LEGO DC BATMAN: FAMILY MATTERS (2019)

  

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

This DTV animated film, the ninth in the DC series, follows in the wake of THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE. The script for FAMILY doesn't pursue the previous film's idea of "Bruce Wayne, Conspicuous Consumer." Yet there's still an argument that in some ways Batman can be, as he's termed late in the film, a "narcissistic jerk." (Did the kids who were the main audience for this DTV have any idea what a "narcissist" was?) Though the Dark Knight still puts his ass on the line to defend the helpless, he also gets a charge out of being a hero. He hates devoting any time to the philanthropic pursuits of his billionaire alter ego, because it takes time away from his crimefighting.

During a meeting with his board, Wayne is told that the corporation can save considerable expenses by adopting a new computer program known as Brother Eye. Wayne not only embraces this policy, he also decides to sell off Wayne Enterprises so that he can be Batman full-time, despite protests from butler Alfred, Current Robin and Nightwing (the latter evincing worries about his "trust fund"). 

At the same time all this is going on, a new criminal mastermind, the Red Hood, begins making inroads in Gotham, enlisting the talents of many prominent Bat-foes into his service: Killer Croc, Penguin, Riddler, Scarecrow, and Two-Face. In fact, Red Hood devotes quite a time to conferring with Two-Face, who happens to be enduring a villain's "mid-life crisis," because he's often considered a "B-lister." (Would he have been happy if they called him a "second-rater?")

Red Hood begins laying traps for the current members of the Bat-Family, which in this narrative also includes Batgirl and the New Batwoman. (I don't recall a previous Lego-video claiming that Nightwing and Batgirl had started dating, but that's the game plan here.) I don't know if in 2019 the average kid, given Internet access, would have been surprised by the revelation of the Red Hood's identity, especially since in the comics the Big Reveal was almost twenty years old. Suffice to say that Red Hood's career of crime is something of an imposture. However, Two-Face essentially takes over his operation for real, weaponizing Brother Eye and his worker-robots, the OMACs, to conquer the city, so that the five Bats have to assemble to stop him.

Given that Two-Face drops his criminal pattern of focusing on "twos," nearly any villain could have been plugged into his place. The main threat stems from the computer and its drones (both extrapolations of scenarios presented in the 1970s by Jack Kirby's short-lived series OMAC). As it happens, Batman's the one forced to emphasize the double nature of his existence, since he uses his two identities, costumed and uncostumed, to outwit the schizophrenic marauder. The cowled crusader does realize that he needs to maintain both his identities in order to better serve Gotham, and his Bat-fam largely functions to point out his strengths as well as his weaknesses. One interesting aspect of FAMILY is that while the other Lego-Bat films don't show more than cursory scenes of fighting, all five Bat-heroes get a lot of martial action (G-rated of course) against their assorted foes.

MONKEY KING REINCARNATION (2018)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*                                                                                                                                                I confess I only checked out this subtitled streaming item because I looked it up on IMDB and didn't really see much information on it, aside from the name of the director and three of the actors. The plot description was entirely generic, and I thought, "Maybe I'll play explorer and find out if there's some hidden quality in this thing."       

 Surprise, surprise-- the reason almost no one on the Net has written about this oddity is because there's nothing much to it, even in comparison to the daffy old chopsockies of the 1970s. The main plot does have something to do with reincarnation. A swordsman called "Sage of Sword" in the subtitles and "Gong" on IMDB (Bernard Sen Jun) has a chance encounter with Yue, a nutty young woman (played by an actress with the risible name of "Haha He") who can throw darts with deadly accuracy. She drugs Gong for some reason so that he's out of it when she's attacked by the henchmen of her father. Seems that august gentleman wants Yue to marry someone she doesn't love. Yue escapes her pursuers and gets separated from Gong for a bit, and then for no reason I can see, the two of them team up for various comic adventures that go no place fast. At some point, Gong divines that Yue-- whose martial skills are nowhere near as good as his-- is the reincarnation of his lost love-- I think. Then there's an end fight with the henchmen of the father and Yue dies.                   

 The most interesting thing about this flick-- which admittedly is colorful and pleasant to look at, as long as one doesn't try to comprehend the plot-- is that it's a total fakeout with its allusions to the popular "Monkey King" narrative. Only a frame story, in which Monkey is suffering some sort of torments from some goddess, possibly Kuan Yin, alludes to the traditional story at all. I think someone tried to sell the movie by adding the notion that Monkey became incarnated in the body of the mortal Gong so that he could learn about love, or something. I think I need a dose of Brucesploitation to get this one out of my system.         

CREATION OF THE GODS I: KINGDOM OF STORMS (2023)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*                                                                                                                          Of the various posters I saw for the first part of this lavish Chinese fantasy-trilogy, I like the one above, since it shows the poster fairly bursting with an avalanche of characters-- which probably represents about a fifth of all the named personages in this extravaganza. I don't know a lot about Chinese culture, but I have over the years noticed, through reading two or three of their older novels and seeing a lot of cinematic works, that the Chinese people always think more characters are better than less.                                                                

 CREATION adapts a voluminous 16th-century Chinese novel which focuses on the interaction of gods and demons with mortals during the Shang Dynasty, one of China's earliest periods. Wiki's translation of the novel's title as "Investiture of the Gods" may be more accurate than the word "creation" in the streaming title. The gods already exist in this world, though the subtitling of CREATION calls them "Immortals of Kunlun." But even the entities of Heaven apparently need some sort of process of renewal, and that's what makes all the entangling conflicts of the story significant in a cosmic sense. One such earthbound conflict, in which a vassal ruler rebels against the Shang Emperor, becomes the hub around which all the cosmic events revolve.                                                                                         

  Although the forces of Shang, led by the Emperor's son Yin Shou (Fei Xiang), conquer those of the vassal, the outbreak of human violence releases an evil fox-spirit from confinement. At the same moment of the spirit's escape, the princess of the rebel lord takes her life to avoid capture by the enemy. The fox possesses the dead woman and allows Shang's forces to take her prisoner. If I understood the sometimes confusing continuity, she stage-manages the murder of the Emperor so that Yin Shou will take his place. In due time she becomes the new Emperor's concubine and begins bending Yin Shou to evil ways-- though I for one was never sure how much of Yin's evil was of his own will.                                           

 At this same time, the Immortals of Kunlun fear that because of some vague archaic "Curse," the stability of the universe will be imperiled unless the Emperor of China performs a ceremony of investiture for the gods. To this end, the Immortals must send one of their number down to Earth with a special scroll used for this installation ceremony. The price of descending to Earth is that the chosen Immortal reverts to mortality and loses his fantastic powers. Two or three of the gods volunteer for the mission, but "The Supreme One" chooses an Immortal who hasn't been meditating in Kunlun that long: Jiang Ziya (Huang Bo). Down to Earth goes Jiang with the scroll. Yet he's not totally on his own, for two other Immortals follow to grant him assistance with their super-powers-- so Jiang's not precisely on his own in the mortal world. After some minor adventures Jiang and his comrades get an audience with Yin Shou, and Jiang explains how the scroll stabilizes reality by interacting with human souls. However, an evil sorcerer-tempter named Gongbao persuade Yin to use the scroll for his own advancement. Jiang takes back his offer to give Yin the scroll and flees the forces of the enraged emperor.                                                 

 While I'm not about to try accounting for all the side-characters in CREATION, the person who's been merely a viewpoint character up to this point, a young lord named Ji Fa, becomes more intimately entangled in Jiang's resolve to keep the scroll from Yin's hands. Initially, Ji is loyal to his king, but over time he's convinced that Yin has become a tyrant. This would have been a good central conflict for at least this first installment of the film-series to pursue. Unfortunately, the "embarrassment of character-riches" causes CREATION to divert to many other characters under Yin's sway-- Ji's father, Yin's queen, etc etc. I confess I didn't even try to follow them all, but I assume they all contribute something to what seems to be the dominant theme: the chaos that results from the abuse of the powers of Heaven and Earth.                                                                 

 I think CREATION is a serious attempt to plumb the meaning of China's archaic mythology, but since I've not read the source novel, I don't know how successful PART 1 is in its mission of adaptation. I recognize a lot of familiar tropes here, but I can't say I feel like it all comes together, though seeing the other two parts-- one of which has not debuted yet-- could make a difference. My biggest complaint is that I don't know whether any single character is the main one, or if CREATION is built around an ensemble that might at the very least include Yin Shou, Ji Fa and Jiang Ziya. Ji Fa kills Yin at the conclusion, but the Fox revives the evil ruler, so he may or may not function as part of a centric ensemble. Time, and the availability of streaming purchases, may tell. 

SPLIT SECOND (1992)

 

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PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*                                                                                                                                                Though I thought SPLIT SECOND was a decent formula flick, I can see why a lot of reviewers bagged on it. The title is generic and means nothing, at most reminding people of a lot of inferior Rutger Hauer vehicles. The original script was intended to pit two buddy-cops against a supernatural serial killer in modern Los Angeles, but because this idea resembled another movie in production, the setting was changed to London in the near future. And in the first 20 minutes, Hauer's character Harley Stone is given a background suspiciously similar to that of Sam Spade in Hammett's classic MALTESE FALCON.                                                                           

 That said, scripter Gary Scott Thompson adds a lot of colorful details that make up for this bit of literary pilfering. I suppose the main reason the action changed from LA to London was that SECOND became a US-Great Britain co-production, meaning that most of the cast is British, aside from Hauer, Kim Cattrall and Michael J. Pollard (the latter in a bit part). But it's fun to see Hauer channeling Dirty Harry in a British setting and chafing at being teamed with a British college-boy cop rather than an America one. In addition, Thompson's near-future London is full of watery streets, thanks to the results of global warming, and this adds some extra visual interest without requiring any major changes to the London architecture.                                                                                                    

Further, Thompson gives his version of Dirty Harry more human touches. He gets exhausted from running around chasing a maniacal serial killer and simply falls asleep if he's not had enough coffee. When the serial killer gets away after having bloodily slain a female victim, Stone actually puts his coat over the body of the slain woman, just as an act of simple decency. In scenes between Stone and his romantic interest Michele (Cattrall), there's no reference to their guilt over committing infidelity with one another before Michele's husband (and Stone's former partner) was slain by the serial killer. Nevertheless, Stone feverishly pursues the killer as if seeking to expiate past sins, and it's no coincidence that the aggrieved cop shares a psychic link with his "shadow-self." And though Thompson cleaves closely to the trope of "mismatched partners," he at least gives collegiate cop Dick Durkin (Neil Duncan) some funny lines.                   

  The movie's weakest concept is its villain/monster. The original idea was apparently that of a sorcerer who killed victims and stole their hearts for a sacrificial ritual. For whatever reason, the serial killer became what appears to be an alien creature, physically similar to The Alien but hunting victims to collect their hearts, like The Predator. The creature has SF-aspects, like copying the DNA strands of its victims and storing them in its own body for unknown reasons. However, Thompson keeps a lot of the occult lore in the story, which doesn't match up with the ET stuff. But SECOND is predominantly an action-opus, and the two directors manage to keep things blowing up real good. Thompson's more famous for his writing-contributions to the FAST AND THE FURIOUS franchise, but I liked this quirky B-film more than any of those entries.              

SUPERNATURAL: THE ANIME SERIES (2011)

 

Though TDKR is at least a creditable adaptation, SUPERNATURAL THE ANIME SERIES demonstrates that some ideas just don't lend themselves into animated spin-offs. 

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the idea of Japanese storytellers providing their take on an American series, or vice versa.  And given that the live-action SUPERNATURAL has provided some strong scares and shocks throughout its eight seasons, one might expect that some Japanese artists might be able to ring in their own cultural approach to horror.

Unfortunately, the twenty-two episodes of this Japanese TV show-- whose segments are introduced by the live-action stars Ackles and Padalecki-- tend to plod along, offering few shocks and seemingly concerned with riffing on the live-action series' mythology (only from the show's first two seasons).  There are many metaphenomenal series-concepts whose mythology is loose enough that an animated show can riff on it to good effect, but SUPERNATURAL is not one of them.

The animators clearly like the seriocomic appeal of Dean, barely getting any of Sam's mojo.  Not surprisingly, the Winchester Boys end up fighting a few more Japanese demons-- a *kappa,*  a poverty-god-- than they would ordinarily encounter.  Even the better episodes rate no better than a "fair" episode of the live-action series.  Toward the end of the DVD, I did get one laugh: when Ackles and Padalecki say to their audience, "Really? You're still watching our lame promos?"

MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU (2022)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*                                                                                                                                                  I recently finished reviewing the last couple of DESPICABLE ME films, concluding with the note that I wouldn't mind seeing an end to Felonious Gru's adventures. I had a similar feeling toward the idea of giving Gru's jabbering henchpersons their own feature in 2015. Even while admitting that these films weren't made for my age-group, I thought MINIONS was no more than competent formula comedy. That film ended with the intimation that the mustard-colored munchkins were finally going to hook up with their destined master Gru, still in his bitter grade-school years, but I could not have cared less.                                                                      

To my surprise, I found that I liked RISE the best of all the movies in the franchise. I suppose that some of my reaction stems from the script playing up the "seventies vibe" of Gru's youth, and nowhere is this better seen than in the villain-group Young Gru aspires to join:  The Vicious Six. All six of these notorious super-villains constantly pull off major crimes that earns them Young Gru's adulation, as well as having punny names whose humor might require explanation to kids of a certain age. I myself didn't get the significance of the name given to the group's eldest member and leader, "Wild Knuckles." But whatever the meaning, Knuckles gets special treatment by his comrades, because in the midst of a major heist with the aim of conquering the world, the other five betray their leader. Knuckles survives the betrayal and plots vengeance. Meanwhile, the quintet put out the word that they need a new sixth so-- they can keep the same name??                                                                                             

   The seventies vibe also helps sell the franchise's penchant for combining Lucas-and-Spielberg thrills with wacky humor, but I stress that even though the Minions are the headliners and have their share of funny scenes, RISE only works because Gru is a co-equal member of the starring cast. His outcast status from the normie world makes Gru hunger for validation from other outcasts, so when he's rejected from member-consideration because of his age, he steals the Five's world-conquering doohickey, hoping to impress them. The ruthless robbers want their gizmo back and are willing to pulverize a little kid to get it, while their renegade partner Knuckles also puts the snatch on Young Gru and subjects him to torture-- okay, a funny version of torture, but still. Nevertheless, through all adversities Gru never wavers from his desire to become a great villain, and eventually he impresses Knuckles enough that the elder-statesman criminal does forge a mentor-student relationship with the eight-year-old.                                                     

    Of course, in a kids' film with a scattershot approach there's stuff that doesn't work well, such an extended sequence in which three Minions learn kung fu from an Asian acupuncturist (Michelle Yeoh). But the trio's newly acquired martial skills play an important role later, so the sequence justifies itself in the slam-bang finish. But RISE's best facet is giving audiences the chance to see Gru's early villainy unfettered by all of his adult self's later attempts to become a Square Citizen. Steve Carell provides yeoman rendering Gru's weird accent into a kid-voice, and four of the Vicious Six are embodied by talents made famous by action-movies and TV: Dolph Lundgren, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Lucy Lawless, and Danny Trejo. But while we might see Respectable Old Gru in theaters again, I suspect this is the final bow for Young Felonious.   

HONOR ROLL #267

 Felonious Gru came by his villainy dishonestly, by stealing from his idols THE VICIOUS SIX.                                                                        

SAM AND DEAN WINCHESTER get animated.                                        

For NEIL DUNCAN, holding his own in scenes opposite Rutger Hauer was far stressful than fighting alien serial killers.                              

I can't decide if FEI XIANG is the star of this show or not, but at least he's a major player.                                                                                                                     

That's a funny name, HAHA HE! (I think she's the one at bottom.)             

LEGO RED HOOD? What's next-- Lego Bug-Eyed Bandit?                   

                                                                        

THE TICK, SEASON 1 (2016-18)

 

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

I never followed the successful independent comic THE TICK. The few random issues I encountered didn't strike me as funny, so I gave it a pass. I mildly enjoyed the blue-hued crusader's ventures into television, a 1994 cartoon and a 2001 live-action teleseries. But the two-season Amazon Prime series seems a thing apart.

The first episode sets up the premise of the world of POV character Arthur Everest (Griffin Newman). Superheroes and supervillains have dominated Arthur's world for at least twenty-something years, beginning with the appearance of the Superman-like Superian and the Justice League-ish group The Flag Five. A supervillain, The Terror (Jackie Earle Haley), assassinates most of the Flag Five, as well as incidentally killing Arthur's father by landing a ship on top of the man, in full view of his son. However, after a subsequent encounter with Superian, everyone believes The Terror to be dead.

Except Arthur. He grows up to be a nervous accountant whose sister Dot thinks he's obsessed with a dead man, but Arthur becomes convinced that the Terror simply faked his death. He begins videotaping underworld gatherings, trying to gather evidence, only to have his life turned upside down by The Tick.

The Tick (Peter Serafinowicz) is a huge guy in a blue tick costume-- assuming that it is only a costume-- who possesses immense strength and near-invulnerability. What he doesn't possess is the slightest idea of who he is or where he came from. His memory begins with his meeting with Arthur, and because he witnesses Arthur "fighting crime" in his fashion, the rather buffoonish hero immediately decides the two of them should be partners. In a roundabout way, the thick-witted crusader bestows on the accountant a winged costume capable of sustained flight. But the costume's the property of a criminal gang with ties to The Terror, who is, surprise, surprise, really still alive.

 Despite his reluctance, Arthur becomes drawn into the superhero world, even though The Tick is far from the ideal mentor. In addition to having no memory, The Tick utters nothing but superhero cliches and remains obtuse as to any other reason for existence. To be sure, he's not the only one. Crime-boss Ramses IV and the electrically-powered Miss Lint constantly vie for power prior to the Terror's re-appearance, but though they all know who they are, they're all less than perfect representatives of super-crime. Arthur and The Tick are obliged to accept the help of a former Flag Five member who has remodeled himself into a lethal Punisher-like vigilante, name of Overkill (Scott Speiser), but his all too human flaws make him less than a self-possessed master of ultraviolence.

Not everything in THE TICK is as funny as the combo of Arthur and his big blue buddy. I could have lived without Tinfoil Kevin, a street-person wearing the expected tinfoil hat, or Dangerboat, Overkill's sentient vehicle. But there's a joie de vivre to this superhero spoof that rarely shows up in this post-WATCHMEN era. When the first episode mentions how the Flag Five were slain thanks to "weaponized syphilis," one might suspect that the series plans to pursue the heavy dramatics of INVINCIBLE or the dark irony of THE BOYS. But in a much later episode, The Tick, despite having no memory, shows a resolute if naive moral compass, taking a dim view of Overkill's "take no prisoners" ethic. And when the blue buffoon gets the chance to forbid Overkill from killing any more, the show gets good comic value out of a murder-happy vigilante who can't indulge in gratuitous violence.

Best line in the season comes at the end, when The Terror's huge metal flight-ship (shaped like a "T") is assailed by the titular crimefighter, and Miss Lint gets to tell the Terror:

"You've got a Tick!" 

KNIGHTS OF THE ZODIAC (2023)

 

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

I don't envy the American writers who tried to translate an extremely complicated manga series from 1985-1990, one probably only remembered by older fans of either the manga ST SEIYA or its dubbed American anime adaptation, KNIGHTS OF THE ZODIAC. I have certainly seen worse, though I'd still have to judge the 2023 ZODIAC as somewhat pedestrian.

I should note that I only have nodding familiarity with the dubbed anime TV show, and that I never became intimately acquainted with the "Seiya" universe. So I'll take it for granted that the basic setup in the movie at least loosely resembles that of the manga.

Though there's only one de facto knight in the film, the use of the term is not abstract: the knights of the zodiac (there are five in the manga) are pledged to defend a monarch-like figure. The movie seems to take place roughly in contemporary times, while the manga depicts a world with a very involved tournament for possession of the magical armor of long vanished gods. Both suggest that one goddess of ancient times, Athena, became incarnate in the body of a young woman, Sienna (Madison Iseman), and she's destined to be protected by the Pegasus Knight.

At movie's start, Seiya (Mackenyu, son of Sonny Chiba) is a street kid who competes in underground fights while seeking his missing sister Patricia. Two rival factions seek Seiya because both suspect he possesses a god-derived power, "Cosmo," power which can transform Seiya into the Pegasus Knight. As in many similar boys' manga, the protagonist is destined to take on the duty of serving a royal figure, and to his dubious fortune, he's first contacted by Alman (Sean Bean), adoptive father of Sienna. This leads to a lengthy segment in which he's given tough martial arts training by a masked woman, Marin (Caitlyn Hutson).

Seiya's motive for going along with this farrago is the suggestion that Alman may help Seiya find his lost sister, though by movie's end this possibility remains up in the air. But he also likes Sienna, and there's some nice "poor boy-rich girl" tension, for all that it's not certain whether the two have any romantic interest in one another. Seiya definitely does not like any of the persons associated with Alman's enemy Guraad (Famke Janssen), who are trying to capture Sienna to tap into her Athena-powers, which are much more dangerous than the "Cosmo" possessed by aspiring knights.

The script most drops the ball by its casual mention of the fact that Guraad is actually Sienna's adoptive mother, and that she lost her arms from one of the Sienna-baby's power-tantrums. Since Guraad has both arms, one assumes they're supposed to be artificial ones, but this too is remarkably underplayed. Guraad's motivations remain unclear from start to finish, as if the writers couldn't quite decide what they wanted to do with her-- or what if anything to use from the source material.

The training sequences, rife with lots of expensive CGI, are the most interesting scenes, more watchable than the predictable pyrotechnics when Seiya finally "knights up" to battle Guraad's minions. Mackenyu and Iseman have some pleasant interactions, but ZODIAC as a whole is just ordinary-- not least because the casual viewer won't get just what the whole "zodiac" thing is about. ZODIAC was a box office bomb and as a result this particular manga series probably won't see further live action iterations.

LEGO DC SUPER HEROES: JUSTICE LEAGUE-- COSMIC CLASH (2016)

 

 

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

CLASH was the next-to-last of the LEGO DC SUPER HEROES videos that used "Justice League" in the header, though arguably other videos featuring Flash and Aquaman were still structured as League adventures. CLASH follows up on a plot-thread from the end of this movie, and I rather wish CLASH had been the last in the series, since it's much better than the same-year GOTHAM CITY BREAKOUT.

The script benefits from only using one classic villain: the humanoid computer Brainiac. In line with the comical outlook of the franchise, the evildoer goes around shrinking planets because he's got a fixation on collecting things, using expressions like "mint condition." Though Superman has encountered the villain on some previous occasion, this version of Brainiac has apparently never shown up to menace Earth, and the rest of the League has to be brought up to speed. That done, the heroes encounter Brainiac's ship in space and send him packing.

What distinguishes this script from many others in the series is a clever buildup to the hurdles that some of the characters are forced to face by the villain's next gambit. As in other features, Batman stands out in that he's more obsessed with fighting crime than the more jovial Leaguers, and Green Lantern complains that Batman's often considered ways to undermine all of the heroes "if they turn evil." The Dark Knight doesn't possess such eccentricities as Wonder Woman's ardent feminism, Green Lantern's claim to be without fear, or Superman's goody-goodness.

But Batman's forced to anticipate what his fellow heroes will do, when the computerized criminal hurls Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern into other time-eras, where the three heroes also lose their memories. Aided by Flash's ability to traverse time, Batman locates two of the heroes in the past: Wonder Woman in prehistoric times, where she champions cave-women against the ruthless future villain Vandal Savage, and in the era of sailing-ships, where Green Lantern is assailed by a special sort of "fear"-- Captain Fear, an extremely obscure DC Comics character. The hardest task then takes place in the future, where Brainiac has done a Borg-treatment on Superman, as well as taking control of Earth rather than simply collecting it. The guest-stars here are the three charter members of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

One other crossover of note is Supergirl, making her first and last appearance in the Lego-verse. But the crossovers are only pleasurable because writer Jim Kreig gave all of the characters distinctive voices and backgrounds. Yet the same guy also wrote GOTHAM CITY BREAKOUT, which supports my theory that too many crooks spoil the broth.

SAMURAI RESURRECTION (2003)

                                                          

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*                                                                                                                            I read with interest that Kinji Fukasaku, who directed the 1981 adaptation of the novel "Reincarnation from Hell," also adapted the novel for the stage. Though I enjoyed the 1981 movie, I did find some sections rather "stagey" in their presentation. In contrast, this 2003 adaptation by one Hideyuki Hirayama is more purely cinematic in its orientations, with a lot more closeups and crane shots, and even a little bit of CGI.                                                       

                                                              

The setup is essentially the same as in the 1981 film, with some odd added details. The soldiers of the Tokugawa Shogunate wipe out several thousand Japanese Christians judged to be in rebellion, though the 2003 writers add the odd, possibly inaccurate detail that the peasants attacked the religious community first because of "Christian persecution." This time the leader of the Christians, Amakuza Shiro (Yosuke Kubozuka), confronts the soldiers who come to kill him, and he somehow bewitches the captain into slaying the other five soldiers before the man beheads Amakuza and then kills himself. This addition doesn't track well-- is the viewer supposed to think Amakuza has some sort of Satanic power before he's killed? In any case, Amakuza dies with his followers, but after a few years he reincarnates as an angry ghost, intent upon destroying the Shogunate.                                                                                             

 Amakuza proceeds to recruit other angry spirits for his revenge, although the scripters exclude the character of Gracia Hokosowa and substitute some other evil female ghost who didn't seem to have much of an identity. The other legendary figures of Musashi and Inchun appear, as do their opponents in the Yagyu family, father Tajima and son Jubei (Koichi Sato). I thought the actors did well with the roles, but the characters aren't laid out as well as in the Fukasaku movie, so the intermixing of the various legendary figures has less effect. Oddly, though the timeframe is still the 1600s, there are three new female characters who are sword-mistresses, and I can't help wondering if the filmmakers injected these characters for some political end. Yet only one of the three, a ghost who turns against her kindred, has a moderately dramatic scene, so if those characters weren't in the novel and were included just for more female representation, it was extra effort for little effect.          

MOROZKO/ FATHER FROST (1964)

 

 

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

Earlier I'd seen the MST3K version of the Americanized translation of this Russian fantasy, which in its original form was not really the sort of hackery the comedians usually mocked (though they were very funny nonetheless). But after a recent re-watch of that joked-up version, I finally sought out a subtitled version of MOROZKO on YouTube. Incidentally, I refuse to call the film "Jack Frost" as the American edition did, for the European frost-fairy has little to do with Russia's godlike dispenser of cold weather. That said, the 1964 film does seem to be consciously likening Morozko, aka "Father Frost" to Santa Claus, and it's said that the film was often shown on East European televisions during the Yuletide season.

In truth, Father Frost is one of two good-hearted spirits in the film, the other being a character the subtitles call "Grandpa Mushroom," and who wears a hat like a mushroom cap. Neither of them is the star of the movie, though, which has two mortal protagonists, loosely derived from two usually separate folktales. Director Alexander Rou and his two writers manage to combine the substance of both stories artfully, though not quite well enough to reach the highest mythicity possible for this type of fantasy-flick.

Nastenka is the Cinderella-like protagonist who hails from the original "Father Frost" tale. In it, her cruel stepmother and weak father send her out in the wintry Russian forest to perish. She meets Father Frost, but because she refuses to complain even though she's freezing to death, the winter-god sends her back home in a sleigh, gifted with a huge dowry. The cruel stepmother, who favors her equally mean daughter, sends the daughter out into the forest, thinking she'll be automatically rewarded. Instead, the mean girl speaks improperly to Father Frost-- and does not prosper.

The other protagonist is a hale young man named Ivan, derived from the hero of a tale called "Ivan the Bear's Son," but I've not been able to find an online copy of this story, so-- no advance summary.

The film opens with Nastenka (Natalya Sedykh) getting the evil stepmother treatment, particularly when the young girl is told she has to complete a knitting-job out in the cold, before the sun rises. But the young lady apparently has some rapport with animals and spirits, so the sun just delays coming up long enough for Nastenka to finish her labors. I can't prove this element doesn't occur in any genuine Russian folktales, but it sure sounds a lot like Disney's Snow White.

Miles away in another village, young blade Ivan (Eduord Isotov) goes wandering in the woods, having basked in the admiration of all the local females. In the forest Ivan encounters a band of brigands, but confounds by hurling their cudgels far up into the sky. Then the young hero meets Grandpa Mushroom, and the two engage in a friendly game. Grandpa gives the young fellow a gift, but Ivan declines to show the proper respect to an elder, telling Grandpa that a bear will bow his head to the old man before Ivan does. 

Ivan then encounters Nastenka and the two flirt a little, though Nastenka swiftly realizes that Ivan is a braggart. Then Grandpa Mushroom's retaliation takes place, and Ivan suddenly has the head of a bear. He runs off into the woods, blaming Nastenka for the transformation. Eventually he encounters the Mushroom Sage again, but Ivan doesn't listen to the counsel that he needs to become a more generous and caring person. The bear-man convinces himself that he just needs to do a good deed to reverse the curse, and so he runs around scaring locals with his bear-head. Eventually Ivan shows a spontaneous moment of empathy for someone else, with the result that he regains his humanity. He then decides to seek out Nastenka.

The young woman has her own problems. The stepmother decides that not enough suitors pay court to her homely daughter and orders the weak father to leave Nastenka out in the forest. The father follows orders up to a point, but then rebels against his wife's influence. But Nastenka jumps off their sleigh without the dad seeing her do so, to preserve family harmony. This leads to the part of the folktale where she wins the approval of Father Frost.

Meanwhile, since Ivan has no idea where Nastenka, he seeks the counsel of the renowned witch Baba Yaga, residing in her signature dwelling, a house supported by two giant chicken-legs. Instead of helping Ivan, the witch tries to cook him in her huge oven, planning to eat him later. Ivan tricks her into her own oven but only scorches her a little in order to force her to aid him. Baba Yaga gives Ivan guidance but also sends an emissary to doom Nastenka. However, Ivan is now possessed of the empathy necessary to revive Nastenka from a frozen death.

The rest of the "Father Frost" narrative resumes as Nastenka returns to her father's house with both a great dowry and a comely fiancee. The bad daughter's fate isn't as dire as in the folktale, and it chastens the stepmother enough that the cowardly father finally takes control of his household. 

Then, just for a sort of climax, Baba Yaga can't leave well enough alone. She finds the same gang of brigands that Ivan bamboozled and talks the robbers into attacking Ivan and Nastenka in the forest. But Ivan, proving his martial prowess, holds his own against the half-dozen crooks, with some additional help from the re-appearance of those cudgels he disposed of days and days ago. (This incident may or may not have been in an authentic folktale, but it certainly has a folkloric feel to it.)

I should note that many scenes in MOROZKO have a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek attitude, though the movie's not a comedy as such. I can't claim it's a great magical fantasy, but I'm now very curious about director Rou's other dozen-or-so films in this genre, in which he clearly specialized.

 

WITCH HUNT (1994)

 

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

Somewhere amidst some forgotten article in CINEFANTASTIQUE, someone associated with WITCH HUNT may have testified as to why this sequel to 1991's CAST A \DEADLY SPELL went so sour. 

It's not just that HUNT revises various details about the magic-using Los Angeles of this alternate Earth. Despite being written by the first film's sole credited author, one Joseph Dougherty, HUNT offers a confused storyline, bad dialogue, a listless performance from Dennis Hopper (replacing Fred Ward in the role of detective Howard Lovecraft), and extremely pedestrian visuals from big-time director Paul Schrader.

Absent any such testimony, though, I have my theory. Schrader, known for penning downbeat dramas like HARDCORE and TAXI DRIVER, took on HUNT just to fill a hole in his work schedule, and insisted that Doughtery rework the SPELL universe to Schrader's tastes.

One good thing about the badness of this HBO flick is that it means I don't have to spend any time on its inelegant plot. It boils down to this: Hollywood actress Kim Hudson (Penelope Ann Miller) hires Lovecraft to dig up dirt on her husband, studio exec Gotleib, because Kim suspects he's going to dump her for a younger actress, both personally and professionally. Lovecraft bums around, gets threatened by a weird magus (Julian Sands, projecting good creepiness), and ultimately uncovers a prostitution ring that uses magical spells to alter hookers to their clients' specifications. However, Gotlieb is killed, bringing in the question of a murder-plot.

And on top of this mediocrity, the script telegraphs its intent to work in a secondary plot about McCarthyism. The magic-Earth gets no more exposition here than it did in the previous film. However, this time such backstory is necessary, to establish just how long ago Earth-denizens begin regularly using spells. Without such context, there's no sense in positing that a newly formed conservative movement (loosely linked to fundamentalism) has arisen to condemn modern witchcraft as a tool of The Devil. This is the cumbersome double meaning of the title, but Dougherty (and possibly Schrader looking over his shoulder) can't sustain the metaphor. The villain behind all the evil stuff is played by Eric Bogosian, but he can't do anything with his inconsistent character, and so ends up simply resorting to braggadocio, just as Hopper confines himself to just saying the lines and moving on. (HUNT shows why Hopper was much better playing villains and societal outsiders than noble heroes.) Penelope Ann Miller gives the most affecting performance as a beauty queen alienated by Hollywood corruption, but her arc is badly defined and hugely compromised by the McCarthyism nonsense. There are one or two decent magical effects, but these probably came about in spite of Schrader's efforts to make this movie as tedious as possible.

HONOR ROLL #266

 DENNIS HOPPER is in stitches from hunting witches.       

 When he turns into a bear, does EDWARD ISOTOV poop in the woods?                                                                                                   

And this time it's YOSUKE KUBOZUKA's turn to go ghost.                       

LEGO WONDER WOMAN gets a little more personal treatment in this clash than in most of the brick-flicks.                                                      

What's your sign, Zodiac Knight MACKENYU?                                                                          

PETER SERAFINOWICZ stuck to his role like a-- you know.                 

DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE (2024)

  

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

I also noticed that whereas the first film had some fun dealing with "female-objectification" tropes, Number Two apparently decides that it's more important to play it safe with a half-dozen "homoerotica" tropes. The first film was more even-handed, while this one seems designed to defuse politically correct criticism. -- my review of DEADPOOL 2.

Though the third DEADPOOL film pours on the homoerotic jokes like they're going out of season, I don't object to them because (a) they're tossed out quickly, without showing a concerted idea to make a straight audience uncomfortable, and (b) they're focused upon a character established as being at least bi-curious. All that said, I will comment on one odd aspect of the film's sexual politics. Officially, the reason for Wade Wilson, a.k.a. Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) to go through all the chaos of the film is to save his timeline. However, before the time-business even starts, the former killer-for-hire has sought to become a "hero" in order to please his off-again, on-again girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). Yet there's no promise of sexual rewards for the would-be crusader, just the companionship with a circle of buddies. So yeah, I tend to believe that, contrary to one of the film's jokes, cocaine-snorting wasn't the only pastime that Disney kept off the table.

D&W is also a contradiction in terms re: being a "multiverse" film. True, Wilson sneers at the whole idea of multiverses (with a false analogy to the 1939 WIZARD OF OZ). But without multiverses, D&W could not exist, so Wilson's protests come to sound a little like Br'er Rabbit protesting against being tossed in the briar patch: a hoax to get his victim to go along with his plans. Yet from the box office records being set by the movie in its opening weekend, it's a hoax with which the audience was eager to engage with-- in contrast to the more tiresome universe-crunching of "straight" movies like THE FLASH and DR STRANGE AND THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS. 

At the same time, the writers of D&W are much smarter about what they expect "normies" in the audience to know about the history of superhero films. MCU movies that depended on viewers having seen all of the company's films and streaming shows, like the MULTIVERSE film mentioned above, were clearly misguided. Instead, when Deadpool goes hunting for an alternate-universe Wolverine to save his own timeline, the script (credited in part both to Reynolds and director Shawn Levy) spotlights franchises that appeared some time back, particularly those of 20th-Century Fox, whose properties Disney acquired via purchase. A "normie" won't know a lot of the references tossed out and won't religiously check all the Easter eggs on YouTube. But when the film makes a FANTASTIC FOUR joke, he's likely to get the general sense of it as long as he knows some general stuff about pop culture.

The writers keep the plot very loose to make room for all the references, and in some ways it's just another "save the universe" story whose main purpose is to bring together an "odd couple:" wacky Wilson and taciturn Logan/Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Reynolds cuts capers throughout most of the film, and gets a little monotonous at times, but it's likely he does so to clear the decks for Jackman to be more brooding and tragic. The tragic backstory for Wolverine is just okay, but Jackman's intensity serves as an "anchor" for the whole film, much like the character is supposed to "anchor" Wilson's timeline. (Hmm, if Wilson's timeline is doomed to decay without a living Wolverine, doesn't that mean that whatever timeline loses its Wolverine goes down the toilet?)

As I was born during a period in which no hero ever slashed or gashed his opponents-- not counting sword-fighting swashbucklers and the occasional samurai-- I'm not blown away by the almost endless impalement-scenes during most of the battles. (Even three of the four "guest stars" who take place in one big battle are blade-users.) The initial villain of the movie is so weak that a secondary villain takes over his function in the last half-hour, but I must admit that said evildoer Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin) made me wish she'd been the main Big Bad from the start. 

 Like the other two, this one is just "fair" on the mythicity level, though I still rate the first DEADPOOL as the funniest of them all. It would be nice if Disney/MCU learned something from Reynolds' shakeup of their icons, but it seems unlikely.

MILS MASCARAS: ACADEMY OF DOOM (2008)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*

MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*                                                                                                                                              One online review asserts that this item was shot on an American college campus by some of the same crew that worked on the more professional MIL MASCARAS VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY. This choice of locations affected the plot of this amateurish production and its seven-years-later sequel. The "academy" of the title is "Mil Mascaras Wrestling Women's Academy," which means a lot more females in the narrative than in the average luchador film. Said wrestling-school is menaced on two fronts: Luctor, a criminal mastermind (complete with luchador-mask) who wants to buy the school by hook or by crook, and a mysterious killer who attacks people and eats their brains.  (Contrary to the copy on the movie poster above, the monster has nothing to do with the 1960s "Brainiac" creature.)                                                                                                                                                                                 Some online reviews esteem the movie for trying to capture the cheesy appeal of the famous luchador-movies from the sixties and seventies, albeit on a very restricted budget and with a lot of amateur actors. I could get behind that, even given that all aspects of the script, including the revelation of the monster's ID, are exceedingly moldy. But it's not worth doing a luchador-homage if you can't set up even half-decent fights, particularly when one has the services of a famous cinematic wrestling-figure. About the only item of interest here is that the female wrestler La Torcha (Sabrina Braden) made a non-speaking appearance in MUMMY, but here she's upgraded into something like a quasi-partner to Mil. Oh, and as in MUMMY, there's an attempt to sell Mil as more than a wrestler, but a bon vivant with extensive knowledge of physics and philosophy-- a depiction that actually plays into the plot of the following installment.  

CAST A DEADLY SPELL (1991)

 

 

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

CAST A DEADLY SPELL was one of two HBO original films. Both this one and the subsequent WITCH HUNT were written by Joseph Dougherty, though only SPELL was directed by Martin Campbell, just a few years away from his graduating to the big time with 1995's GOLDENEYE. 

Both movies take place in Los Angeles circa 1948-1950, but on an Earth where magic works, and is practiced openly. Thus the gangsters of L.A. are as likely to put a hit on their targets with curse-ruins as with tommy-guns, and many professionals on the police force learn to use magic defensively against such criminals. A noted exception is ex-cop P.I. Howard Phillips Lovecraft (Fred Ward). Though Lovecraft barely manages a living, operating out of a run-down office where his landlord constantly nags him for the rent, he's repeatedly asked why he won't practice magic, even in self-defense. His longest response on the subject is that he wants to be his own man, beholden to no gods or spirits. Clearly Lovecraft is meant to be the epitome of the lonely crusader who won't sell out to corrupt forces in the police force or the upper classes, though the script isn't really interested in making any serious critique of magic or even paganism. (A modern character remarks on her knowledge of the current worship of Diana.) The entire concept of SPELL is meant to be as playful, as seen by the in-jokey usage of the name of horror-author H.P. Lovecraft for the heroic protagonist.

Ironically, one of the main distinctions of Original Lovecraft's work was that he broke from the use of magical-themed menaces for his terror-tales, focusing for the most part on quasi-scientific concepts. He did borrow popular tropes from "magical horror," but the connotation was that human beings were using these tropes to contact extra-dimensional entities through some form of psychic operation. Doughtery's concept is closer to the model of the "rational magic" subgenre of horror-fantasy, often seen in the forties pulp magazine UNKNOWN, which generated such classics as Fritz Leiber's CONJURE WIFE and Robert Heinlein's MAGIC, INC. Thus the only truly Lovecraftian motif of SPELL is the villains' plans to unleash the demon-god Yog-Sothoth upon helpless humanity.

Detective Lovecraft is hired to find a missing grimoire, which his employer needs for a special ritual. The fine details of the "mystery" are not memorable, but the cast does a good job of polishing up all of the hoary hard-boiled tropes, with David Warner and Clancy Brown as two of the villains, Julianne Moore as a shady lady with whom Lovecraft has a checkered past, and Alexandra Powers as a "virgin sacrifice"-- a trope Original Lovecraft would never have touched with a pole the length of infinity.

The adventure verges on comedy, but there's enough straightforward menace (as when a hulking zombie drowns a man in a pool) that keeps things from being too jovial. Ward is the movie's main strength, maintaining the insouciant appeal of the noble P.I, who can never do things the easy way. He too did not return for the second and last film, but SPELL stands as one of the actor's best performances.