate that Warner Brothers might have wanted to inject the Squad into the mix because of projected plans for the 2016 live-action movie.

The original 1980s comics-series focused on the U.S. government's covert use of convicted super-villains for assorted black ops missions, and it was popular in part for having balanced the overall ruthlessness of the career criminals with elements of comedy and drama. Such elements are not to be found in Heath Corson's script. I once found myself thinking of Hobbes' phrase "the war of all against all." That's certainly a valid theme to pursue with this kind of "Dirty Dozen" concept, but without something like humor to leaven the mix, there's really no one to root for in the Squad sections of the film.

Six super-crooks make the cut of the black-ops boss Amanda Waller: Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, Black Spider, King Shark, and Killer Frost. The latter three are in my experience negligible characters, while the former three have had many strong character moments in the comics but are reduced to simple stereotypes here. They're assigned to make an "assault on Arkham" to recover an item left there by Batman's foe The Riddler, and of course not much about the mission goes smoothly. A major stumbling block is that although Harley has sworn off her love for the Joker at this point, she's brought into contact with the Clown Prince, and arouses his ire by admitting that she's slept with Deadshot. This sets up a final combat between Harley's two "suitors," though there's little resonance to the battle since there's no real romance involved. 

I can't fault Corson's script for lack of action, for there are almost no slow sections to ASSAULT. But there are so many action-scenes that they all begin to look the same after a while. There are a handful of clever lines, and some decent voice-work, with Troy Baker taking over the Joker from the much celebrated efforts of Mark Hamill, and another of Kevin Conroy's equally prized Batman performances. But should a viewer want action combined with decent character moments, the studio's later SUICIDE SQUAD': HELL TO PAY would be the way to go.

THE SON OF TARZAN (1920)

 

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

Serials in the sound era weren’t known for fidelity to their sources, but a few silent chapterplays hit closer to the mark. SON OF TARZAN may have been following the lead of the 1918 TARZAN OF THE APES, a feature-length film which faithfully adapts the first half of the first Tarzan novel. Further, whenever SON departs from the 1915 Burroughs novel, it’s generally an improvement.

I wrote that the novel that gave us “Korak Son of Tarzan” didn’t manage to create a hero equal to his famed sire, and the serial is also little more than a variation on the jungle-man theme. But though some silent serials ate just assemblages of perilous situations, sometimes lacking the celebrated “cliffhangers,” the various vicissitudes of SON OF TARZAN are more artfully crafted. Like the perils of the novel, all the conflicts serve to give hero Korak and heroine Meriem their “baptism of fire” until the happy ending.

One huge improvement on the novel is the serial’s main villain. In the book Paulvitch, the fiend who is indirectly responsible for sending the son of Tarzan to the jungle, is killed right away. But in the film he survives his first encounter with the young hero and pursues the youth to Africa as a means of seeking vengeance on Tarzan. Since the novel’s villains are weak and narrowly conceived, Paulvitch, played by Eugene Burr, provides a more obsessed and hiss-worthy enemy.

As in the book, Korak and Meriem starts as children, mature during their very chaste time together in the jungle, and then are played by different actors in their teen years. Rather surprisingly, the serial even preserves the novel’s idea that Meriem initially thinks of Korak only as a “big brother,” but slowly gains an awareness than she doesn’t want a brother’s affection from him. As a displacement for those burgeoning sexual feelings, the serial adds a detail absent in the novel: a scene in which Meriem goes bathing in a river and has to be rescued from a beast by Korak. Whether or not the makers of the 1932 TARZAN THE APE MAN were aware of this earlier adventure in jungle-nudity is anyone’s guess.

As in the novel, Tarzan and Jane play supporting roles, kept in the background as they tirelessly search for their lost offspring. However, someone in production must have decided that the audience wanted some real ape-man action, for the serial introduces a subplot in which thugs attack Tarzan and get their asses handed to them by jungle savagery.

XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS: SEASON TWO (1996-97)

 

 

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

Nothing about the basic setup of XENA changes from Season One to Season Two, so I can get right into episode reviews, with ratings of (G) for "good," (F) for "fair," and (P) for "poor."

ORPHAN OF WAR (F)-- The season opener provides a big reveal about Xena's past. Years ago, before her decision to seek redemption, she birthed a child, Solan, by her fellow warlord Borias, who perished by an assassin's blade. Xena gave the baby to the king of the Centaurs to raise, and something like ten years later, she and Gabrielle return to Centaur-Land to prevent an incursion for a new warlord, Dagnine. This new villain wants a talisman, "The Ixion Stone," which stores all the potential evil of the Centaur race, and can in theory make a man into an immortal being. In addition to thwarting this over-reacher, Xena must come to terms with young Solan, who thinks Xena guilty of killing his father. There's a particularly good line in which Xena describes a mother's connection to her child long after birth.

REMEMBER NOTHING (G)-- This episode easily could have degenerated into just another riff on "It's a Wonderful Life," but the writers imbue the rewriting of Xena's reality with a strong sense of existential ambiguity. When Xena becomes mournful over his lost brother Lyceus and wishes he were still alive, the Fates change history for her. The heroine finds herself in a world where her brother never died and consequently Xena never became a warlord, though of course she keeps all her memories and skills from her other life. "Reborn Xena" soon learns that not fighting evil in one situation just propagates new types of evil, one of which is that in the adjusted world Gabrielle is now a beaten-down slave. The Fates also give Xena a "reset button," and significantly, she only uses it when she sees Alt-Gabrielle loses her blood innocence. 

THE GIANT KILLER (F)-- In another episode alluding to but not naming the Israelites of the Bible, Xena and Gabrielle must defend the people of King Saul-- including his son Jonathan and the singer David-- against the incursions of the Philistines, led by King Dagon. Xena's championing of Saul's people is complicated in that she has an old friendship with Dagon's champion, the literal giant Goliath. The script tangentially addresses the basis of the cultural quarrel but only in very simplistic terms, and the main focus is on finding a way for Xena to lend David some behind-the-scenes aid.

GIRLS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN (P)-- The mythology of the god Bacchus gets turned into a Greek version of Dracula, fanging girls so that they become "Bacchae," who are basically vampires. I suppose the association may've been that some of the archaic god's followers were violent "wild women." Joxer makes his first return appearance, bearing with him the head of Bacchus' enemy Orpheus. The script throws together those two figures and a very peculiar depiction of "dryads," but the faux vampire mythology is half-baked. Gabrielle does get turned into a vamp and bites Xena. Possibly this was the beginning of the infamous "lesbian subtext," though there's no further comment on the fanging when both heroes revert to normal.

RETURN OF CALLISTO (G)-- Xena comes to regret having spared Callisto (Hudson Leick), for the vengeful vixen wins free and seeks to destroy both the warrior princess and her best friend. By chance, Gabrielle's old boyfriend Perdicas shows up and signals his status as a redshirt by proposing to Gabrielle. Sure enough, Callisto murders him, and Gabrielle is gripped by a lust for blood. Yet to Callisto's immense puzzlement, Gabrielle can't follow through on the ethic of revenge. Joxer further astonishes the villainess by challenging her, but of course Xena's the only real opponent here. And this time, Xena doesn't save Callisto from death-- though that doesn't put an end to Callisto's status as a recurring enemy.

WARRIOR-- PRINCESS-- TRAMP (F)-- If two Xenas are good, three must be better-- and this time, it's perfectly true. Xena's lookalike Princess Diana summons her to help protect her new baby, but a plotter finds a second dead ringer, name of Meg (Lawless of course). I didn't really follow the plot, but with three Xenas running around-- one of whom has the hots for Joxer-- who cares? Oh, and there's another round of baby-juggling.

INTIMATE STRANGER (G)-- This direct sequel to RETURN OF CALLISTO has the heroine haunted by her non-action in allowing Callisto to perish. But that guilt leaves Xena open to dreams sent from Tartarus by the show's first "super-villain team-up." Ares and Callisto then work a body-switching magic on Xena's spirit. Now Xena occupies the form of Callisto in the world of the dead, while Callisto is in Xena's living body. And since Callisto's whole reason for being is to destroy anything Xena loves, the villain's first project is to try corrupting Gabrielle into committing evil. Real Xena gets back to Earth, and with some timely if comical assistance for Joxer, manages to overcome Callisto. However, in the real real world, Lucy Lawless suffered an injury and couldn't resume her Xena duties in the next filmed episode. So instead of both spirits going back to their bodies, Xena stays in Callisto's body on Earth while Callisto still has Xena's form in Tartarus. NOTE: Ares's dialogue indicates that he's probably had sex with Xena's body while it was occupied by Callisto-- and Real Xena's reaction to the news supports the thesis that prior to the heroine's reformation she had voluntary carnal relations with the war-god.

TEN LITTLE WARLORDS (F)-- This one's almost as funny as "Warrior-- Princess-- Tramp," and its setup has great mythic potential. Someone steals Ares's sword, consigning him to mortal status. While no one occupies the throne of the war-god, ordinary, non-aggressive people like Gabrielle become hyperviolent. A better script might have dealt with the interdependence between "war" and "peace" in the mortal realm. Unfortunately, the rest of the script is a labored play upon the "Ten Little Indians" conceit, which is part of some incomprehensible plan by sword-stealing trickster Sisyphus, last seen in "Death in Chains." Kevin Smith has a lot of fun with portraying Ares as a god brought low, but Hudson Leick plays Xena with a sort of glum dutifulness. By episode's end, Sisyphus is foiled, Ares returns to godhood, and Xena is once more Lucy Lawless at the close.

A SOLSTICE CAROL (F)-- TV is even more rife with riffs on "A Christmas Carol" than with those on "It's a Wonderful Life." And at first, the story of the two heroines trying to reform nasty King Silvus sounds VERY familiar, right down to substituting an alleged Greek custom of "Solstice" for Christmas. But I give the writers credit for ringing in a couple of Xmas-tropes not present in Dickens. The first is Gabrielle's friendship with an elderly toymaker named Senticles (by any other name, Jolly St. Nick), and the second is a very indirect allusion to the Journey to Bethlehem. Lightweight fun.

THE XENA SCROLLS (F)-- As if to make up for Season One's terrible clip show, this one only works a very few clips from earlier episodes into a 20th-century adventure riffing on RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. Lawless and O'Connor get to reverse roles for the most part, with the former playing mild-mannered Melinda, an archaeologist, while the latter plays Janice, a female Indiana Jones (complete with whip). Together, with the dubious help of French agent Jacques S'Er (Ted Raimi), they seek to uncover the secret of certain scrolls that both relate old Xena-stories and lead them to a strange visitor from another era. The action-choreography does not 

HERE SHE COMES, MISS AMPHIPOLIS (F)-- Good old Salmoneus summons Xena and Gabrielle to a city under constant threat of an attack from its neighbors. The only thing that can preserve the peace is a beauty contest, "Miss Known World," so Xena reluctantly assumes the role of contestant "Miss Amphipolis" and seeks to find out who's planning to foment a new war. It's intentionally goofy, but the biggest saving grace is a messed-up dance routine a la Busby Berkeley. One of the beauties in the contest is a transvestite guy, and perhaps it's politically inevitable that he wins the contest-- but at least it's only after three genuinely female contestants drop out.

DESTINY (G)-- Xena and Gabrielle visit the land of Sura, where Xena's army wiped all the denizens, except for survivor Callisto. There Xena is injured by a deadfall, and Gabrielle takes her dying body to a healer. Meanwhile, Xena's mind flashes back ten years, to a time when she and her soldiers took a valuable prisoner-- Julius Csesar, improbably rising to power in Rome at the same time as Xena's inchoate era. Xena places her faith in Caesar, and he repays her by stringing her up on a cross and having her legs broken. The Christ-parallel is reinforced by the fact that Xena has a protector, the warrior M'Lila, who somehow knows that Xena has a special destiny, one involved with individual acts of salvation. However, in the real world, Xena's body apparently dies.

THE QUEST/A NECESSARY EVIL (F)-- A mournful Gabrielle attempts to take Xena's corpse back to Amphipolis for burial. She's interrupted by the Amazon tribe that made the young heroine their princess, and they want Gabrielle to take the place of the deceased queen. Complications ensue. Xena's spirit seeks to re-enter her body, and she can only do so if she gets hold of godly ambrosia. To that end, she takes possession of the body of super-thief Autolycus. Once Gabrielle is convinced that Xena's spirit is in the burglar's bod, they acquire enough ambrosia to bring Xena back to life. However, ambitious Amazon Velasca gets hold of enough ambrosia to change herself into a virtual god. Xena and Gabrielle can only battle Velasca by releasing Callisto-- who also got a deity-upgrade in a preceding episode of HERCULES. Good action, and some nice character scenes between Callisto and the two heroines. Velasca never makes another appearance, but Callisto's career of villainy is not yet done.

A DAY IN THE LIFE (P)-- This is predominantly a comedy episode exploring the day-to-day interactions of the two heroines in between saving people. Many character interactions, but nothing especially mythic. One of the episode's foes is a giant named Gareth, mentioned (but not seen) as an enemy of Goliath in "The Giant Killer."

FOR HIM THE BELL TOLLS (F)-- Another comedy episode, but it scores higher on the myth-meter thanks to dealing with the trope of manipulative Greek gods. In this case, Cupid has promoted the wedding of a prince and princess of neighboring lands. But the love-goddess Aphrodite opposes the marriage because it'll cause her worship to be eclipsed. She enchants goofy Joxer into becoming a hero able to charm the princess out of her senses-- at least, when he hears a mystic bell ring. Xena has a mission elsewhere and Gabrielle gets to play "straight woman" to Joxer instead of being the comedy relief herself.

THE EXECUTION (P)-- Before becoming Xena's sidekick, Gabrielle had a hero-worship for a famous warrior, Meleager (Tim Thomerson). But when the two heroines stop by the hero's town for a visit, they find him accused of the crime of murder. Gabrielle believes in Meleager and helps him escape justice, so Xena must capture him to protect her friend. Fortunately for all concerned, the real murderer is a corrupt member of the establishment. This one could almost be an episode of any TV show. Thomerson's performance is one of the few assets.

BLIND FAITH (P)-- This time it's the old "enemies forced to work together" chestnut. Palaemon, a young warrior gunning to be known as the man who beat Xena, arranges for Gabrielle to be sold into a strange sort of slavery: destined to marry a local king. Xena, whose eyesight is compromised, forces Palaemon to guide her to the rescue of her friend. This proves a good move, since Gabrielle's ultimate fate is to be a dead queen. 

ULYSSES (P)-- Time for a brand new Xena love story. She and Gabrielle encounter Ulysses just a year or so after they participated in the Fall of Troy, so I guess the Greek adventurer didn't remain cursed by Poseidon nearly as long as he did in the Homeric epic. The heroines help the hero battle pirates to lay claim to his ship and then journey back to Ithaca. However, this Ulysses has been led to believe that his wife Penelope is dead, so it becomes easy for him to fall for Xena and she for him. But even before the characters reach Ithaca and learn the real state of affairs, viewers will guess that the great love has no future, particularly after Ulysses offers to join Xena and Gabrielle on their all-girl peregrinations.

THE PRICE (F)-- Xena and Gabrielle take refuge in an undermanned Athenian fort from a vicious tribe of marauders, the Horde. Xena's seen these merciless warriors before, and she becomes totally focused on using any means necessary to save lives from the raiders. Bleeding-heart Gabrielle is deeply offended by Xena's ruthlessness, though everything Xena does is entirely logical against a near-unstoppable threat. The script's pretty clever about finding a way for Gabrielle to provide a crucial insight into the Horde, allowing Xena to save the day.

THE LOST MARINER (F)-- Xena and Gabby meet the Flying Dutchman. Well, this time the cursed ship with an immortal captain is tied to a major Greek myth. In the myth, Athena and Poseidon each sought to become the principle deity of Athens, and depended on Athens' king Cecrops to decide the matter. In the myth, Poseidon lost and took godly vengeance. In the Xenaverse, the sea-god made Cecrops into an immortal captain with a ship no one could board without becoming part of the crew. Xena and Gabrielle get stuck on board the lost mariner's ship, so Xena has to figure out the escape clause in Poseidon's curse. Nothing special as myth, but that CGI Poseidon is very cool.

 A COMEDY OF EROS (F)-- The season ends with another goofy comedy. Cupid's son Bliss-- the avatar of Cupid-as-cherub-- gets his hands on his dad's love-arrows and flies down to Earth. Xena, Gabrielle and Joxer seek to protect a village from warlord Draco, but the arrows cause a Midsummer's Nightmare, with Xena falling for Draco, Gabrielle for Joxer, and Draco for Gabrielle. The wacky comedy works, but there are a few "serious" moments that clash with the whole.

PAN (2015)

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

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

In PETER PAN J. M. Barrie provided the perfect mythic representation of the child's desire to be free of all parental constrictions and go seeking adventures. Barrie clearly showed that this desire was ambivalent, as the Lost Boys do miss the blandishments of home life. Nevertheless, Peter Pan still incarnates all the rebellious aspects of male childhood-- vanity, quarrelsomeness, and even a tendency to "edit" his memory to erase experiences that don't suit the young hero. A prototype of Peter was a very small child, but clearly, in both the play and book, Barrie aged the official version up, since it would hardly be credible for anyone younger than a preteen to go around crossing swords with pirates.

One's enjoyment of PAN may be affected by the viewer's insistence on all versions of the title character following the Barrie template in terms of character, for the Peter of director Joe Wright and writer Jason Fuchs lacks any vanity, adventurousness, or lapses in memory. Fuchs apparently decided to invert Barrie's idea of Peter Pan's origins, in which Peter deserted Earth for Neverland because he thought his mother had left him alone. In this movie, infant Peter is left on the doorstep of an orphanage by his mother, who has a complicated history of her own. This Peter (Levi Miller) grows to ten years of age under the control of corrupt and greedy nuns, but he always remains steadfast to the idea that his true mother will someday come for him again.

In the film's most confusing plot-thread, it's suggested that the nuns are in cahoots with the pirates of Neverland, who stage a raid upon the orphanage one night. From the deck of their ship-- able to fly around the Earth-skies thanks to fairy dust-- the pirates cast down sky-hooks and simply snatch several boys from their beds. 

However, the flying pirate ship is under the command of a captain named Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman), who's never expressly said to be identical with the 17th century buccaneer. Blackbeard and his crew of rowdies (among whom is comic-relief character "Mister Smee") periodically kidnap young boys to work in the Neverland mines. Within these mines are deposits of Pixum, concatenations of fairy dust which confer the power of flight upon Blackbeard's ship and some degree of youth upon the captain. The script never elaborates upon the exact relationship between the race of fairies and these mineral deposits.

While Peter and his fellow orphans work the mnies, Peter meets Indiana Jones. Okay, it's James Hook, but actor Garrett Hedlund plays him exactly like the Harrison Ford character. Hook seems to be the only adult in the mines, but he never says how he came to be in Neverland. Peter and Hook manage to escape with the help of Smee.

All three are captured by a tribe of "savages" who are perpetually at war with the pirates. (The producers made this tribe loosely multi-racial and elided all representations of their being Barrie's Native Americans, clearly seeking to avoid any negative blowback-- which they got anyway.) Princess Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara) requires Hook to fight the tribe's best warrior before all three will be put to death. However, though Hook acquits himself well the trio are saved by a token suggests that Peter may be a predicted savior called "The Pan."

Peter's true origins here are even more wildly revisionist than his relationship with James Hook (which had seen a better revision in 2011's NEVERLAND).It turns out that that his beloved mother was a mortal brought to Neverland by her lover Blackbeard. (The nature of their relationship remains as murky as any accounting for the pirate captain's gaining access to the Never-verse.) However, the mother, name of Mary, fell in love with a male fairy, and the two of them conceived Peter. The fairy perished as the result of his having assumed a human form (curiously, neither Peter nor the script is the least bit curious about Peter's pater). Mary took shelter with the savages, and at some point managed to return to the Earth-realm, where she left infant Peter on the orphanage's doorstep. Then she was accidentally slain by Blackbeard, though the aggrieved Peter later manages to see his mother again, after a fashion.

All of these revelations are a set-up for an admittedly rousing conclusion, in which Blackbeard and his horrible hearties invade the fairy kingdom to gain more Pixum. Peter and Tiger Lily seek to warn the fairies while Hook deserts them, trying to find a way to his own universe. Peter and Tiger Lily fall afoul of Blackbeard, but they're given respite by Han Solo. Okay, it's Hook reprising the Millennium Falcon rescue from STAR WARS, but with a second flying pirate ship to match that of Blackbeard. This long climactic sequence-- during which Peter finally master his nascent ability to fly, here an inheritance from his fairy father-- is easily the best part of the movie, and does a lot to redeem the script's many plot holes. Some critics complained of too much CGI, but really, how else but through computer animation could anyone bring to life the sight of two flying frigates having a dogfight? Alas, while I found PAN to be good popcorn entertainment as long as one ignored the plot holes and the non-traditional characterization of Peter Pan, the film tanked.

I ventured my considered opinion that probably the main reason the filmmakers elided Native Americans from this PAN adaptation was to avoid controversy. Given all the belated condemnations of Disney's PETER PAN for its use of "redmen," there's nearly no chance that PAN could have dodged recriminations no matter how "respectfully" they chose to depict the tribe. So the PAN tribe becomes an unspecified polyglot, with White actress Mara assuming the role of Tiger Lily-- and this got the film accused of "whitewashing." There are real incidents of whitewashing worth citing, but here the casting had nothing to do with denying some Native American actress the role, but with trying to rework the whole tribe to stem the tide of controversy. As it happens, Tiger Lily is a strong enough role that any Native American performer ought to have considered it honorable to play the character (and indeed, few Tiger Lilies in film-history have been real Native Americans). But I can well understand the producers not wanting to take the chance. In any case, Mara's shipboard duels with Jackman's Blackbeard are one of the highlights of the movie. It's also of passing interest that both Hedlund and Mara, whose characters have a maybe-romantic interaction, were both about thirty years old in 2015, so there's no sense that this Tiger Lily will ever become Wendy's potential rival for an older Peter. Also, it's interesting that the Princess claims to have been trained in fighting by the deceased Mary, which gives Tiger Lily a slightly maternal resonance re: Peter.

DRAGONBALL Z: BATTLE OF GODS (2013)

 

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

Japan's long running series of DRAGONBALL Z anime films featuring grown-up Goku and his populous cast ended for a time in 1996, but a new series was launched with BATTLE OF GODS in 2013. Ostensibly this was the first film in which manga-creator Akira Toriyama-- who coincidentally passed away this month-- supervised the production. Apparently the animated film BATTLE served as a sort of "pilot" for a new series of manga-arcs commencing under the rubric DRAGON BALL SUPER in 2015, which was quickly followed by various adaptations for an anime teleseries.

BATTLE introduces the Goku Group to an elder god, Beerus the Lord of Destruction, and his above-it-all assistant Whis. Beerus, who resembles a purple cat-humanoid, tells his majordomo that he had a dream of being defeated by a "Super Saiyan God" who looks exactly like Goku. Accordingly, the two super-beings journey to Goku's corner of the universe. After Beerus has short bout with Goku on the afterlife-world, in which the Saiyan warrior is easily defeated, Beerus and Whis journey to Earth to suss things out, and end up attending Bulma's birthday party.

The script piles on the comedy for roughly half an hour. Not only are Beerus and Whis distracted by the great tastes of the party's Japanese foods, three comic villains from the original DRAGONBALL-- Emperor Pilaf and his two stooges-- are dumped into the mix. The humor isn't Toriyama at his best, though the jokes do serve the purpose of keeping the threat at bay for a bit. Then Beerus eventually takes offense at something, and threatens to obliterate the world unless someone can show him the Super Saiyan God. The solution to this quandary is at least an inventive one, and this leads to yet another epic fight-fest in the approved DRAGONBALL Z manner. Perhaps needless to say, once all the complications are sorted out, Earth is saved. 

Beerus then became an intermittent player in the aforementioned DRAGONBALL SUPER storylines. I've the impression that few if any anime feature-films incorporated developments from the SUPER manga-series, but I suppose time will tell.

HONOR ROLL #230

 "I am become LORD BEERUS, destroyer of Dragonball-worlds."

The box office sent LEVI MILLER back to middle school.

Girl sidekicks got a boost from the example of RENEE O'CONNOR.

KAMUELA C. SEARLE's name is almost as exotic as that of the character he played.

Every adaptation of "Suicide Squad" practically guarantees that CAPTAIN BOOMERANG will come back again and again.

It's the story of The Turtles and the Fox-- MEGAN FOX, that is.

SON OF THE MASK (2005)

 

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

At the risk of honking off the orthodoxy of the Golden Raspberry crowd, SON OF THE MASK is not that bad. It was probably a doomed effort given how enthusiastically audiences embraced the original MASK as a prime Jim Carrey vehicle. There's probably no way that any other actor could have made the MASK-franchise fly with a totally different character-- and IMO there really wasn't anything more to say about Stanley Ipkiss (though SON arose from an attempt to get Carrey to do just such a sequel).

I suppose a sequel with Ipkiss could have taken roughly the same course as SON. Ipkiss would be happily married to the woman he won in the first movie, and anticipating a new addition to the family when Loki, God of Mischief, came around looking to re-acquire his mask of multiple metamorphoses. But I prefer the approach taken in SON. Again a dog gets hold of the abandoned artifact, and he brings it to his master Tim Avery (Jamie Kennedy). The last name, by the way, is a shout-out to the famous animator Tex Avery, whose rapid-fire gags were sedulously imitated in the first MASK. Tim is married to Tonya (Traylor Howard), a successful sales rep, and though at present he only holds down a crappy job he has ambitions to be a great animator and sell a cartoon series to television. But because he isn't really pulling down the big bucks, he doesn't want kids yet, and Tonya does. 

Meanwhile, Loki (Alan Cumming) has been commanded to retrieve the mask by grumpy Norse all-father Odin (Bob Hoskins). Loki runs around Edge City (location of the original comic book stories) following up false leads and getting intensely frustrated.

Through various complications Tim gets hold of the mask, which adheres to his face and makes him The New Mask. In this wild and crazy persona he shows off all sorts of wild magic-- though onlookers mistake the transformations for special FX-- at a party attended by a studio executive. Said exec is so impressed with Tim's new jam that he lets him make a pitch for a series. Tim runs home, still in the Mask, and has baby-making sex with his wife.

Making a baby with the mask on sends out an alert to Odin, and he passes on to Loki the fact that wherever the mask is, it's associated with someone's new infant. But Loki has to go through various hoops to find the Avery house, and while he's looking, Tim becomes aware that his newborn son is a little miracle in more ways than one. To further complicate things, Tim's dog Otis gets hold of the mask and hides it.

The rest of the plot amounts to a lot of short tug o'war struggles between Tim and Loki, with tons and tons of wild CGI animation. culminating in a boxing match between New Mask and the God of Mischief. But the various character moments, while not profound, aren't bad-- Otis being jealous of Alvey, Tim trying to bond with his freaky son, and even the dysfunctional relationship between Loki and Odin. ("I'm never going to be like Thor, Dad!") While re-watching it I even thought that SON's script exhibited some of the dynamic between the child's mind, which contains both (1) an ability to embrace all sorts of lunacy and impossibility and (2) a need to form bonds with its parental units in order to mature.

But was it funny? Well, Kennedy did some good acting as put-upon Tim, but it's no putdown to say that he didn't have Carrey's manic energy. The effects were critiqued for being too frenzied, but they're not any worse in that respect than ROGER RABBIT. I was mildly amused but confess I didn't laugh out loud, though I might have liked it better as a kid. Howard and Cumming supply good support work, but they're the only other actors with much to do, though Hoskins has good presence in his few scenes as the All-Father (who even has only one eye, as in the old myths).