THE GRAND SUPERHERO OPERA: December 2024

LEGO DC COMICS: BATMAN BE-LEAGUERED (2014)

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

Although this short is dated 2014, its events seem slightly before DC SUPER HEROES UNITE. While Batman is busy fighting Joker, Penguin, and Man-Bat, Superman shows up and invites the crimefighter to join the newly-forged Justice League. Though Batman recognizes Superman's voice, Superman acts as if they've not met before as he issues his invitation. Batman defeats the villains without help and declines any membership.

But events conspire to force Batman to investigate when members of the League start disappearing, even in the midst of their fighting regular foes like Luthor and Captain Cold. Since this entry is less than half an hour long, there's no time for a lot of buildup: it turns out to be Bat-Mite, who resents any other heroes sharing the spotlight with Bat-Mite's favorite hero. This of course spurs Batman to overcome (some) of his normal reticence and join the League after all.

Best joke: Batman monologuing about his lonely crusade in the Batcave, while behind him Alfred and three members of his Bat-family-- Nightwing, New Robin and Batgirl-- sit around sipping drinks.

ROGUE ONE (2016)

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

I'm glad I didn't review ROGUE ONE when I saw it in the theaters. At that time, when the stand-alone film came out in between the first and second parts of the "Rei Trilogy," I was rather underwhelmed. None of the characters really grabbed me, and I didn't see the point of making a film about the events that led up to A NEW HOPE. Yet now, thanks to Walt Disney having mismanaged the STAR WARS franchise so badly, I can make an argument that ROGUE ONE is the last real STAR WARS film.

Though I mildly enjoyed FORCE AWAKENS, in my review I noted that J.J. Abrams did not "possess the talent evinced by the Lucas of 1977 for synthesizing great action-scenes from Classic Hollywood: the western’s saloon-confrontation, the pirate film’s yardarm-flights, the war film’s airborne strafing-runs." At the time I reviewed LAST JEDI and RISE OF SKYWALKER in the same month, I believed that JEDI's badness might have been partly the result of poor scheduling, while RISE had some positive aspects that made it the strongest of the trilogy. Unfortunately, though I've had little experience of the various SW shows on streaming services, it sounds like JEDI became the new model for the franchise's sociopolitical engagement.

The idea behind ROGUE, however, began in 2003, pitched by one of the Lucasfilm visual FX guys. Whatever changes the idea went through as it was scripted by other raconteurs roughly from 2014 to 2016, it seems to have hewed to the approach of George Lucas. That means that although some sociopolitical content was present, the story emphasized dazzling action and a sense of wonder at the mysteries of the universe-- including those of the human mind, as exemplified by the powers of the Jedi.

In keeping with A NEW HOPE, the Jedi are in total eclipse at the time of ROGUE, and the Empire has most of the galaxy locked down, aside from the scattered forces of the Rebel Alliance. The major heroes and villains of HOPE play only marginal roles here, for ROGUE is about the sacrifice of rebels who made the later triumphs possible.

Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) is a child when the Empire, in the person of the villainous Krennic, abducts her father Galen to work on the Death Star after killing Jyn's mother. For fifteen years Jyn has to grow up in hiding with the help of raffish rebel Saw (Forest Whitaker), but he, functioning as a surrogate father, willfully separates himself from her to avoid exposing her identity as Galen's daughter. Jyn is eventually picked up by the Empire even though the Stormtroopers don't know her identity. However, two agents of the Alliance, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and the droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk) learn Jyn's identity and liberate her. Because Jyn can help the Alliance's plan to free the imprisoned Galen, she's more or less drafted into the rebel movement.

During the assorted battles and spycraft-endeavors that make up the action of ROGUE, the main psychological arc is the contrast between Cassian, who has been fighting as a rebel since childhood, and Jyn, who has sought to steer clear of political involvement because it cost her so much. This master trope of ROGUE is not quite elaborate enough to bestow good mythicity upon the movie as a hole, but it does keep the events of the film from being nothing more than a recitation of plot-points. Humorous counterpoint is provided by Chirrut (Donnie Yen), who is a skilled blind swordsman who believes in the Force though he possesses no literal mind-powers. The three of them are not resonant enough to come anywhere close to the mythic status of Luke, Leia and Han, but they comport themselves well enough.

Director Gareth Edwards, purportedly a STAR WARS fan, shows all the wonder-working ability that Abrams lacked. I was particularly taken with several outer-space spectacles, both with and without battling starships, that would be foreign to more plebeian directors. Edwards also structures the fast-paced narrative much in the style of Original Lucas, but without neglecting some ethical reflections.

Unfortunately, two years later Disney came out with a second stand-alone SW movie, Ron Howard's SOLO, which helped put an end to George Lucas's filmmaking legacy.

GENLOCK: THE FIRST SEASON (2018-19)

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

The first eight episodes of this series (and four short teasers) are organized on this DVD as one continuous feature, as opposed to episodes separated by opening theme song and end credits. After the animation company that produced the show went under, HBO completed a second season, which I've not seen.

I'm not a big fan of mecha-shows, but this American effort rates with most of the Japanese programs I've seen in terms of characterization. As in many other shows, a futuristic Earth lies in peril from a menace that's mostly unseen except for antagonistic mecha and a handful of enemy soldiers. In this case, the Earth-government known as The Polity is coming close to destruction at the hands of The Union, whose origins are never discussed. Only a new breed of mecha, "Holons," stands a chance to beat back the superior forces of the Union. But only a handful of individuals can successfully mind-merge with the Holon-mecha, allowing GENLOCK to focus on a small ensemble of five defenders.

Of the five, four are given various character schticks but don't particularly come alive as characters: Japanese Kazu (who unlike the others never speaks anything but his native language, always helpfully subtitled), Russian Val (the "gender-fluid" one), Iranian Yaz (who, despite having defected from the Union, never says much about the goals or nature of her former allies), and Scottish Cammie (who supplies most of the comedy relief). The scripters put much more effort into the group's leader, American Julian Chase (voiced by Michael B. Jordan). Chase loses both his body and his family in a Union attack, but the genius of GenLock's creator Doctor Weller (David Tennant) preserves a portion of Chase's body in a tank and manages to translate his mind into an entity capable of merging with a Holon. For the remainder of the first season, Chase can only interact with others by projecting a holograph of his normal body. When his survival is made public, his former girlfriend Miranda, who's believed Chase to be dead for the past four years, is more than a little ticked off.

Though the four newbies to the Holon program have to be shepherded into doing the right thing for the sake of their world, the scripts don't create much interpersonal conflict, probably because that sort of thing would have distracted from numerous training-scenes with the giant robots. The CGI animation for all the mecha-action is lively if a bit (heh) mechanical, but the various speedbumps encountered by the trainees doesn't make up for the amorphousness of the opponents they're training to fight.

In the latter half of the series, though, the Union steals a march on the Polity. They manage to steal a Holon and make a copy of Chase's mental pattern, and through a process of brainwashing they make the rogue Holon's pilot into a deranged spirit called Nemesis. This attack-mecha not only can counter the five defending robots of the Polity, it can also track them thanks to being on Chase's mental wavelength. Nemesis's status as a dark reflection of Chase gives this villain much more heft than any of the anonymous Union minions. The scripts raise the question-- without answering it-- as to what sort of identity Chase actually has as a mental construct, given that he's said not even to be the first copy of Chase's brain-patterns, but "a copy of a copy."

All the business about the necessity of merging minds with mecha also creates a dynamic that requires the five combatants to share mentalities in order to up their game against Nemesis. This is accomplished a little too easily and introduced pretty late in the game, so that the GenLockers' success isn't very compelling.

The first season has a tidy conclusion but includes a teaser for the second and probably last season.

DOCTOR JUSTICE (1975)

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

I stumbled across DOCTOR JUSTICE while looking for a Eurospy title. But though the evildoers in the film are comparable to high-level conspirators, the hero, whose name is literally "Justice," is not an operative. The doctor (John Philip Law) is an athletic, karate-chopping WHO physician who accidentally witnesses a murder of a gangster by the criminal's superior. This draws the good doctor into a wild, larger-than-life adventure against a criminal plotter named Max (Gert Frobe) -- unless Max is really a lookalike named Orwall (also Frobe), who seems to be an eminent scientist testifying at a WHO conference. To compensate slightly for Max and his gang, Justice gains a resourceful romantic interest in Karine (Nathalie Delon) who joins him in his forays throughout most of the narrative.

To get the phenomenality out of the way, the story begins with a formidable "bizarre crime," in which an oil tanker arrives at its port and finds that all its stores of oil have vanished, replaced by seawater. The explanation for this clever crime isn't unveiled until the last half-hour, and it involves some diabolical drugs, but the mastermind behind the crime has a even deeper and more ambitious scheme, to which the oil-theft is a means to an end.

The director/co-writer is Christian-Jaque, known for other flamboyant entertainments of the period, my favorite being the raucous comedy LEGEND OF FRENCHIE KING. The movie seems to have had a better budget than the majority of Eurospy films, given a fair number of splashy, swashbuckling scenes. John Philip Law had done other action-roles, but I think this is the only one where he had to emulate martial arts, and he does well there. His general upbeat attitude, so different from the various gloomy Bond imitations, has been compared to Doc Savage, albeit one with a French "je ne sais quoi." Delon has to support Law in many scenes, in contrast to the usual subordinate role of the lead female actor, and Frobe seems to have fun with his two disparate parts. Paul Naschy and Eduardo Fajardo appear in small roles, but I didn't spot them. It's not a great film but is worth a look.

As it happens, DOCTOR JUSTICE began as a French comic book, and an early bit of dialogue acknowledges this when the doctor jokes to Karine that he's "a comic book hero."

THE BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR (1993)

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

I've screened BRIDE and its sequel a few times before this, but this was the first time I saw the up-front romantic conflict as reflective of a deeper sociological quandary. And although BRIDE was adapted from a 1958 novel, its conflict reminded me of the clash between "order and chaos" as depicted by many cinematic versions of China's "White Snake" folktale, of which the best in my view is 2011's THE SORCERER AND THE WHITE SNAKE.

Both in dubbed and subbed forms, I don't think the script-- co-written by director Ronny Yu-- explicitly maps out the nature of the differences between the two warring clans of BRIDE: the WuDang and the WuShuang. Midway through the film, a flashback establishes that the villains-- the conjoined twins "Male Ji" and "Female Ji" (Francis Ng, Elaine Liu) -- once belonged to WuDang. The twins committed some transgression against WuDang ethics, prompting some of the elders to call for their execution. One elder, Ziyang, pleads for mercy, so that the twins are simply exiled-- though the Jis end up forming their own antagonistic clan, the WuShuang, christened by the twins' surname.

However, though I don't speak Chinese and don't know precisely what the performers are saying in the film, visually I think Yu *shows* us the aforementioned opposition. WuDang is a clan dedicated to strict orderliness, in which everyone wears dark, sober colors and talks about the necessity to expand their influence over the rival clans. The members of Clan WuShuang wear gaudy clothes and celebrate with wild dances, with at least one woman gamboling about in the nude-- hence, "chaos." Yu never explicitly asserts that the individual can suffer equally from "too much order" as from "too much chaos," but such is the fate of the tragic young lovers.

The tragedy of the lovers is foreshadowed by a brief frame-story, which I'll address later. Presumably the source novel established the way the two protagonists were raised. Male lover Yihang (Leslie Cheung) is taught martial arts, presumably since his youngest years, by the WuDang Clan, with Ziyang functioning as Yihang's father-figure. Female lover Lien Nichang spent her earlier years as a "wolf girl," but the Ji Twins bring her into the WuShuang Clan. Implicitly the twins teach Lien both martial arts and some sort of magic, but initially their main intention is to use her as a tool in their war with WuDang.

But self-interest muddies the water on both sides. In WuShuang, Male Ji conceives a deep passion for Lien, even though his female half mocks him for thinking he can enjoy normal sexual relations. In WuDang, Yihang gets slightly less overt interference, but the spartan young woman Lu Hua (Kit Ying Lam) makes clear that she's warm for his form. However, Yihang experiences his first stirrings of romance when he meets Lien on the field of battle. Lien is awesome as she whips her way through multiple WuDang soldiers, but what most impresses Yihang is seeing her care for an infant birthed by a dying mother.

It doesn't take long for Yihang to worm his way into the affections of Lien, who hasn't exactly had a long list of boyfriends at this point. In no time, they've plighted their troth, and Lien asks Yihang to swear his love for her. So naturally, the competing factions work to pull them apart, and Lien, feeling betrayed, turns against all humanity, transformed (for reasons never made clear in any version I've watched) into an affect-less white-haired witch. Though the Ji Twins are destroyed by the forces they set in motion, and most of the WuDang is decimated, the lovers remain separated for the next ten years. This is the substance of the frame-story: that for ten years Yihang guards over a unique magical flower that he thinks may return Lien to human status-- and this plays into the narrative of the sequel, released in the same year, albeit with a new cast of support-characters for Cheung and Lin. More on that in a forthcoming review.

DEVILMAN STORY (1967)

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

DEVILMAN STORY (a title which at least distances the film from any adaptations of Go Nagai's DEVILMAN) is a very dull adventure from director Paolo Bianchini, though at least it's a little better photographed than some other efforts from the same period.

The titular "Devilman" is a mad scientist (possibly "Ken Wood") who sets up his own installation somewhere in North Africa, manned by various Arabs. His dastardly plot involves creating an artificial "super-brain," which he hopes to insert in his own cranium in order to give him the intelligence he needs to conquer the world. To this end, he kidnaps a brain surgeon from Europe and spirits him down to his hidden HQ. However, the surgeon's daughter Christina (Luisa Barrato) begins searching for her missing father, and by chance crusading journalist Mike Harway (Guy Madison) joins forces with the young lady and accompanies her to North Africa. Devilman abducts Christina and plans to perform some experiment on her before getting her father to do the big brain-switch. Harway is succored by an Arab tribe, whose leader conveniently reveals that he's been seeking his lost daughter for years. Harway infiltrates the installation, and though he can't overthrow Devilman, he escapes and gets the good Arabs to attack the bad Arabs. Christina and her dad are rescued and Devilman is defeated, never getting his brain transfer.

A year later, Bianchini would work with Wood, Madison and Barrato on SUPERARGO AND THE FACELESS GIANTS, which, while no classic, is a huge improvement on this rote exercise. DEVILMAN is not, as some termed it, a "Eurospy" flick, seeming to be a swipe on a few tropes from the 1960s FANTOMAS movies. Those films, building off the novels of the early 20th century, followed the exploits of master criminal Fantomas as his schemes were continually foiled by an intrepid journalist. But Fantomas was a clever villain, while Bianchini (who allegedly co-wrote the DEVILMAN script) doesn't even put forth basic effort with his super-fiend.

It's a minor flaw that the starring villain is never actually called Devilman in the dubbed English version (though I assume that he is in the Italian original). But a more major one is that the evildoer's master plan couldn't possibly work. It would be one thing if Devilman plotted to enhance his normal brainpower. But he seems to be talking about total brain transplant, which of course would eliminate the personality of the villain along with his original brain. Like Fantomas Devilman wears a silver mask all the time, and there's a "Doctor Doom moment" when the heroine pulls off the covering and beholds a mutilated visage (which the viewer does not see). Admittedly the sixties version of Fantomas doesn't have any more deep motives for his depredations than Devilman does, but at least Fantomas had a sense of style.