KICK-ASS (2010)

 

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

I don't have much more to say about the movie KICK-ASS than I did about the original Mark Millar graphic novel. Millar presented a very schematic idea-- that of an ordinary high school boy who decides to play superhero-- and director/co-scripter Matthew Vaughn followed the schema very faithfully, only riffing a few new scenes along the way.

Though KICK-ASS is replete with the same sort of bloody ultraviolence one might find in a hardboiled adventure movie, the movie like the comic book has enough wry humor thrown into the mix that I judge it to be a comedy. It's one of the most visceral comedies ever made, but it is not, as one ad claimed, "black humor." Black humor is the domain of the irony, the literary locus where most if not all nobility has vanished. There's considerable absurdity to be found in the green-clad Kick-Ass (Aaron Johnson) and his more skillful comrades, Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage) and Hit-Girl (Chloe Grace Moretz). But at base, their desire to fight back against the forces of organized crime remains admirable.

In keeping with Millar's design, Kick-Ass is only to function as an amateur crusader because an accident screws up his nervous system, so that he doesn't feel much pain, and replacement of many of his bones with metal rods makes him somewhat more resilient than the average human. Big Daddy, who has a vendetta against a New York drug-dealer, raises his daughter Mindy, eleven years old as the film begins, to become a prodigy in terms of martial combat and weapons-use. The sight of a pint-sized girl-child as a superhero was naturally formulated by Millar to undercut the usual image of heroes who were either teenagers or adults, and Vaughn delivers the combination of bloody action and absurd excess with great elan. 

Johnson and Moretz are the key players and accordingly deliver the best performances. Cage's depiction of Big Daddy seems somewhat off, as if he wasn't all that involved in the character. Most of the support-characters, both high-school teens and ruthless gangsters, are as underwritten here as they were in the graphic novel.

Like the graphic novel, the film is a decently executed formula-work, memorable mostly for Moretz's energetic embodiment of Hit-Girl.

TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES (2003)

 

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

The creators behind RISE OF THE MACHINES-- director Jonathan Mostow and three writers-- had the very unenviable task of following up the two Cameron movies. To be sure, Cameron himself considered working on a third movie, but no deal materialized, though he advised Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign up if he liked the script. 

Certainly there was nothing wrong in reworking the ending of TERMINATOR 2 to make room for a new storyline, since Cameron had rewritten the ending of the first TERMINATOR to make room for the sequel. My understanding is that after RISE, most iterations referenced only the Cameron movies as "canon." 

RISE takes place ten years after the events of T2, and arguably T2 casts a long shadow over RISE. The plot re-uses the basic idea of two Terminators squaring off, one seeking to kill John Connor, future savior of humanity, and the other seeking to protect him. In both movies the protecting cyborg is of the same model that sought to kill Sarah Connor in the first movie (all said cyborgs being played by Arnold Schwarzenegger), but both protectors had been re-programmed to counter an assassin sent by the intelligent computer system Skynet. RISE copies T2's idea that the killing-droid can change its shape due to being made of liquid metal (To be sure, in the first version of RISE's story, the murder-robot had a different set of powers.) This time, instead of John teaming up with his mother Sarah and the protector-cyborg, this time John (Nick Stahl) and the Schwarze-cyborg team up with Kate Brewster (Clair Danes). John, who's remained off the grid since the events of T2, is rather surprised to learn from the cyborg that Kate, a woman he only knew from high school, is his future wife. (John does have an amusing line after seeing Kate shoot down a robot attacker, saying that she reminds him of his mother.)

I think the script delivers lots of good skull-bursting violence, and some of the scenarios are as good as Cameron's best. Like the other films RISE is primarily a chase film, but it puts together a good "third act" when the Terminator reveals that Kate's father, a military man, is involved in the implementation of Skynet. Where RISE dwindles in comparison to the Cameron films is that the character interaction is not as rich. Stahl and Danes have good chemistry, but their arc isn't as strong as the reconciliation between John and his mother (who has passed away prior to the film proper). As for the third Schwarze-cyborg, "he" of course has none of the emotional bond thst the second one, destroyed at the end of T2, sustained with John. Still, Schwarzenegger still imbues the mechanical man with touches of humanity. This Terminator even possesses a touch of existential angst. He doesn't literally care about either John or Kate, but he feels that if he fails in his protective mission, his existence will become meaningless.

The FX-artists succeed reasonably well with all the tricks they give the T-X kill-droid (Kristanna Loken), but this automated assassin never becomes as iconic as the Robert Patrick version. Loken can do all the blank-faced expressions that Patrick could do, but the script didn't give her any comparable moments of quasi-humanity. Since it sounds as if the earliest script focused upon a female assassin, I wondered if this too came about as a reaction to T2. After all, T2 emphasizes how the assassin can unleash many powers to compensate for the superior size of the Schwarze-cyborg. So why couldn't a female assassin also outclass another bulky-bodied warrior, given that Patrick proved that "size did not matter?"  

WARCRAFT (2016)

 

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

I probably would have been moderately entertained had I seen this film in its theatrical run, despite knowing nothing of the video game. The filmmakers spared no expense in bringing this basic D&D project to life, so there was lots of fantastic eye-candy, albeit nothing strikingly original. I can believe the claim by director/co-writer Duncan Jones that the original script was "stale." The trouble is: all he and his co-writer were able to do was pump up the three main characters with little bits of character elaboration, as opposed to reworking the basic conflict to make it more imaginative.

In the dimension of the huge green humanoids called "orcs"-- which I *think* was supposed to harbor a human-like race as well, based on the backstory of the Garona character-- the dominant ogre-like beings are in danger of having their own world destroyed, so with the help of their sorcerer, they invade the human-dominated world of Azeroth and begin seeking to conquer it. Two main male characters, war-chieftain Lothar (Travis Fimmel) and fledgling wizard Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer) -- become among the first to alert their fellows to their peril. In due course, the humans gain intel from a "half-orc" woman, Garona (Paula Patton), who looks mostly human except for green skin and a prominent underbite. Having learned of the orcs' desire to take Azeroth for themselves, the humans and their wizards muster defenses, resulting in a lot of swords and a fair amount of sorcery.

One problem with the script is that it broadcasts early on that the very magic the orc-sorcerer is using may rebound upon his people-- and thus, there's not much suspense about this revelation. Lothar, Khadgar and Garona are all mildly appealing, and the actors comport themselves well in these limited roles. But most of the story feels well-worn, and a depressing ending-- possibly meant to set up a sequel-- ensured that WARCRAFT wasn't going to be any sort of competition for LORD OF THE RINGS. I only grant the film "fair" mythicity because it does seek to work out the dynamics of the orcs' warrior-based society, however inadequately.

A MAN CALLED DAGGER (1968)

 

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

The explosion of the superspy genre gave rise to dozens of transitory flicks seeking to coast on the meteoric success of the James Bond franchise.  Most of them are resoundingly mediocre, but if I catch even the cheaper Eurospy films when I'm in the right mood, they have a modest charm, as seen in these two quirky products. However, had I desired to find the decade's most charmless spy-flick, it's probably the American-made A MAN CALLED DAGGER.

Directed leadenly by Richard (STUNT MAN) Rush, DAGGER feels like it was the product of writers who were trying to duplicate the major appeals of the Bond films but had never actually seen one of the pictures. Agent Dick Dagger (Paul Mantee) tries to project an insouciant air, and he comes armed with a few gadgets (an infrequently-used laser beam in his wristwatch supplies the film's only marvelous content). Three or four gorgeous ladies swarm around him, anxious to give evidence as to the superspy's enormous animal magnetism. There's an evil mastermind with some sort of vague world-conquering plan, and he's even served by a hulking henchman, played by Richard Kiel, who would later take on the original superspy in THE SPY WHO LOVED ME. But the attitude of the director and the scripters project an utter lack of interest in their material. They were just going through the motions, and didn't care who knew it.

Though Mantee makes a drab secret agent, the film's biggest problem is unquestionably the casting of Jan Murray-- a comedian whom I personally never found funny even in outright humorous works-- as the mastermind Koffman, who was a former Nazi officer but somehow can't put across a decent German accent. I've forgotten Koffman's master plan, though it involved turning human beings into packaged meats. Koffman spends most of the film in a wheelchair until the end, where he suddenly gets out of the chair in order to fight Dagger. Just as he can't come up with a decent master plan, he can't contrive a believable reason as to why he stayed in a wheelchair most of the picture. Murray plays the role in a hammy fashion, perhaps under the impression he was doing some sort of "camp."

I can't think of any good reason to watch A MAN CALLED DAGGER unless one happens to be interested in seeing a particular actor or actress.

VALENTINE THE DARK AVENGER (2017)

 

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

If anyone doubted the influence of the Batman franchise upon cultures outside the sphere called "The West," VALENTINE THE DARK AVENGER would refute that skepticism. Not only in this Indonesian film does a character tell the titular heroine to jump from one moving vehicle to another "like Batman," one of the villain's henchwomen inexplicably wears a Bat-emblem on her shirt.

Of course, imitating Batman doesn't mean that the producers get anything right about the formula. VALENTINE is supposedly based on a character published by "Skylar Comics," which I assume is also Indonesian. The film's introduction of its hero takes place in an Indonesian metropolis named Batavia City (Bat-avia?) and in the same timeframe as the film's genesis, since there's a reference to an event taking place in 2010.

Sri (Estelle Linden) lives with her widowed mother and grown brother. She holds down a job as a waitress while attempting to win roles as an actress (though she's never seen attending casting-calls or the like), and she practices the Indonesian martial art of silat, taught her by her late father. When she defends another waitress from some rough customers, she's spotted by a man named Bano. Bano claims to be a film director, though Sri never sees him with any other personnel but a hair-stylist who doubles as a camcorder-operator.

Bano has a weird proposition for Sri: he wants to make a superhero film, with Sri playing a masked vigilante named "Valentine." However, as publicity for the film before it's even shot, he wants Sri to run around Batavia City in a mask and costume, thwarting minor crimes with her silat-skills. One would think that any sane person would reject such a crazy proposal. But Sri has to agree in order for the script to work, so she does, without even a hint of psychological motivation. Had Sri been shown to be a "danger junkie," that would have provided a very weak justification for her decision, though it wouldn't make her decision any more believable.

Sure enough, the vigilante Valentine spends the next few weeks cleaning up crime in Batavia City, always facing down just two or three thugs at a time and never crossing the path of police. It takes a really long time for Sri to figure out that the two goofballs have an ulterior motive and that they don't plan to make a film at all. Bano, who lost his sister Valentine in a car crash with escaping robbers, wanted to create a real-life superhero in his sister's memory. Sri is understandably honked off by this revelation and quits.

Now, some superhero films have a villain crop up in reaction to a hero's appearance. However, long before Sri dons the costume of Valentine, a villain in black armor, name of Shadow, begins a campaign of terror. Accompanied only by three martially trained henchwomen, he slaughters the occupants of a sex club. Later, Shadow and his lady-thugs take a bank hostage and strap bombs to three of the citizens just to draw the cops out. The innocents don't get blown up, but unbelievably, the high armed city cops invade the bank, and the four evildoers beat them all with their kung fu. 

VALENTINE depicts a world where guns don't count for much, like one of the old modern-day Hong Kong chopsockies. Inevitably Sri puts her concerns over safety aside and dons the Valentine costume again. We also get a subplot about why Shadow's got a hate on for Batavia City, but the villain's motivations are even dumber than Valentine's-- as is the revelation of his true identity.

There's nothing worth seeing about this film but some decently staged fights. If anyone tries to give this VALENTINE to a loved one, the recipient is likely to deem it a poison-pen letter.

Note: though there are no marvelous phenomena here, a coda suggests a sequel with some sort of superhuman character, but I doubt any such film was made. There's also a weird assertion that there's been a catastrophe in VALENTINE's world where many countries have suffered drought and the glaciers have melted, but this may just be one character's wishful thinking, since there's no evidence of such calamities.

WARRIOR OF THE LOST WORLD (1983)

  

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

In terms of excitement, WARRIOR isn't any better or worse than a half-dozen other post-apoc movies. But writer-director David Worth gets points for taking the usual story in a slightly different direction.

To be sure, Worth was probably largely a hired gun, since the main idea for the film came from Italian producers, and the finished film was first released in Italy under the title, "Vigilante of the Lost Earth." Because a lot of scenes in WARRIOR are fairly loopy-- while all the American films I've seen with Worth as director are very straightforward-- I think it's likely that the Italian producers instructed the American director to stick in various scenes designed to stoke the audience, whether the incidents depicted made much sense or not.

The post-apoc adventure-template provided by 1979's MAD MAX comes down to "Indians vs. settlers," in that the apocalypse-world has been reduced to small enclaves of people, often farmers, whom some band of evil ravagers constantly raid until a hero appears to defend the weak and the meek. WARRIOR is another apocalypse caused by a war involving "radiation," though radiation is only mentioned in the opening crawl and only once does the viewer see "mutants" who were presumably the victims of fallout. Otherwise, this time the destruction of civilization engenders a conflict more like "good mystics vs. Big Brother."

In some desolate part of the future U.S., a tyrant named Prosser (Donald Pleasance) has organized his subjects into "Omega," a dictatorship based on total mental control, either by propaganda or by brainwashing. Not far from Omega is a mysterious realm rendered invisible by a illusory cliffside-wall, where dwell the Elders of the New Way. The head of the New Way, an older man named McWayne, is kidnapped by Prosser's forces and held in Omega, presumably for purposes of brainwashing.

Along comes the unnamed man known as "The Rider" (Robert Ginty), riding his talking motorcycle and fresh from kicking the asses of a gang of wilderness marauders. He crashes into the illusion-wall and breaks into the base of the New Way. When he wakes up, Rider is informed that the Way-ers (including an unnamed character played by Fred Williamson) think that he's "pure of heart" because he was able to pass through the wall at all. They ask this guy they've never seen before to help rescue McWayne. Rider refuses until McWayne's hot daughter Natassia (Persis Khambatta) points a pistol at his privates. Rider then agrees to the mission but asks what he gets out of the arrangement. Natassia's response comprises one of those loopy moments that may've meant more to Italian audiences: she lifts the gun and fires it straight up. Is it her promise to sex up the hero if he cooperates? Who knows?

So Rider and Natassia both don the outfits of Omega's menial laborers and travel through an underground tunnel to infiltrate Prosser's domain. After the brief aforementioned meeting with some mutant scavengers, the heroes enter Omega. In short order they watch an erotic dance by male and female performers, which is apparently a reward to workmen for their service, and then end up watching the execution of two rebels against Prosser's regime. However, when McWayne is brought out to suffer the same fate, Rider and Natassia grab a couple of machine guns and start sbooting guards. With the help of a small plane, Rider escapes with McWayne. Natassia though is captured, and Prosser subjects her to his brainwashing machine.

Here's Loopy Moment #2: McWayne somehow persuades Rider to take him to an area where a bunch of colorfully costumed warriors are fighting one another to be top dog. McWayne also talks Rider into joining the free-for-all, and when he's last man standing, he becomes the de facto leader of the raffish crew. They attack some of the outposts of Omega while Rider makes a frontal assault on Prosser's fortress with that talking motorbike (which, since I've not mentioned it, utters hipster-phrases like "tubular" and "hold on hotshot.') Prosser sends forth an invincible automated battle-truck called Megaweapon, and although the talking motorbike is destroyed, Rider manages to short circuit the big assault-vehicle. 

Somehow Rider rendezvouses with McWayne, and the two of them find their way to Prosser's office. Prosser engages the heroes in banter for a while. During this scene, the viewer may note that Prosser wears one black glove, not unlike Doctor No in the Bond film of that name-- thus providing a slight reminder of Pleasance's own status as a former Bond villain.

Then Prosser unveils his ace in the hole: the brainwashed Natassia. Prosser commands her to shoot both her father and her possible future-lover. Rider, she shoots without hesitation, though by dumb luck she does not kill him. But when faced with the possibility of killing her dear daddy, Natassia empties her gun into evil Prosser.

Omega is thus instantly overthrown and all the New Way-ers celebrate with balloons and confetti (?) But Rider, being the archetypal loner-hero, won't settle down. So he settles for sucking face with Natassia for a couple minutes, and then rides off into the sunset on his rebuilt motorbike, which isn't heard to utter any sassy chat. However, Worth also filmed a coda establishing that Natassia only killed a clone of Prosser, so that the villain is still alive to "strike back" in a sequel-- which never came about.

Kinski is sexy, Ginty displays his laid-back charm, and Pleasance utilizes his silky-smooth voice to convey absolute villainy, so all of those are pluses. The action scenes are anemic and convey no excitement, but in this case at least, I prefer the emphasis on wacky stuff.

HONOR ROLL #246

 PERSIS KHAMBATTA, being combative.

No one would want to be ESTELLE LINDER's Valentine.

PAUL MANTEE, Double-O Dull-Dagger.

So far no dentist has been willing to work on PAULA PATTON's perilous mouth.

It's another Terminator on the loose, with only NICK STAHL to forestall the monstrous mechanism.

AARON TAYLOR-JOHNSON has no reason to kick about his fame.

INVINCIBLE, SEASON ONE (2021)

  

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

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

I didn't follow Robert Kirkman's INVINCIBLE series, so prior to beginning to watch the Amazon TV show, I read a handful of the earliest comics. and found them to be nothing more than a routine "decompression" comic book.

As soon as I began the first of Season One's episodes, I soon found that the show, helmed by one Simon Racioppa, was at least innocent of the charge of decompression, which would have meant that plotlines unreeled in the slowest manner possible. From that first episode, it's obvious that the producers meant to take full advantage of the animated format. INVINCIBLE fills all eight episodes of its first season with big, honking fight-scenes, which I'm sure Racioppa and his fellows think is all that superhero fans really want. And we're not talking pristine Jack Kirby punch-ups. Body parts go flying, and copious blood flows.

INVINCIBLE, on the face of things, reproduces the archetypal superhero setup of comics' Silver Age, where the daily routine of contemporary Earth is interspersed with the almost constant battles of superheroes and supervillains, with a few alien invasions thrown into the mix. But I said "on the face" because that's all INVINCIBLE replicates: the surface setup. If I were inventing thematic titles for my reviews, I'd have called this one, "No Time For Wonder." Whether it's the title hero, his faux Justice League allies, or villains with colorful names like Doc Seismic and The Mauler Brothers, all lack any emotional context. They're all just gaudy chess-pieces, and they exist to support a pedestrian, badly-structured melodrama.

The title character is Mark Grayson (Steven Yuen), teenaged son of Deborah and Nolan Grayson (Sandra Oh, J.K. Simmons). Though his mother is a mortal human, his father is also the most powerful superhero on the planet, Omni-Man. He's also an extraterrestrial, so even though the Graysons were able to interbreed, they're not sure Mark will inherit his father's super-powers. Of course, if he didn't, there would be no story. In due time Mark gets his powers, is trained in superhero-ing by his father, and takes on the persona of Invincible.

Almost as soon as Mark's made his debut, tragedy strikes. All of the Earth's foremost protectors, the Guardians of the Globe, are slain by none other than Omni-Man. Cecil Stedman, director of the Earth-agency that liases with the Guardians, suspects Omni-Man's guilt, but keeps his own counsel due to the killer's almost insuperable powers. With the Guardians gone, a group of adolescent heroes, the Teen Team, must step up and become the new Guardians. Patently, this came about partly so that Invincible would have a bunch of adventure-seeking peers, not least Atom Eve, who in her secret ID goes to the same school as Mark.

All of the characterizations of the main character and his regular cast are, as I said above, "pedestrian." The only one I liked a little bit was Teen Team leader "Robot." Though his fellow crusaders think he's just an intelligent automaton, the body of "Robot" is actually a surrogate for a genius with a deformed body, and a minor arc is devoted to how he tries to make himself a new body, and the romantic course he charts for himself.

The "badly structured" complaint applies to the whole Omni-Man arc. The scripts never give any reason as to why the false hero chooses to eradicate his former allies at that particular time, though his proximate motive is that he's actually an agent of the alien Viltrum Empire. He kills the superheroes with the general idea of softening up Earth for conquest, though there's no indication that Omni-Man's people are anywhere close to invading. Of course eventually both Debbie and Mark find out his true nature, and this leads not only to loads of emotional angst, but also a bloody battle between father and son. Invincible loses the contest, but his father can't quite exterminate the seed of his loins, so he departs Earth, though he comes back for a new arc in the second and last season.

INVINCIBLE is like a huge, intricate ice-sculpture. It looks good on the surface, but there's no heart beneath all that ice.

WRATH OF THE NINJA: THE YOTODEN MOVIE (1987/2003)

  

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

This medieval ninja-movie has a complicated history. It's not a bad little story, but I did rather wish it had been better, to justify reading up on its twists and turns.

Under the name YOTODEN, this narrative originally appeared in Japan between 1987 and 1988 in the form of three separate OVAs, each about forty minutes long. In 1989 the story was cut down to 90 minutes for an English dub, WRATH OF THE NINJA, which saw general release. The dubbed version I watched online was from 2003 and its subtitle indicates that this edition worked in four extra scenes not present in the 1989 version. Not having seen the other versions, I can't draw any comparisons.

WRATH takes place in the historical Sengoku period of Japan, and includes a famous historical personage, Oda Nobunaga, but makes him into a sort of demon-lord. Nobunaga and his allies bring a ninja clan, the Oboro, under their command, and they wipe out three other historical ninja clans. Three individuals from each clan survive and pledge themselves to destroy Nobunaga and his demon hordes.

Roughly the first half hour deals with the three survivors making common cause, though of the three, Ryoma never seems to develop well, though that may be the result of cuts. The other male hero, Sakon, is the first hero seen on screen, just before he engages in battle with the third survivor, female Ayame, though their short fight is broken up when the Oboro attack both of them. Eventually the three gather their forces and meet with other warriors allied against Nobunaga. 

Though there's some decent action and characterization here-- with the latter focused mostly on Ayame-- the edited version I saw often seemed to be marking time until the climactic conflict. One stratagem used-- probably the same as in the OVA format-- was to run down the list of seven badass Oboro villains, all with different forms and powers. Frankly, I was more invested in a subplot in which Sakon showed some romantic interest in Ayame, even though I suspected there would be no happy ending for any of the principals. And indeed, Ayame alone survives the climax. And since the video's advertising spotlights Ayame rather than all three ninja warriors, it could be argued-- for anyone who cares-- that she's the central character here.

INFILTRATOR (1987)

  

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

About a year after director Corey Allen collaborated with Scott Bakula on I-MAN-- an attempt to market Bakula as an eighties TV-superhero on NBC-- the duo tried again, this time on CBS. INFILTRATOR was the better of the two attempts, at least partly because it was shorter and had a better potential romantic arc, but it only became available to the public thanks to being one of several unsold pilots that aired on the CBS SUMMER PLAYHOUSE.

Paul Sanderson (Bakula) is more of a fun-loving eccentric this time in comparison to the solid citizen of I-MAN. Both and a female colleague, Kerry Langdon (Debrah Farentino), work on separate projects at a research facility owned by eccentric genius John Stewart (Charles Keating). But while Kerry's project, that of an advanced space-probe, is going well, Paul's about to lose funding for his invention of a teleportation-technology. 

In addition, Paul's been trying to get friendly with Kerry for some time, but implicitly she regards him as a child-man and refuses to let him get close. Paul, wanting both to impress Kerry and to get her testimony about his project, invites her to see that he's finally succeeded with his invention, but she turns him down, being preoccupied with her own work.

Paul then takes a rash act that makes the scientist of THE FLY seem rational; he teleports himself from his lab into Kerry's lab. He succeeds, but he merges with the space probe known as Infiltrator. Unlike the FLY-guy, Paul initially does not seem to be physically changed. But it doesn't take long to reveal that at times of stress, Infiltrator's computer-brain reacts to stimuli independently of Paul-- such as feeling threatened while driving through busy L.A. traffic. Infiltrator can also change one of Paul's arms into a robot-arm-- one able to shoot lasers, which Infiltrator uses to disable a tailgating truck.

Such transformations pretty quickly trash Paul's easygoing attitude, but ironically, they cause Kerry to become more attentive toward him-- though Paul's not sure who she cares more about: him, or Infiltrator. Paul appeals to Stewart to attempt a separation. However, the blueprints Stewart needs to reverse-engineer Infiltrator's merger have been stolen by a disgruntled scientist, Markus (Michael Bell). So INFILTRATOR follows the same basic plot as I-MAN: newly-minted hero is directed to penetrate the compound of an evil mastermind to neutralize his control of stolen tech. But this time his potential romantic interest goes along, supposedly to monitor the Infiltrator-probe, though as the story proceeds, it's evident that she's begun to have feelings for her alienated colleague.

The actual action of the good guys battling Markus isn't much to speak of; the emphasis is on the horror of Paul transforming fully into a robotic entry. Bakula and Farentino pull off this drama well, and then the story ends with the promise that someday Paul will be cured of his affliction. Two years later, Bakula enjoyed his breakout success with QUANTUM LEAP, and he no longer had to subsist on failed pilots.

WATERWORLD (1995)

  

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

In its day WATERWORLD only made back its high production costs over a long haul, which means that in its general release this "Mad Max at sea" concept would have been deemed a box office failure. Still, it made enough money not to be one of the all-time flops, so I tend to think the project got about the level of success it deserved.

The WATERWORLD script devotes as little attention as the "Max" films did to the reasons for the world's apocalyptic transformation, except for a quick mention that the polar icecaps melted and deluged all of civilization. As in most post-apoc films, only isolated enclaves have survived, this time in the form of artificial "atolls" inhabited by ragtag survivors. The more law-abiding communities keep up a system of trade with "drifters," individuals who uses sailboats to range out into the trackless seas looking for valuable resources or relics from the previous order of things. Many of these atoll-dwellers nurture a myth of "Dryland," a surviving continent not entirely subtmerged, but no such place has ever been discovered.

One such drifter, known only as The Mariner (Kevin Costner), visits an atoll looking for trade. He's meant to be a rough, insular figure, wanting to mingle with other humans as little as possible, even after he meets lissome Helen (Jeanne Tripplehorn). Unknown to the Mariner or the other atoll-dwellers, a child named Enola (Tina Majorino), under the guardianship of Helen, bears a tattoo on her back that may be a map to the location of Dryland. A spy for the Smokers-- pirates outfitted with speedboats-- learns Enola's secret and relays it to the pirates' leader, The Deacon (Dennis Hopper).

Under complicated circumstances-- which, among other things, reveal that the Mariner is a mutant who can breathe water-- Helen and Enola join The Mariner on his trimaran when the Smokers attack the atoll. The better part of the film focuses on the slow process by which The Mariner is socialized by being stuck with two females on his sailcraft, while at the same time all three seek to ward off attacks from the Deacon's followers. Eventually, the Mariner and the Deacon face off, one against a small army of raiders, and things blow up real good. Perhaps inevitably, Dryland is indeed found, though the script doesn't deal with just how much land there is, and what may happen when the inhabitants of the atolls start migrating en masse to the flourishing continent

The FX and the action-scenes are WATERWORLD's best features, and probably can be largely credited to director Kevin Reynolds, though reportedly Costner threw his star-weight around on directorial choices and caused a rift between the two creators. But one thing Costner could not alter: he simply was not able to bring off the "antiheroic" aspects of the Mariner's character. The actor tries with might and main to look as if he's bristling with feral attitude, suspicious of everyone, at least partly because of his mutant heritage. Yet even though The Mariner suggests drowning Enola to save on resources, and even though he does throw her overboard in a fit of pique, there's never really any doubt that he'll turn back the trimaran to rescue her. There's no doubt that the Mariner's cold, cold heart will eventually be warmed by the insertion of two females into his isolation because Costner was just not able to project real spiritual darkness. That said, Tripplehorn and Majorino bring a lot of verve to their simple roles, and Majorino was particularly good in her ambivalent reactions to a potential "father figure" in her young life-- though someone, be it Costner or a scripter, couldn't resist recycling the ending of SHANE here. And just to spread some of the blame for the film's failures elsewhere, Hopper's Deacon is no prize either, as he utters assorted phrases so anachronistic that they took me completely out of the world-of-water.

Once or twice, the Mariner seems to possess a certain affinity with the ocean that goes beyond the limitations of the average post-apoc hero. It might have worked better to have portrayed the hero as someone as being divorced from the standards of commonplace humans because of his seagoing nature, rather than just trying to put across ceaseless bad attitude. But you don't always get what you need.

SHERLOCK HOLMES' SMARTER BROTHER (1975)

 

Going to the other extreme is Gene Wilder's first effort as both writer and director, 1975's THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES' SMARTER BROTHER. The premise is that the Great Detective didn't have just one other brother-- (the well-chronicled older brother Mycroft, who makes frequent appearances in Sherlockiana-- but also a younger one named Sigerson. Sigerson (Wilder) has also taken up the role of a consulting private detective in imitation of his more famed brother, but he hasn't precisely set the world on fire.

Sherlock himself, in concert with Doctor Watson, seeks to protect a valuable item, the Redcliffe Document, from falling into the hands of the evil Professor Moriarty. The Wilder script doesn't trouble itself with the threat presented by the document-- which is no more than your basic Hitchcockean "MacGuffin." In any case, Sherlock decides to use Sigerson as a decoy by sending him a case: music-hall singer Jenny (Madeline Kahn), who knows more than she admits about the blackmailer who plans to sell the document to Moriarty. Sherlock also sends Sigerson his own assistant, Orville Sacker (Marty Feldman),

In the tradition of the Mel Brooks comedies that had contributed to Wilder's fame, SMARTER is filled with wild slapstick scenes, many of which spoof the tropes of Sherlock-fiction. Overall the film holds together better than most Brooks-imitations-- including many of those Brooks himself made in his later years. The best scenes take place between Wilder, Khan, and Feldman-- who had worked together in 1974's YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN-- and to Wilder's credit, his portrait of the frenetic, overcompensating Sigerson remains persuasive.

On the negative side, other performers have little to do but to mug and to beat on each other, a particular example being an overlong scene between Leo McKern (as Moriarty) and Dom DeLuise (as Gambetti, an opera-singer who's also the blackmailer with the document). As might be expected, in the end Sigerson manages to remove himself from the shadow of Sherlock, engaging the Great Detective's arch-villain in a spirited swordfight.

There's only one element in the film that qualifies it for metaphenomenal status: a scene in which Sigerson and Sacker are imprisoned in a small room which has been rigged with a moving buzzsaw, set to chop any inhabitants to ribbons. However, while some versions of Moriarty have used assorted uncanny devices, like the trap-filled house in SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NEW YORK, this "guest room" is actually the possession of Gambetti. Wilder's script does not explain why an opera-singer would just happen to have a buzzsaw-execution room in his domicile.

CUTIE HONEY (2004)

  

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

Storytellers of a particular nationality don't tend to admit any truth in the often-negative stereotypes that persons of other nationalities promulgate. Americans don't want to be seen as chauvinistic, the French don't like to be seen as artsy-fartsy, and Germans don't care to be seen as intrinsically warlike. After watching the 2004 CUTIE HONEY, though, I think some if not all Japanese storytellers may be the exception. From the many anime and manga I've consumed, though, I have the distinct impression that Japanese storytellers freely admit that their culture can be rigid and stratified. This admission allows them to fight back against this negative cultural tendency by expousing deeper human values of love and passionate ambition.

Thanks to its bright colors and hyperkinetic, deliberately artificial battle-scenes, some critics judged CUTIE HONEY to be a superficial confection. I can't judge how well the movie represents the manga source-material of popular artist Go Nagai, having only read a smattering of the original 1970s comics. But HONEY, directed and co-written by Hideaki Anno, obviates that problem by leaping over the original events of the heroine's introduction.

The original story concerned Honey, an android creation of one Doctor Kisaragi. Her creator was slain by the criminal organization Panther Claw, so Honey, drawing on her power to transform into a plethora of specialized fighting-forms, sought revenge upon the evildoers, eventually destroying them and their supernatural leader Sister Jill. HONEY takes place a year after those events, with the only salient difference being that Anno interpolates an ASTRO BOY-like trope about Dr. Kisaragi having modeled Honey on his real-life deceased daughter. Honey (Eriko Sata) earns her daily bread at a tedious clerical job but seems undauntedly cheerful nevertheless. However, Honey receives a call from her (purely figurative) uncle Utsugi, who is being pursued by the agents of a recrudescent Panther Claw. Honey responds to the assault by transforming into her most familiar form-- a pink-haired girl in hot-pink armor and carrying a katana-- and rushes to thwart the villainous Gold Claw and his goons. After a rousing battle Honey defeats Gold Claw, who then flees the scene. An uptight police inspector, Natsuko (Mikako Ichikawa), knows nothing of Honey's earlier deeds and tries to arrest her, but Honey also escapes.

Gold Claw returns to the hideout of Panther Claw, where he consults with three other claw-themed generals of the organization and with a Sister Jill, who for some unexplained reason (at least in the subtitled version I watched) has been reborn in a male form (and is played by Eisuke Sasai). Sister Jill sends another general, the spider-like Cobalt Claw, to assassinate the organization's nemesis.

Cobalt Claw attack Honey in her civilian ID at her office, and Natusko happens to be caught up in the assault as well. Honey slays the monstrous assassin, saving Natusko but draining herself of power. Natsuko, grateful for the rescue, doesn't seek to imprison Honey this time, but takes her to Natsuko's own apartment. Despite the inspector's rigidity, which makes her the opposite of Honey's relentless good spirits, the two women bond somewhat. 

During Honey's travails her uncle is captured, and a journalist who becomes friendly to Honey and Natsuko informs them that many nubile young women have also been kidnapped by the monsters of Panther Claw. (In truth both the uncle and the female prisoners are just the script's way of keeping the tension up; neither are very important to the main story.) Honey has no way of finding the fiends' hiding place, but Sister Jill needs a lot of energy to fully revivify, and she can get a lot more from a super-android than from a bunch of mortal women. Jill's butler lures Honey to the hideout, where she's attacked by the other two super-powered generals, Black Claw and Scarlet Claw. Honey destroys both of these assailants but is drained of her power again. She's still defiant until the butler reveals that he's also captured Natsuko. To save Natsuko and Utsugi, Honey surrenders and Sister Jill begins draining off the android's energy. However, thanks to having learned of Honey's systems and filled with passion to save the artificial woman, Natsuko uses her markmanship to re-activate Honey's power-- striking a button on Honey's choker with a bullet-- and Honey helps the innocents escape while Jill and her entire lair are annihilated. A coda establishes that a deep friendship has formed between Honey, Natsuko and the journalist, and they lay plans to form a detective agency.

Like all the best superhero works in all media, CUTIE HONEY excels in producing all sorts of outrageous imagery. Gold Claw's henchmen launch a fusillade of machine-gun bullets at the avenging "soldier of love," and she knocks all the projectiles aside by whipping her sword back and forth like an impenetrable shield. (Top that, Wonder Woman!) When Sister Jill attacks Tokyo, a giant drill erupts beneath the ground beneath Tokyo Tower, hoisting the building into the sky. (Later, when the drill is atomized, the tower simply falls back into place, neat as you please.) Such wild images would prejudice many critics to think HONEY to be dominantly silly.

However, the script holds a number of subtleties. It's no surprise when the main villain urges the heroine to "rise above common humanity," and the heroine nobly remains true to her ideals of love and empathy. But Natsuko is clearly a liminal figure between hero and villain. She suppresses her humanity for professional advancement in a clear parallel to Sister Jill-- even though the inspector's suppression takes the form of wearing fake glasses to harden her image-- but she's persuaded to be more human by her interaction with a heroine who is not a true human being, revised origin or not. (Honey mentions, in a rare doleful mood, that she doesn't remember her predecessor's existence, though she remains confident that she can "always make more memories.") 

There are also some very clever lines. When Honey is grappling with Cobalt Claw, the monstrous creature tries to bite the android. The irate heroine asks her enemy if she tried to do something like that to Honey's late father, and Cobalt responds, "Do you remember what you ate last year?"

The performers playing the generals deserve kudos for managing to act despite bulky, elaborate costumes (particularly Gold Claw, who has a long scorpion-tail protruding from her helmet). Mikako Ichikawa provides a strong evolution for her character's arc, but clearly the film depends on the high-energy of Eriko Sata, whom I regard as one of the five best actresses to play a superheroine.

As a small treat, the Gold Claw battle is preceded by some humorous inserts of scenes from the 1970s anime series.

ADDENDUM: I read three CUTIE HONEY manga series I had not previously gone through prior to writing this view. One never-completed storyline, CUTIE HONEY A GO GO (2003), was meant as a "lead-in" to the live-action film. Yet Anno takes very little from that series except the characters of Natsuko and the reporter, and the basic idea that Cutie and Natsuko have a feminine bonding session. The parallels between lack of affect in both Jill and Natsuko are not pursued, and Anno does a better dramatic job with the three viewpoint characters. He does not use GO GO's notion-- as far as I know, not seen before-- that Sister Jill is an android produced by the same research that gave rise to Cutie Honey, and he certainly doesn't utilize the extreme violence characteristic of many Go Nagai productions. Anno is credited as a creator of some sort on GO GO, but in the movie he clearly built up the things he liked best in the collaboration and excised the other stuff-- which may be the reason I liked the movie better than any of the manga I've read so far.

HONOR ROLL #245

 ERIKO SATA is no Honey-flash-in-the-pan.

GENE WILDER: he's smarter than the average Holmes.

Water, water, everywhere, including the performance of KEVIN COSTNER, which is "all at sea."

Scientist DEBRAH FARENTINO goes further than Frankenstein, making a man into a monster and then, into a secret agent.

AYAME HAYAMI; the only ninja with a sound-alike name.

INVINCIBLE was entirely "vincible" to anyone who knows good superhero stories.