THE GRAND SUPERHERO OPERA: 2025

ZEBRAMAN 2: ATTACK ON ZEBRA CITY (2010)

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

I've only slightly sampled the original manga from which both of the ZEBRAMAN movies were adapted, so I don't know whether or not the source material falls into the literary category of the irony. But the six-years-later sequel supports my theory that director Takashi Miike definitely wanted an approach that allowed for uncertainty and absurdity, even in the midst of real heroics.

Miike's sense of humor might have been stoked by the fact that the first film, released in 2004, took place in the fictional future of 2010, while the sequel was issued in real-world 2010 while the narrative purports to take place fifteen years after the events of the first ZEBRAMAN. In any case, the triumphal ending of that movie is undermined by ATTACK. In that conclusion, main character Shinichi (Sho Aikawa) taps the power of childhood belief so as to transform into the super-powered Zebraman, who then foils an invasion of insidious aliens. Unfortunately, once humankind has learned who the hero is, Shinichi's civilian life goes to hell thanks to the media. Even his small family, with whom he seemed to be reconnecting thanks to his altruistic actions, is simply out of the picture, and his "imaginary family"-- Mrs. Asano and her grade-school-aged son-- is the same. Then a mad scientist captures Shinichi for an experiment that leaves the former teacher depowered and amnesiac for the next fifteen years.

By 2025, Tokyo has got so nutty over Zebraman that the city has been renamed "Zebra City," and in the hero's absence, an idol singer named Yui (Riisa Naka) has taken on the persona of Zebra Queen, keeping the populace happy with bread and circuses. Aihara, the aforementioned mad scientist, has used the public's fascination with Zebraman to institute a bizarre social practice, "Zebra Time," in which anyone can commit a crime, though the local stripe-uniformed cops are also free to shoot down anyone they please. Aihara and Yui plan to extend this improbable method of seizing power to other lands, and supposedly parts of America have already been converted.

The amnesiac Shinichi ends up in a hospital run by a dissident group that opposes the power of Aihara's political reign. Among the group is a twenty-something doctor, who turns out to be none other than Shinpei, the young student who helped Zebraman in the first film. A more important contact, however, is that Shinichi encounters Sumire, a girl who looks like a grade-schooler but claims to be twenty-five years old. It's eventually revealed that one of the aliens from the first movie still occupied her body, not only retarding her age but also giving her special powers, with which Sumire jump-starts Shinichi's buried powers.

Bits and pieces of the big explanation are foregrounded. For instance, Yui/ Zebra Queen forsakes her black-and-white attire for all-black outfits, and when Sumire triggers Shinichi's transformation, he becomes an all-white version of Zebraman. The Reveal: Aihara used a psychic centrifuge to separate all the black-hearted evil of Shinichi into the independent existence of Yui, who possessed many of the same powers as Zebraman (including the signature "zebra kick"). But Zebra Queen isn't as easy to control as her "father" assumes. Not only does she murder Aihara with the help of her costumed female backup singers-- a very fetish-y death, BTW-- she also uses the centrifuge on Sumire in an attempt to gain control over the alien powers she possesses. The process unleashes an alien monster to attack Zebra City-- and all of the villainess' plans to eradicate the undesirables in humankind have to be sacrificed for expediency.

Can the hero's good and evil sides reach a rapprochement? If you've watched the right STAR TREK episodes, you know the answer. But the real novelty of ATTACK is the way the script gives the film an ending that mixes heroism with one of the goofiest visuals I've seen in a Japanese film of any kind, to say nothing of the tokusatsu TV shows that ZEBRAMAN homages.

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1989)

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

*SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS*

Though this MASQUE is yet another "phony Poe" movie that captures nothing of the writer's unique appeal, it's certainly the best of the three films British producer Harry Alan Towers made with American journeyman director Alan Birkenshaw circa 1989. In fact, this movie shares with 1989's TEN LITTLE INDIANS the same top-billed stars-- Frank Stallone, Brenda Vaccaro, and Herbert Lom-- as well as having been shot mostly in South Africa. (I assume the exteriors showing a Bavarian castle were put together thanks to Towers' legendary European connections.) Stallone and Vaccaro definitely don't deserve their top billing in MASQUE, and though Lom's role is more substantial, viewpoint character Rebecca, played by Michelle McBride, provides the heavy lifting here. In addition, the real star of the show is MASQUE's psycho-killer, and though she doesn't have very good motivations at least she racks up a pretty strong body count.

Rebecca journeys to the Bavarian castle of a famous rich guy, Ludwing (Lom). He's holding a lavish costume party for his many acquaintances and hangers-on, and one of those guests is soap-opera actress Elena (Vaccaro). Rebecca, in line with her profession as a photographer-paparazzi, hopes to get some sensational photos of the aging soap-queen, though the only thing Elena does at the bash is to canoodle with some much younger men. I assume that the part of Elena was concocted to give Vaccaro a role, since it would have made more sense had Rebecca been focused on the mysterious Ludwig. In any case, she counterfeits an invitation to the party and dons a Cupid-costume, all the better to conceal a camera in her bow.

Some reviews call this a "slasher." But since the victims are brought together because of the partygoers' indebtedness to wealthy Ludwig, the movie has more structural resemblance to "mystery killer" films, ranging from the "old dark house" flicks of the thirties to the aforementioned TEN LITTLE INDIANS book/play by Agatha Christie. MASQUE does have a killer dressed up in a costume like that of Poe's Red Death, but one can find cloaked murderers in the 1930s as well as in the 1980s-- though the level of violence here is definitely post-slasher. This "Red Death" does want to wipe out all of the partygoers, which is about the only element the movie has in common with the Poe story. Since writer Michael Murray had also worked on the other Towers-Birkenshaw collab of 1989, THE HOUSE OF USHER, he apparently decided to up the Poesque elements by having one victim killed by a knife-edged pendulum.

It takes a while for Ludwig and his guests to twig to the fact that some of the attendees are being murdered (including early fatality Elena), and when they do, the film faces the usual problems of the "old dark house" plot: "how do you keep the pool of victims available for further murders?" Ludwig, who's fixated on keeping his guests together as his extended family, uses mechanical gates to keep everyone confined to the castle, though clearly, it's the script that keeps the panicky guests from escaping by other means. Ludwig is never a serious contender for the Big Reveal, and indeed he's slain by the serial slayer.

The writer doesn't bother with leaving clues to the mystery killer's ID; after a half dozen partygoers are slain, an airheaded actress named Collette (Christine Lunde) simply reveals that her intent was to kill off all the other hangers-on so that Ludwig would devote his attention to her. Of course, her killing Ludwig doesn't track too well with that motivation. But at least MASQUE ends with a lively set-piece: that of Rebecca fist-fighting Collette for three-four minutes before Collette meets her doom.

There's nothing special about MASQUE, but production values are decent, Lom has some good moments, and McBride makes her simple character appealing throughout. Devotees of bad acting may be disappointed that Vaccaro isn't terrible, but Frank Stallone's nothingburger role as a Bavarian duke should take up the slack.

UNICO IN THE ISLAND OF MAGIC (1983)

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

The second and last UNICO feature film from Japan's Sanrio company is a marked improvement over the first entry. It succeeds in large part because the story is new rather than an adaptation of one of Tezuka's tales. The only thing the screenwriters took from the "God of Manga" was a lookalike version of Piro from this story. The only commonality with Tezuka is that Piro-- renamed "Mars"-- is said to be a sphinx. Otherwise, he's just there to provide a little extra comedy relief.

As in the series proper, Unico starts out getting dumped in s new realm, this one being a forest full of animals. Strangely, the first creatures Unico encounters are a bunch of housecats, led by a bossy feline named (in English) "Magnificat." The mean cat runs Unico off, but he's then drafted into the service of a sorcerer named Toby, who serves an unknown lord of magic.

Unico happens across a house in the woods, occupied by a little girl named Cheri, her mother and her father. Cheri immediately bonds with Unico and the little unicorn shows her some of his magic. Cheri mentions that she also has an absent brother, who turns out to be none other than the good-looking Toby.

Toby's basically a nice guy who made a Faustian deal for power. His master Kuruku-- who looks a little like someone's nightmare after watching YELLOW SUBMARINE-- has an explicable desire to turn all the people and animals into ambulatory puppets. And they're not even puppets with individual features; just huge creations of nondescript paper.

Though Unico and Cheri go through a lot of time-killing motions, ISLAND keeps tension constant in that Kuruku's peculiar crusade isn't explained until the last half hour. Unico is a little more combative here than in the previous movie, and thus closer to Tezuka's model.

SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NEW YORK (1976)

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

For a character conceived to fit a very specific time, place, and genre, Sherlock Holmes has proven remarkably agile in leaping into new variations on all three. However, in respect to his phenomenality Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation was quite variable, which may have made it easier for the reader to think of Holmes in altered circumstances. Though the majority of the Doyle stories possess a naturalistic phenomenality, one tale, “The Adventure of the Creeping Man,” takes the plunge into the marvelous subject matter of SF, while a fair number of stories, particularly the famed “Hound of the Baskervilles,” follow the tropes of the uncanny.

The telemovie SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NEW YORK follows the uncanny pattern, though only in a marginal respect. Though NEW YORK is fairly versed in the Sherlockian mythos, it does not attempt to follow the prose tales’ story of the master detective’s encounters with Professor Moriarty. At the start of the film, Holmes, having decimated Moriarty’s organization, confronts his nemesis (John Huston) in the crimelord’s house. Moriarty demonstrates to the detective that the house is tricked-out with a small assortment of death-devices—a throwing-knife trap, a falling chandelier—but then he promises that he has worse plans for Holmes than simply killing him. The villain flees London, and when Holmes is called abroad to consult on a robbery case in New York, the hero finds that Moriarty has preceded him there.

Moriarty’s revenge would be unthinkable in the world of Conan Doyle, wherein Sherlock Holmes seems to remain a celibate bachelor all his life. NEW YORK’s script imagines that Holmes’ admiring relationship with the opera-star adventuress Irene Adler went a good ways beyond mere admiration. As a result of a tryst between Holmes and Adler, she conceived a son, now about five years old, without Holmes’ knowledge. Holmes is forced to back off the case lest his kidnapped son be killed. Naturally Holmes finds a way to regain his natural offspring, after which Holmes and Irene Adler part without seriously considering a permanent reunion. The Holmes-Moriarty battle concludes back in London, where Holmes must run the gamut of the death-dealing Moriarty house before coming to grips with the fiendish professor. There’s enough emphasis on the action-sequences that I feel justified in labeling this one “adventure” rather than “drama.”

Both the action and the detective-work are better than average, though nothing especially memorable. Roger Moore does decently with the ratiocinative work, though at many points he still seems to be playing a more gung-ho hero along the line of the TV “Saint.” Charlotte Rampling makes an attractive Irene Adler, though she displays none of the cleverness of the original, and John Huston makes a good, vengeance-obsessed criminal genius. The character of John Watson is horribly underwritten, giving Patrick MacNee nearly nothing to do.

ROCK-A-DOODLE (1992)

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

I confess that I'm probably too old for most of Don Bluth's films, given that they're a little heavy on the trope of "helpless little critters struggling against adversity." I gave minor plaudits to 1982's THE SECRET OF NIMH, but I'll admit that I might find Bluth's chosen storylines more effective if I'd been seeing them as a little kid, who might identify with the little critters more readily.

ROCK-A-DOODLE, one of many financial and critical failures in Bluth's late period, at least boasts a more interesting concept than many of his works. The story, scripted by Bluth and four other writers, is an amalgamation of ideas taken from the folklore-character of Chanticler-- a rooster who believes that his crow makes the sun rise in the morning-- as well as literary treatments of the rooster ranging from Chaucer to Edmund Rostand.

A short version of the plot comes down to this: "Chanticleer leaves his happy farm when the villain convinces him that he can't crow forth the sun: the rooster's farm-friends must retrieve him from the perils of the Big City in order to stop the villain's depredations." The "farm-friends" to me are the least interesting thing in the film, though at least they're not all as ootsy-cutesy as other Bluth-protagonists. Chanticleer, described as "not too bright" and patterned after the young Elvis Presley, is also not a particularly compelling character, and the "Country Mouse/City Mouse" plotline strikes me as from hunger.

The one thing that makes ROCK-A-DOODLE interesting is the way the script approaches the reality-defying idea that a rooster's crow might call forth the sun. While some versions of the traditional tale make it clear that there is no correlation, in one tale a villain really does want to prevent the sun's rise by disgracing Chanticler-- and it's that idea that influences the metaphysics of ROCK-A-DOODLE.

I should note that the film alternates between cartoon-sequences and some very minor live-action scenes. In the latter, young farm-boy Edmund is read the story of Chanticleer and his humiliation as if it's just a story, though he extends the story to the animals he knows on his farm, including the local rooster. While his parents don't believe in magical roosters, Edmund does-- and his belief apparently allows the villain, "the Duke of Owls," to materialize out of the story-book. The cartoon-owl knows that real-boy Edmund wants to bring back the Duke's enemy, so he changes Edmund into a cartoon-kitten in order to eat him. The farm-dog Patou, also played by a cartoon, intervenes to save Edmund, and then the dog, the kitten, and various other critters go in search of Chanticleer-- while the Duke and his minions continue to harry them. In the end, Chanticleer is awakened to the power of his crow, and he uses it to dispel the darkness cherished by the Duke.

Then Edmund awakens, back to being a live-action boy. Was it all a dream, a la WIZARD OF OZ? But no, the rainstorm that beseiged the farm since Chanticleer left has vanished, allowing the sun to reign once more. I don't think for a moment that Bluth wanted to make a film about the metaphysics of belief, but in a rather haphazard way, that's what he ended up doing-- at least in the eyes of someone too old to identify with kittens and field mice.

DC SUPER HERO GIRLS: HERO OF THE YEAR (2016)

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

Though I aspire to review everything that fits into the metaphenomenal/combative idiom, DC SUPER HERO GIRLS is one franchise I'm tempted to ignore. I watched random episodes of the show's two seasons from time to time, and found GIRLS to be okay light entertainment for its target audience, girls aged from 6 to 12. But the program's so undemanding that it makes SCOOBY DOO look like advanced cinema.

The core idea is a high school for superheroes, where various DC characters are leveled to high-schoolers, with a heavy concentration on females, though various junior-ized versions of males like The Flash and Green Lantern appear as a sop to inclusivity. The overall design for all of them follows a sort of fluffy-bunny look in line with the marketing, and the sheer quantity of characters looks suspiciously like an attempt to sell as many plushie toys as possible. That might make sense to toymakers but in HERO there are roughly thirteen characters who play pivotal roles, and another ten or twelve who are background characters. In essence, the students are practically tripping over one another, which doesn't make for a sound ensemble.

The title emphasizes an annual contest in which one of the students gets elected to "hero of the year," but this has only minor consequences for the plot, mostly revolving around parental figures hovering around the heroines. The actual plot deals with two villains, Dark Opal and Eclipso, who steal various item from the girl heroes for some mystical power-plot I've already forgotten.

As a feminist message HERO is nugatory, and the oversaturation of DC heroes and villains has the opposite effect of a smart show like BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD. Either the viewer doesn't know enough about the various icons trundled out to make them interesting, or the writers whip out oddball takes on established continuity-- like associating Eclipso (a female this time out) with the dimension of Gemworld for some random reason. I'll be surprised if the other three telefilms are any better than this one but hope springs eternal.