LEGO DC SUPER HEROES: JUSTICE LEAGUE VS BIZARRO LEAGUE (2015)

 

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

Given that all of the Lego versions of standard DC heroes are goofy (some would say "bizarre") takes on said characters, there's not a lot of ground to be gained by creating Bizarros of the Justice League.

The one exception to this statement is that in the opening scenes, the script does get across one psychological trope with regard to the Man of Steel. When Bizarro-Superman shows up in Metropolis and begins wreaking havoc with his blunders, Superman is embarrassed that the locals think the Moron of Steel is somehow related to him. Thus, when the hero finds a way to distract Bizarro by sending him to another planet, Superman's not doing it purely to protect humanity, but to sweep a mortifying subject under the rug.

The script then burns up a little time having the Lego League contend with four Lego-villains, giving the movie the chance to introduce its cubical versions of Guy Gardner ("alternate Green Lantern") and Plastic Man (probably not the best choice of a hero to be Lego-ized).  

Shortly thereafter, Bizarro returns to Earth and invades Luthor's laboratory, stealing his duplicator ray. When members of the League follow, Bizarro uses the duplicator ray to create Bizarro versions of Batman, Guy Gardner, Wonder Woman, and Cyborg, whom he then takes back to his newly adopted "Bizarro World." When the heroes follow, they learn that the world to which Superman exiled Bizarro is now under attack by the forces of Darkseid. After various reversals, the League repulses Darkseid, saving both Earth and Bizarro World.

There's one good fan-pleasing moment: Superman's body gets riddled by kryptonite radiation, but Bizarro, invulnerable to that influence because he's artificial, dispels the poison with his super-breath. But the rest of the film lacks the comic timing found in the better Lego-DC outings. 

There's a coda that foreshadows events of the same year's LEGION OF DOOM effort, though the coda itself doesn't blend in with the continuity of that story. 

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, SEASON FOUR (1999-2000)

 

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

College is a time for reassessing priorities, and while a Slayer can't change a lot about her life, her show can. Angel is gone from the regular cast (though he makes two appearances this season to hype his new show), and Seth Green's Oz will also depart soon, as old character Spike and new character Riley Finn assume greater importance. I'd generalize that there aren't as many high-mythicity episodes this season as in Three.

THE FRESHMAN (P)-- Buffy, Willow and Oz commence classes at Sunnydale U while Xander joins the workforce, and Giles spends the rest of the season unemployed but not hurting for money. Recurring characters Riley Finn and Maggie Walsh are introduced, as is a new clutch of young vampires led by a sardonic blonde, Sunday. Buffy's trouncing of the vamps is probably the only thing in her comfort zone. For most of the season Mama Joyce is usually out of the picture.

LIVING CONDITIONS (P)-- Buffy's first experience with a dorm-mate is something less than positive, as she and fellow college roomie Kathy Newman get on each others' nerves. Conveniently, Kathy proves to be a demon. Once she's out of the way, Willow moves in with Buffy.      

THE HARSH LIGHT OF DAY (F)-- Buffy, on the rebound from Angel, becomes invested in a new guy, Parker, but he turns out to be a "love-and-leave-'em" type. Anya returns and has immediate success in seducing Xander, as well as adding to the show an acidulous attitude even more penetrating than that of Cordelia. Willow encounters former Cordette Harmoney, and learns what viewers observed at the end of Season 3; that Harmony's become a vampire, albeit an incompetent one dependent on the help of her new boyfriend, Spike. He's back in town looking for the Gem of Amara, a talisman that can immunize vampires from their usual weaknesses. Once he has it, he engages Buffy in a big daytime brawl on the campus, which goes totally unnoticed by students and faculty. Buffy relieves Spike of the ring and he flees. The ring later turns up on an episode of ANGEL in its first season.

FEAR ITSELF (P)-- The Scoobies get trapped in a Halloween party whose terrors are real, thanks to a fear-demon named Gachnar. Yes, it's just another make-work menace, but at least there's further development of Willow's witchy ways.

BEER BAD (F)-- Like "Band Candy," "Beer Bad" depends on a make-work menace but the chaos unleashed by the dubious evildoer provides more than average amusement. Buffy, her ego bruised by having been conned into bed by Parker, begins hanging out in the college bar with fellow students (all male) who drink a lot of beer. However, the bartender hates snotty collegians and puts a spell on the beer, so that anyone who drinks it begins to regress to a caveman (or cavewoman) level of intelligence. Gellar in particular gets to shine with her walk on the primeval side. And while there are various remarks about men being concerned only with sexual conquest even when not reverted to cavemen, the script plays fair. For the only time in the series, Cave-Buffy evinces an attraction to Xander, indicating that she's not insensible to his charms but can't relate when she's in her "normal" persona; only when her sexual inhibitions are lowered.

WILD AT HEART (F)-- Earlier episodes hinted at the underground militia known as The Initiative, but they finally take center stage when they find and abduct Spike. A scientist with this monster-capturing operation fits Spike with a brain-chip that causes him pain any time he attacks humans, and though Spike will escape the installation, he'll remain largely "neutered" for the remainder of the season, allowing for much entertainment value. This subplot is better than the main one, in which Oz feels a soul-connection to Veruca, singer in another youth band, causing Willow considerable pain before any of them learn that Veruca too is a werewolf. Veruca dies and Oz almost kills Willow, so Oz leaves the college, determined not to return until he finds a way to cancel his curse.

 
THE INITIATIVE (F)-- The other shoe drops, revealing that Professor Walsh is one of the heads of the government's secret installation beneath Sunnydale, while Riley and some of his college-buds are soldiers serving the cause. Spike escapes captivity and when he goes looking for Buffy, he finds and tries to fang Willow. He then finds he can't attack her, which Willow initially interprets as disinterest, resulting in the two enemies having a weird conversation about the vampiric version of erectile dysfunction.

PANGS (G)-- The Buffy Gang celebrates its first Thanksgiving gathering (still with Joyce off somewhere), though Willow, channeling her collegian mother, complains that the holiday falsifies the truth about Native American genocide by Euro-colonists. Buffy however wants a proper holiday observance to give her a sense of continuity with her new family. Angel comes to town, having been told by an oracle that Buffy may be in danger-- a prophecy confirmed by the manifestation of the ghosts of several Chumash Indians, massacred by the Sunnydale colonists of the period. (One of the ghosts' signal habits is to cut off the ears of victims; I'll bet that the script originally meant to reference "scalps" but backed off the image due to political sensitivities.) Spike invites himself to the Thanksgiving dinner in order to avoid Initiative pursuit and the Scoobies force themselves to tolerate him to learn more about his former captors. Spike is also vital to counteracting Willow's sentimentalization of the savage ghosts, and she soon learns that good intentions don't mean much in a struggle for life. Angel almost succeeds in concealing his presence from Buffy.

SOMETHING BLUE (G)-- Willow's as fragile from Oz's leavetaking as Buffy was from having slept with Parker, but the young witch shows greater propensity for letting her emotions go haywire. The Scoobies contemplate performing a truth spell to get more information out of Spike, who makes the most of his being an unwelcome houseguest. Willow instead performs a spell which she thinks will make her pain go away, but instead it causes reality to change in line with any random thing she asserts. The outstanding effect is that one of Willow's unserious remarks results in Buffy and Spike believing that they've fallen deeply in love with one another, with all the attendant wild humor of that situation. Later the false relationship between the enemies will take on real ramifications.

HUSH (G)-- The usual concerns continue-- Riley and Buffy becoming more intimate, Spike being a rotten guest to both Giles and Xander-- while for her part Willow befriends a fellow collegian interested in Wicca: Tara McClay. This sets up Willow's swing toward the Isle of Lesbos for the rest of the season, but the predominant menace is that of demons who look like skull-faced morticians, the Gentlemen. These creatures enforce a spell of silence over Sunnydale because the only thing that can dispel them is a female scream. After much use of mimed gestures and visual aids, the Gentlemen are defeated, and Buffy and Riley find out about their respective demon-hunting agendas.

DOOMED (F)-- Buffy and Riley come clean with each other, but Buffy's reluctant to continue a doomed relationship. Earthquakes strike Sunnydale, a foretaste of yet another demon-inspired apocalypse. While the Scoobies seek to learn the threat's nature, Spike is so despondent at his impotence that he tries to kill himself. Drawn into a fight, Spike exults to learn that his brain-chip doesn't keep him from beating down demons. Though he'll later betray the Scoobies in this season, he shows indications of becoming somewhat bonded to them as he never was to his fellow vamps.

 

  A NEW MAN (F)-- Ethan Rayne makes another of his peripatetic visits, and this time he enchants Giles into changing into a huge horned demon, apparently hoping that the Slayer will kill Giles. In this form Giles can only speak a demon-language, and no one can understand him but Spike. The Spike-Giles scenes are the highlight of this so-so episode.

THE I IN TEAM/GOODBYE IOWA (G)-- These two episodes offer a very delayed introduction to the season's "Big Bad," the cyborg-demon amalgam Adam, created in the Initiative's laboratories by the obsessed Maggie Walsh. Buffy is invited to visit the Initiative and to coordinate her demon-hunting with the government's, though Walsh has her own agenda. Walsh sets up Buffy to be killed but fails, after which Walsh's creation slays her out of hand. When Buffy and Xander infiltrate the Initiative, they and Riley are confronted by Adam who wounds Riley and escapes. Adam's precise motives for creating death and chaos seem to be an extension of the scientific outlook that created him: he does it just because he can.

THIS YEAR'S GIRL/WHO ARE YOU? (G)-- Faith wakes up from her coma and learns how the Scoobies killed the Mayor. She seeks out Buffy and fights her, but Faith is forced to break off when police arrive. It's not clear why the police have a file on Faith, though the Council may have been involved after their own failure to imprison the rogue slayer. To Faith's good fortune, the Mayor left her a mystic trinket that enables Faith to "hide in plain sight" by switching bodies with Buffy. Thus Buffy/Faith is taken prisoner, first by the police, and then by the Watchers' Council, while Faith/Buffy has a good time assuming Buffy's role. However, Faith isn't able to restrain her ruder tendencies, and witchy Tara immediately senses something wrong. While Buffy/Faith escapes the Council and seeks to convince Giles of the truth, Faith/Buffy cons Riley into sleeping with her. Contrary to expectations, Faith doesn't enjoy the deception, and she plans to leave Sunnydale. Providentially Adam unleashes a gang of vampires upon a local church, probably as another experiment. Real Buffy responds by seeking to save the innocents, but so does Real Faith, having become seduced by the allure of being a hero. Once the vampires are finished off, the two Slayers fight again, and with the help of a witch-doohickey Real Buffy recovers her own body and Real Faith is consigned to her own, as well as to the gnawing discontent with her own corrupted soul.

SUPERSTAR (P)-- Once again, a lightweight episode follows several heavy-drama stories. Jonathan, the aggrieved nerd from "Earshot," gets hold of a magic spell that alters reality, so that he is everyone's hero and all the Scoobies defer to him, believing that he's always been the best of them. Eventually Buffy's iron will exposes the truth. I suppose the scenario might be a satire of "Mary Sue" fanfiction, in which an author inserts an idealized version of him/herself into some commercial property. It's still a slog.

                                                 

 WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (P)-- What, another haunted-house party, in the same season? Granted, this time the make-work menace creates chaos by taking advantage of the sexual fireworks between Buffy and Riley once they reconcile. But it's still just a parade of disparate horrors, just like "Fear Itself."

NEW MOON RISING/ YOKO FACTOR (F)-- Though the gay relationship between Willow and Tara has largely been implicit, it takes center stage here as Oz returns to college, claiming that he's conquered his werewolf transformations with meditative spells. However, Willow finds herself tugged between an old love and a new one, and Oz soon finds that emotional turmoil brings out the beast in him. Meanwhile, Spike wants the removal of his chip so badly that he offers his services to Adam, which might be deemed the show's first "super-villain team-up." In "Yoko" Spike tries to undermine the Scoobies by telling each of them that others talked trash about him/her, which does elicit a major falling-out. Angel also comes back to Sunnydale, trying to make amends for a quarrel he had with Buffy in an ANGEL episode. He and Riley have hate at first sight and duke it out. 

PRIMEVAL (G)-- Buffy exposes Spike's chicanery and decides that she and the Scoobies must make a frontal assault on the Initiative, where Adam has once more inserted himself. Buffy's only chance to take down Adam is if Willow and the others invoke an "enjoining spell" which taps into the powers that first created the Slayers. After the Scoobies enter the base, soldiers capture them and take them before their commander. Buffy takes aim against the mechanistic outlook of the government, telling the commander "you're all messing with primeval forces you can't begin to understand." In due time Buffy squares off against Adam and her magical power-boost allows her to destroy him. Spike then renders some minor aid to the Scoobies to ingratiate himself, but his status is left up in the air in the season finale.

RESTLESS (P)-- Buffy goes Dada! I realize that the writers were probably all tired from juggling so many balls, but a series of loony dreams did not suffice for a big finish. Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles are besieged by chaotic dreams due to their having tampered with the mystic forces behind the First Slayer. The content of the dreams is generally superficial, except Buffy's, since this seems to be her first encounter with the archaic but still vague mythos Whedon created for her. This and one previous episode allude to the introduction of a new character in Season Five: Buffy's kid sister Dawn, who is inserted into their continuity much as Jonathan rewrote their history in "Superstar."              

APE VS. MONSTER (2021)

 

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

APE VS MONSTER is an Asylum mockbuster of the same year's big-budget GODZILLA VS. KONG. Surprisingly, it's not that bad, particularly in comparison to most of the studio's output.

Now, it goes without saying that a cheap-ass monster-mockup can't compete with its big-budget model in terms of convincing FX-battles between brobdingnagian behemoths. If one wants such conflicts, one goes to the high-profile Hollywood productions. The limited FX of APE must be evaluated next to true losers like KOMODO VS. COBRA. With that in mind, though the ape of the title is underwhelming, the giant gila-- which looks a lot like the 1998 Godzilla-- isn't bad, and the climactic battle of the mammal and the reptile isn't bad, as cheap-ass monster mockups go. All the stuff that alters two Earth-animals into colossi is unremarkable, and not worth summarizing.

 But that backstory is worth mentioning for the support-cast of humans who witness the creatures' rampage. I mentioned in my review of GODZILLA VS KONG that its human characters were "bare functions of the plot," but that's not the case in APE. American scientist Linda (Arianna Scott) was loosely involved when a joint American-Russian space project launched a chimpanzee test subject into the Great Beyond. Linda had strong maternal feelings for the chimp, name of Abraham, and resented that her father, the rather-cleverly named Noah, used Abraham in the project. The two of them remained estranged for the thirteen years before the space capsule returned to Earth. Over time Linda figures out that aliens messed with the capsule-- ironically, sent forth on some vague "first contact" mission-- and arranged for the vessel to return to Earth, with Abraham infected so as to become an Amazing Colossal Ape. It's not clear if the ETs-- who remain hovering the atmosphere during all this gorilla-megilla-- think that one big ape is going to soften up the planet for conquest. It seems to be a coincidence that some of the enlarging-juice leaks out of the capsule and makes a lowly gila monster into a Giant Gila.

"Big-name" Eric Roberts has a nothing role spouting exposition, but Linda gets ample support from Eva (Katie Sereika), a Russian exchange student Linda knew in college, but who's now a Russian commando seeking to protect her country's interests in the space program. There's also a gung-ho general who wants to kill both giant creatures, even the benign Abraham, which adds a little extra tension. For once, the teaming of two efficient females in a monster-movie doesn't seem like a nod to political correctness, and Linda is given a simple but efficient character-arc, nicely portrayed by Arianna Scott. This is one area where I'm glad the filmmakers did not emulate GODZILLA VS KONG.          

DRAGONBALL: THE MAGIC BEGINS (1991)

 

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

This Taiwanese-Philippine production, the second live-action adaptation of the DRAGONBALL franchise, seem party patterned on the first anime film, CURSE OF THE BLOOD PEARLS, at least in terms of giving the main hero a more formidable first foe. Further, the tyrant looking for the wish-granting Dragon Balls, a bull-man named "King Horn," seems based on the folkloric Chinese figure sometimes translated as "Bull Devil King," whom I don't recall ever seeing in the manga from which the franchise arose.

Despite the overall cheap look of the production, the film tries to channel the "Star Wars" look at the opening. King Horn, who already possesses two of the legendary Dragon Balls, uses a giant spaceship and an army of costumed minions to ravage the countryside. For some reason he thinks the other five can be found in the same general area, which happens to be the case (largely for the convenience of the narrative). Despite all the sci-fi trappings, Horn's future antagonist, young Son Goku (Chi-Chiang Chen), seems to dwell in a bucolic fantasy-world with his kung-fu teacher, which reflects the fairy-tale atmosphere of the early manga stories. Goku has fantastic fighting-abilities and a magical battle-staff, though in the dubbed version I watched, he's called "Monkey Boy" but there are no obvious references to the manga's concept that the hero's a monkey-like ET who was adopted by a human teacher. 

Other familiar characters from the manga, such as Bulma and Yamcha, get such new names as "Seetoo" and "Westwood," which may have some relevance to the licensing status of the movie. Seetoo is a feisty young woman who owns one of the dragon balls and seeks to find others, though for less villainous motives than King Horn. In the manga Bulma and Yamcha hook up, but the hour-and-a-half film can only touch on this romantic subplot. Seetoo's main function here is to get Goku out of his rural rut so that he's ready to oppose evil when King Horn comes calling. A few other characters appear-- Piggy, a pig-demon, and "Turtle Man," another kung-fu teacher-- but they're probably there largely to appeal to the DRAGONBALL fan base. There's another character, possibly derived from BLOOD PEARLS, and she wants the Dragonballs to revive all the people of her village, whom King Horn slew. There aren't that many more characters here than in the anime movie, but in the live-action movie, the support-characters seem to be tripping over one another.

If one can overlook some really bad FX work (Seetoo uses a bazooka to blow up an enemy, who's clearly a dummy being blasted). BEGINS is at least a watchable mediocrity, at least for the lively though not distinctive fight-scenes. Chen's naive young hero has a certain amount of charm, but he too seems to get lost in the overburdened plot. Still, I can't imagine why anyone would want to watch this version than one of the Japanese cartoon-movies.             

IN THE NAME OF THE KING (2007)

 

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

While Uwe Boll is probably not the world's worst filmmaker-- his three BLOODRAYNE films, the only other Boll-movies I've seen, were competent formula-- no one could have convinced me he wasn't the worst in 2007, when friends talked me into seeing IN THE NAME OF THE KING in a theater. I practically climbed the walls trying to find any entertainment on screen. Other viewers who saw KING must have told all their friends, for the $60 million dollar fantasy adaptation of the "Dungeon Siege" videogame flopped hard.

I read somewhere that the preparation of the script by the project's three (largely inexperienced) writers took a long time. Probably most of that time the writers weren't just trying to figure out how to build up the fantasy-world of the "Siege" videogame, but reading and rereading LORD OF THE RINGS to figure out what to swipe. That's assuming that they didn't just repeatedly screen Peter Jackson's trilogy, which had wrapped up to great accolades in 2002. The main contribution of the videogame would have been the base situation, in which a humble farmer (oddly, a female) becomes embroiled in repelling an invasion of her land of Ehb by rampaging warriors called "Krug." The game doesn't seem to involve one of the movie's key tropes: that the taciturn hero known only as "Farmer" (Jason Statham) turns out to be the lost son of Ehb's king Konreid (Burt Reynolds), which both of them learn as the humble landsman seeks to alert the royals to the invasion. This is probably the least Tolkienian aspect of the movie.

The most Tolkienian thing about KING, though, is the female lead, who might be described as a road-company Eowyn. Muriella (Leelee Sobieski) can't catch a break in the medieval patriarchy. Her father is the king's court magician Merick (John Rhys-Davies), but he won't pass on his magical knowledge to Muriella, for Reasons. She trains with the sword. but the king's captain of the guard won't admit females to the ranks. So she rebels by sleeping with Gallian (Ray Liotta), who held the position of the king's magician before getting kicked out in favor of Merick. The actor playing Gallian was about thirty years older than the one playing Muriella, so daddy issues are not impossible. But when Gallian and Muriella are first seen together, she's breaking it off with him, having realized his cold-hearted villainous nature, so we never know what brought them together in the first place. Much later in the movie, Muriella does get a little sword-action, and even some magical action against Gallian. But though she probably had the most potential of any character in KING, her arc is ultimately disappointing.

 The rest of the characters don't disappoint, because they're such ciphers no one expects anything of them. Farmer is a taciturn family man, and-- that's it. His wife is abducted by Krug warriors and he spends the movie seeking to get her back, and the belated discovery that he has royal blood, and a living father he never knew, doesn't make any real impact. As for King Konreid, his arc is unremarkable as well. Reynolds is definitely outside his comfort zone playing a medieval king, but at times he does manage to project some gravitas. But his main role is to be poisoned and eventually slain by his throne-hungry nephew Fallow (Matthew Lillard), so the monarch's role is severely underwritten. In fact, though many reviewers didn't like Lillard's hyperactive snake-in-the-grass, for me he was the only entertaining performer in the movie. At least Lillard worked hard to draw all the boos and hisses he could earn with his twitchy, despicable poser, while Liotta's primary villain merely struts around like the performer knows that the simple role is beneath him.

I'll admit that watching KING on a small screen, where I could choose other distractions than movie-house refreshments, was more forgiving than my theater-experience. Some of the big battle-scenes looked good, and Gallian and Merick have an okay magical duel with levitated swords. Sobieski's fight-scenes are so short that I almost can't label her a "fighting femme," but there's also a small role for an elf-warrioress (Kristanna Loken), whose combat-schtick might be termed "Mirkwood meets Cirque d'Soleil." Jason Statham still hadn't solidified his status as a major action-star, but atter KING he wisely stuck with contemporary ass-kickers. The most I can say about the film is that if one is in an undemanding mood, it may satisfy-- but it's equally possible that it won't, too.            

TOMBSTONE CANYON (1932)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*

FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

Ken Maynard, whose outfit included one of the biggest ten-gallon hats ever seen on a serial cowpoke, acquits him pretty well in a 1932 oater involving a mysterious costumed man, but pretty much loses his way in a 1940 opus where he himself plays the mystery man.

TOMBSTONE CANYON boasts a somewhat tighter script than most B-westerns. Ken (no last character name), an adult orphan who's never known anything of his origins, gets a message that he may find out something about his past if he checks out the "Lazy S" ranch. He promptly gets pot-shotted at in the titular canyon (and he even wonders if his ambush has something to do with the canyon's forbidding name). He's rescued by Jenny, a rifle-toting young woman from the ranch, one of the comparatively rare times when a leading lady in a B-western took up arms against bad guys. Before Ken and the girl depart, they hear a loud banshee-like wail, and Jenny tells Ken that it's the sound of the Phantom Killer, a cloaked murderer who's killed off several people who worked for her ranch. Nothing deterred, Ken goes to work at the Lazy S.

There's a decent mystery-twist that brings together Ken's quest for identity with the revelation of the Phantom's secret. but the film's highlight is the mystery man's creepy, black-clad image. The Phantom Killer even follows the "Clutching Hand" trope of pulling his cape over the lower half of his face: not to keep his ID secret, but because he has a face disfigured by injury. He also proves to be a "perilous psycho," driven "loco" by a near-death trauma, and he has a pretty vivid fight with Ken about halfway through the film.

The previous year director Alan James had coincidentally finished THE PHANTOM, a modern-day "old dark house" picture in which guests were menaced by the cloaked figure of the title. That film wasn't too impressive in a directorial sense, but CANYON is marked by a fluid use of the camera and good closeups of Maynard and leading lady Cecilia Parker. That said, James' most well-renowned works of metaphenomenal cinema would probably be his collaborative work on 1937's DICK TRACY  and SOS COAST GUARD.

HONOR ROLL #282

 KEN MAYNARD takes on a sagebrush serial killer.

The script doesn't give her much help, but LEELEE SOBIESKI gives it her all-all.

CHI-CHIANG CHEN can't find all of his balls.

The poor GIANT GILA doesn't get the courtesy of a proper name, unlike his anthropoid foe.

ANTHONY STEWART HEAD, headmaster to Vampire Slayers.

LEGO CYBORG finds some of his Justice League adventures to be more than a little Bizarro.

LEGO DC SUPER HEROES: JUSTICE LEAGUE-- ATTACK OF THE LEGION OF DOOM (2015)

 

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

In marked contrast to the same year's BIZARRO LEAGUE Lego-flick, the Legoverse's first introduction of the Legion of Doom (as conceived by the SUPERFRIENDS cartoon of the 1970s) is a good parody of a "straight" Justice League story with several funny moments-- though at least one joke involving "the New 52" will only make sense to comics insiders.

I don't remember what if any status "Lego Cyborg" had in earlier installments, but here he's the new kid in the League, and eager to prove himself. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor, having suffered more humiliating defeats since the League came into existence, decides to forge his Legion of Doom. After a pretty funny "obstacle course" to determine which villains get to join, Luthor's lineup includes Gorilla Grodd, The Cheetah, Captain Cold, Sinestro, and Black Manta. Three Bat-foes are rejected for one reason or another-- The Joker, The Penguin and The Man-Bat. Also, a Flash-villain, The Trickster, has a separate encounter with the League, which is mainly worth mentioning because he's voiced by Mark Hamill, who portrayed a live-action version of the evildoer on the 1990 FLASH show. Trickster's main function in the script is to unleash a trick that Cyborg falls for, thus making him look bad in front of his buddies.

Luthor's first mission for the Legion is to raid a government facility, and despite their being forced to flee the League, the villains escape with an alien who was being held prisoner in the facility. (This prisoner is alluded to in BIZARRO's coda, though the actual continuity doesn't track.) Irritated by his internment, the alien decided to help the Legion, but only because Luthor claims that the Legion is devoted to justice. I don't know Luthor knew that this ET had powers that could help the Legion's next scheme-- getting the League exiled from Earth-- but I can give the writers a pass, given that this is a good intro for the Lego version of The Martian Manhunter.

There's a running gag in which Flash and Green Lantern keep trying to one-up each other, and a subplot showing that Darkseid has been funneling weapons to Luthor. After the Legion's defeat, Darkseid contacts a new potential ally, doubtlessly Brainiac, who then appears in COSMIC CLASH. To date CLASH is the last of the Lego-flicks to sport the "Justice League" banner, though technically two later movies, spotlighting the Flash and Aquaman, make considerable use of the League's presence. The fight-scenes combine a decent mix of comedy and adventure, and in the end, Cyborg gets to have his day in the sun. Thus DOOM stacks up as one of the more entertaining of the series.

THE LADY PROFESSIONAL (1971)

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

I don't know what the status of "stylish lady assassin films" was in 1971, but LADY PROFESSIONAL seems like it was made by people who never saw a good movie in this subgenre. I mean, even screening 1967's DEADLIER THAN THE MALE might have given them a clue.       

PROFESSIONAL looks good but proves a labor to get through thanks to a surfeit of talking-head scenes. Ge Tianli (Lily Ho), former assassin gone straight, is forced by gangsters to take on one more assignment. But once the job's done, the head gangster decides to save some money by knocking off Ge. This sounds like it ought to lead to a fair helping of lively action-scenes as Ge fends off assassins, but the film's two directors-- one Japanese, one Chinese-- weren't equal to this task. Only one scene is slightly memorable. Three assassins corner Ge in a construction yard, one killer being an acrobat who uses knives, while the other two are big muscular guys (one played by Bolo Yeung). Ge tries a few striking moves on the big guys, and they just ignore her blows. I think the writer meant to imply that Ge could fight well enough when not overmatched, so I still judge the film to be combative, even though the fights are underwhelming. Ge does manage to slay all three killers by fleeing and tricking them into "death by construction implements."

Characterization is nonexistent, and the only uncanny metaphenomenon is that Ge sometimes kills her victims with darts fired from her compact. Lily Ho's stunning good looks are the only ammunition this PROFESSIONAL can offer.               

DRAGON CHRONICLES: THE MAIDENS OF HEAVENLY MOUNTAIN (1994)

 

                                                                            
PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*                                                                                                                       One online review of this movie suggested that its sheer incoherence would make DRAGON a good candidate for "so bad it's good" status. But I would say its hectic exposition is no match for the mind-bending craziness of SILVER HERMIT FROM SHAOLIN TEMPLE.                                                                                                       

Be that as it may, my main reason for seeking out this DRAGON was to see the internationally lauded dramatic actress Gong Li lending her beauty to a wuxia kung-fu film. Though her character Han-wen is the "good guy" here, I didn't think she was as important to the story as her opposite number, the villainous Chou-Shou (Brigitte Lin). The two of them are apparently disciples of a mentor named Siu, as is Chou-Shou's identical twin sister, the meek and mild Chong-Hoi (also Lin), and all of these kung-fu paragons and their enemies have mastered martial arts to the level that they can fly about and shoot power blasts. These FX-scenes are probably the second-best thing about DRAGON next to Lin and Gong, not to leave out Sharla Cheung as the comic support-character "Purple."                                        

There's a vague subplot suggesting that Han-wen has a lesbian affection for meek little Chong-Hoi, and that maybe this budding romance cheeses off Chou-shou somehow. But the main concern here is what it almost is in these stories: rival sects and their adherents ceaselessly trying one-up one another. In this case, Siu has an enemy from another sect, name of Ting, and at the outset Ting has poisoned Siu. The noble Siu is able to keep himself alive with his chi or something, though in the last third of the film he does succumb so that he can surrender his power to one of the combatants. Chong-Hoi really has little to do and apparently dies at some point (I must have nodded off), but Lin seems to be having a great time playing the avaricious Chou-Shou. Gong Li also doesn't get many dramatic beats, and in many ways director Andy Chin (reputed to be mainly a comedy guy) seems to relegate the best scenes to Cheung. The character of Purple, though subordinate, is a lighter, less extreme version of Chou-shou. She serves the evil Ting but plainly would like to sit in the catbird seat herself. On the other hand, she's forced to enlist the aid of a confused young monk (Frankie Lam) in reading her some sutras, and the monk gets mixed up in all these mystical shenanigans. Most surprisingly, Purple actually shows a certain dim non-romantic affection for the monk, and he for her, which is more character-change than anyone else gets. The story BTW was adapted from a popular novel, but there's no telling how closely Chin followed the source material.                                                                 

  After Siu dies, he conveniently passes on his super-powers to the most illogical vessel: the clueless monk. Ting shows up and engages everyone in power-blast combat, so Purple persuades the monk to whip up a "Dragon Ball" (heh) and fling it at the evil wizard. At first the extra energy just turns Ting into a younger, more powerful version of his aged self, but Lin and Gong team up to defeat him amid many pyrotechnics. I think Purple ends up ruling Siu's old sect, but I wouldn't swear to it. Though the Asian audiences had embraced a lot of the FX-heavy wuxia films of the 1990s, DRAGON flopped at the box office, and reputedly Gong Li regretted ever having been part of the project. Still, though I don't think either the director or his writer really "got" the appeal of this genre, one of DRAGON's best scenes is that of Gong and Lin, both clad in filmy white dresses, flying through the sky and trying to zap one another. It's not a good film, but it's hard to really hate it.      

BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, SEASON THREE (1998-99)

 

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

Season Three of BUFFY takes the franchise in some directions that proved fruitful, while others are more problematic. Season Two ended with the tragic heroine being forced to stab her beloved Angel and send him into a hell-dimension in order to save the world. However, when the credits for the first episode roll, David Boreanaz is still there, in addition to that of newbie Seth Green. In reaction to the death of Kendra in Two, new Slayer Faith joins the team but proves a new source of conflict in this and future seasons. The most problematic additions to the mythos are many inconsistent details about the hitherto-vague organization of the Watchers.

ANNE (F)-- Buffy, expelled from school and alienated from Joyce, takes a waitress-job in a neighboring city and tries to retreat from her old life. However, Chantarelle, a customer at the restaurant, recognizes the Slayer from when Buffy saved her and other vampire-groupies in "Lie to Me." This recognition gets Buffy dragged back into slaying, for the small burg plays host to a gang of other-dimensional demons who steal young people from Earth, work them to near-death in that otherworld, and send their aged forms back to the earth-plane to perish. Our heroine has a great end-battle with the demons, though they're nothing more than humanoids with freaky faces, and after Our Heroine liberates the demons' most recent victims, she makes the decision to return to Sunnydale.  

DEAD MAN'S PARTY (F)-- The strong psychological mythicity of this episode is undermined somewhat by a make-work menace about a Nigerian mask that brings zombies to life. All of Buffy's friends and family are elated when she returns, but at the same time they feel hurt by the way she cut them out of her life. Not wanting to lose her, they pussyfoot around Buffy, but that makes Buffy so displaced that she considers leaving again. The mini-zombie apocalypse gives everyone a chance to vent anger upon the undead, and things mostly go back to normal. The episode sports one of the series' best comedic conclusions, as Willow begins baiting Buffy with small jibes like "quitter" while Buffy responds with similar jabs like "witch"-- with which avocation, by the way, Willow begins to make progress.

FAITH, HOPE AND TRICK (F)-- Slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku) hits Sunnydale, and though she proves useful in the vampire slaying department, her aura of saucy coolness honks off Buffy. Faith claims to have been sent to Sunnydale by her Watcher, but Giles learns that the Watcher was killed by a demon, Kakistos, and that Faith was essentially running away. Kakistos shows up in Sunnydale pursuing Faith, and he brings along a vampire-henchman, Mister Trick, who ends up lasting much longer in the season than does the demon. Faith's background is muddled, given that she talks about slaying vampires even before she's been "activated," and she never does get a new Watcher. Very good fight-scenes for the Slayettes. Oh, and Angel comes back at episode's end; big surprise. 

BEAUTY AND THE BEASTS (F)-- Though other episodes have included more than one breed of monster, "Beauty" is the first story that feels like a monster-mash. Angel is in an animalistic mode when Buffy meets and defeats him, but she keeps him chained and under wraps because she doesn't know what Giles and the others will do to him. Oz is another secondary monster who goes wolfy during the full moon, but the new fiend on the block is Pete Clarney, a student who's come up with a potion to unleash his inner Mister Hyde. Good action all around, and in the end Buffy's proven correct not to killed Angel, who has somehow regained his soul.

HOMECOMING (F)-- This one tries to balance a "Most Dangerous Game" hunt for Slayers with a dominantly comic romp in which Buffy and Cordelia compete for the position of school homecoming queen. The hunters chase both of the contestants under the misapprehension that Cordelia is Faith-- which leads to one of Cordelia' s better scenes in the season.

 BAND CANDY (F)-- Ethan Rayne returns to Sunnydale, and this time he collaborates with Mister Trick-- now in service to Sunnydale's weirdo mayor Wilkins-- to distribute enchanted candy to Sunnydale's adults. Somehow this is supposed to make it easier for Trick's vampire cohorts to steal babies to sacrifice to a serpent-demon. Yeah, it's one of the stupider plots in the series. But "Candy" is justifiably a favorite episode for fans, because the cursed candy causes adults, including Joyce, Giles and the principal-- to experience their "second teenhood." This of course grosses Buffy out no end, particularly when she witnesses her mother and her Watcher making out. 

REVELATIONS (P)-- There are some decent dramatics of Buffy's gang learning about Angel's return here, but again there's another poorly conceived villain dragging the good parts down. Gwendoline Post arrives on Giles' doorstep, claiming to have been sent by the Council in Old Blighty to become Faith's new Watcher. This might have proved workable, except that it turns out that Post has faked her way into Giles' graces to get hold of a demon-gauntlet. Angel has a few good scenes trying to prove himself. 

LOVERS' WALK (G)-- This one might be called "PASSION on the funny side." Though Angel has been exposed and Buffy's gang has more or less accepted his presence, Buffy now has a bigger problem. Every time she and Angel are near, they both want to be lovers rather than "just friends." Into this turbulence, Spike returns, wanting to find some magic spell to make the wayward Drusilla love him again. He abducts Willow and Xander to make that happen, and forces both Buffy and Angel to do his bidding. However, a gang of Spike's former vampire buddies intrudes, and good fights and frustrated passions are had by all. On a sidenote, Willow and Xander have been canoodling on the side, and they get found out by Oz and Cordelia.

THE WISH (F)-- Buffy Goes Multiversal! The vengeance demon Anya, a regular in later seasons, debuts, pretending to be a Sunnydale High student. She tricks Cordelia-- still filled with bloody if comical rage at having seen Xander betray her with Willow-- into making a wish that rewrites the town's history so that Buffy never came there. Thus the confused young woman finds herself stuck in a Sunnydale ravaged by vampires. On top of that, Xander and Willow are a permanent item now, but as an undead couple. Giles and Buffy barely know one another, and Buffy's never met Angel, whom Willow keeps imprisoned for torture-games. Though Cordelia doesn't survive the world she made, she passes on knowledge to Giles, who summons Anya and undoes her curse, and all goes back to what passes for normal.

AMENDS (G)-- Earlier episodes somewhat rushed past the process by which Angel not only returned to Earth but also regained his soul. Here it's suggested that a being called "The First Evil"-- who will become a "Big Bad" in future-- brought Angel back to increase his torments re his unworkable romance with Buffy. Thus, Christmas time rolls around and a demonic image of Jenny Calendar, whom only Angel can see, haunts the noble vampire with dreams of his past crimes. Worse, Buffy shares the dreams, often taking on the role of Angel's victims. Angel finally tries to kill himself, but Buffy insists on redemption.

GINGERBREAD (P)-- Here we have another make-work menace: a demon who assumes the form of a "Hansel and Gretel" pair of kids, who appear at various times in history to cajole communities into turning on their young. Joyce happens to be present when the demon creates the illusion that two innocent children were slain by occultists. Both Joyce and Willow's mother become obsessed with stamping out all things supernatural, including Buffy, Willow and Amy. It plays like an unsubtle Rod Serling script.

HELPLESS (P)-- For her 18th birthday, Buffy's father lets her down by crapping out on their usual celebration. But that's nothing next to what Giles does. I don't know what Josh Whedon had in mind for the Council down the road. But he apparently allowed the writer of this episode to come up with a cockamamie custom where the Watchers "test" Slayers on their eighteenth birthdays by suppressing their powers and pitting them against vampires-- and Giles goes along with this charade, doping Buffy at the risk of her life. This may be the single stupidest episode of all seven seasons, and although it ought to ruin the father-daughter relationship of Giles and Buffy, by the next episode everything's back to normal. The most I can say is that it puts Buffy in the position of feminine helplessness without her super-powers, and there might be some merit in this reversal, if everything else in the story wasn't stupid.

THE ZEPPO (P)-- While the rest of the gang deals with the Hellmouth opening, largely off to the side, Xander tries to assert his sense of masculine coolness. However, his walk on the wild side gets him mixed up with four teens who've mastered the power to return from the dead, non-vampirically. There are some decent Xander jokes but maybe too much of a decent thing. The most significant thing here is that Xander crosses the path of a hyped-up Faith, who promptly uses him for a quickie.

BAD GIRLS (G)-- Faith hasn't really been doing much in the series since her intro, but here she begins to seduce Buffy to her ethic of "live-fast-die-young." They bond somewhat in their mutual dislike of New Watcher Wesley, taking the place of Giles after his rebellion in "Helpless," and Buffy clearly enjoys kicking the asses of the minions of the new demon-in-town, Balthazar. However, when the fighting femmes are out staking vampires, a human gets in the way and Faith kills him. The viewer knows the guy was a flunky working with the Mayor Wilkins conspiracy, and thus not a good guy, but Buffy is horrified that Faith isn't bothered by the fatality. 

 CONSEQUENCES (G)-- After Buffy agonizes about her complicity in the murder Faith committed, she finally decides to come clean to Giles. Faith tries to accuse Buffy of the crime, but Giles sees through her lie and considers calling in the Council to exact penalties. Wesley overhears and brings in other Watchers to corral Faith, which does nothing for her sunny disposition since she simply breaks free. Xander, who misreads Faith's temporary itch-scratching with him, tries to reason with her, and she almost strangles him. Fortunately, Buffy has persuaded Angel to stage an intervention, which he does by clobbering Faith with a bat, and then chaining her in his abode in order to talk her out of her descent into evil. But by episode's end, Faith has offered her services to Mayor Wilkins in his plans for a demonic Ascension.

DOPPELGANGLAND (G)-- There wasn't much Nicholas Brendon could do to improve his Xander-centric episode. But Alyson Hannigan gets much better material with her Willow-centric tale-- or rather, "Willows-centric." Thanks to more meddling by Anya, former demon reduced to a humiliating mortality, Vampire Willow is yanked out of her own alternate world. She immediately gathers a vampire crew to create some pocket dominion. The evil doppelganger comes along at the same time when Good Willow is getting tired, in her sweet-natured way, of being treated like a doormat. The Buffy gang has some bad moments thinking that Willow has died and been turned into a demon, but when apprised of the truth, they lay plans to liberate the evildoer's hostages. Vampire Willow inadvertently helps them when she comes to the school trying to capture Good Willow for magical help. Instead, the vamp is captured, and Good Willow has to get her skank on to masquerade as her evil self. Though Faith is barely in the episode, even her short scenes are on-target, as she forges a strange daughter-father relationship with Mayor Wilkins.

ENEMIES (G)-- Finally, the Scooby Gang (so dubbed by Faith here) learns of the alliance between Faith and the Mayor. The latter launches a plan to deprive Angel of his soul once more in order to create Angelus once more, and for a time the villains' plan seems to have worked. But for once the heroes outsmart the villains. Faith makes her first move on Angel, whom she clearly fancied in earlier episodes, and so her attempt to turn him into her lover is her way of one-upping Buffy, "the good girl." And though Buffy knows that Angel is acting a part, even the appearance of his loving another female strikes her to the heart.          

 EARSHOT (F)-- Xander wanted to cast a love-spell on Cordelia but instead manage to ensorcel all the other girls in Sunnydale. After the encounter with Faith, Buffy wants to know the inner thoughts of her ever-reticent lover Angel. What she gets, thanks to exposure to demon's blood, is the ability to telepathically eavesdrop on everyone except Angel. The minuses of mind-reading far outweigh the pluses, but it does result in the Slayer finding out about a plot to kill all the students at her high school. However, there are some good reversals here, as well as a rare example of Xander solving the real problem. And there's another killer joke at the end.

CHOICES (F)-- Acting on the Mayor's orders, Faith liberates the mystic Box of Gavrok from a courier. Buffy witnesses the act and with Angel's help steals the box to use against the Mayor. However, Faith captures Willow and the Scoobies are forced to trade the box for Willow's safety. One of the best scenes shows Willow tongue-lashing Faith for her betrayals and her essential emptiness before Faith predictably punches her out. But Willow is also instrumental in gaining new information about the Mayor's plans for Ascension, which include his transformation into a gigantic demon.

THE PROM (F)-- Despite the impending perils, Buffy is resolved to protect Sunnydale's senior prom, even though she knows she can't attend with her true love. On top of that, Angel at last states that because of his curse, he and Buffy can never truly be together, so he plans to leave Sunnydale even if the Mayor can be defeated. The gang learns that an aggrieved student has trained hellhounds to attack the prom, and Buffy successfully defeats them, after which she receives a special acclamation from her classmates. Anya, despite having had negative encounters with the Scoobies in "The Wish" and "Doppelgangland," asks Xander to prom and he accepts, which development gives her a minor role to play in the two-part conclusion.

GRADUATION DAY PTS 1-2 (G)-- Once more Joss Whedon writes and directs the two-part season finale, and this time he excels, though I still find problematic his characterization of the Watcher Council as congenital buttheads. Faith's slaying of a Mayor-flunky probably didn't occasion much bad reaction from fans. But by this time she's clearly become addicted to murder, having come close to strangling Xander and having bullied Willow. This time, to protect her quasi-father Wilkins, Faith brutally slays an innocent scholar whose knowledge threatens the Mayor. The Scoobies are able to access some clues from the scholar's research, while Anya adds to the heroes' info by revealing that she witnessed a previous Ascension. Then Faith, acting with the help of Wilkins, shoots Angel with an arrow daubed with a vampire-killing poison. Buffy learns that only drinking the blood of a Slayer can cure the poison, so she tracks down and attacks Faith, intending to force her to yield her blood to Angel even if it costs Faith's life. The two Slayers have a terrific battle, but Faith, wounded by her own knife, escapes. In PART 2, Buffy takes the only avenue left to healing Angel: offering him her own blood. She provokes his vampiric persona and he drinks deeply of her blood, though at the last he manages to keep from killing her. Angel takes Buffy to the hospital for a blood transfusion, which saves her life. At the same place of healing, the wounded Faith, now in a coma, also resides, and Mayor Wilkins is just as distraught over his quasi-daughter as Angel is over Buffy. Later the Scoobies figure out that they can use Wilkins' affection for Faith to lay a trap for him when he undergoes his demonic transformation at the Sunnydale High graduation. The demon-Mayor and his allies are defeated by the resolve of Sunnydale's youth, but the finale also marks several alterations. Cordelia departs the BUFFY show but will later join the ANGEL spinoff. (Here I'll add that this spinoff does not constitute a crossover, because there are no textual signs in the three seasons that Angel was always intended to be spun-off.) Season Four will begin with Buffy and Willow attending a Sunnydale college while continuing to fight evil with Xander, Oz and Giles.                                            

SECRET SERVICE IN DARKEST AFRICA (1943)

 

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


SECRET SERVICE IN DARKEST AFRICA was the second and last adventure for heroic G-Man Rex Bennett (Rod Cameron), last seen in G-MEN VS. THE  BLACK DRAGON, which appeared in theaters the same year six months earlier. The earlier serial was directed by long-time veterans William Witney and Spencer Bennet, while SERVICE is credited to Bennet alone.

Athletic Rod Cameron is every bit as good here as in G-MEN, though his acts of derring-do are more predictable: Bennet has him do almost nothing but fistfights, often as many as three separate battles each episode. He has strong support from female lead Joan Marsh, who, despite playing a reporter, gets to shoot bad guys fairly frequently. I didn't care much for the lead villain in G-MEN, but he was a little more interesting than German villain Baron Von Rommler (Lionel Royce). (I like how the casting assigns the German officer aristocratic status, though the film does nothing with this trope.) Rommler's last name clearly invokes that of the real-life German scourge of North Africa, General Erwin Rommel, but Rommler has none of the charisma of Rommel. Rommler starts out the film by having his fellow Nazis abduct and imprison a prominent Arab chieftain, one friendly to the Allied cause, but not someone Rex Bennett has met before. Rommler then assumes the Arab's identity and uses this position to spy on Bennett's counter-intelleigence plans to stem the Nazi tide in North Africa. (Since the action never strays out of that area, "Darkest Africa," whether it's a reference to jungle-heavy environments or to their inhabitants, seems little more than a buzzword.)

Rommler may have lifted his identity-stealing trope from any number of earlier serials--1941's JUNGLE GIRL, for example-- and his next move is to get hold of a celebrated dagger, with which he can turn all the Muslim tribes in North Africa against the Allies. This was probably loosely borrowed from Sax Rohmer's 1929 novel THE MASK OF FU MANCHU, which in turn influenced at least two other Fu Manchu flicks, particularly DRUMS OF FU MANCHU. However, after the first few episodes the serial writers forget about this plot-thread and simply have Rommler pursuing assorted unrelated plots against Bennett.

One plot moves the serial's phenomenality into the realm of the marvelous: the Nazis capture an American device that is essentially a death-ray, able to blow up munitions from a mile away. (This is tossed off as if it's a common part of the American army's arsenal). For those more partial to uncanny devices, though, some hostile Arabs, thinking that Bennett has killed their chief, sentence him to a colorful death. He's tied to what looks like a mill-wheel-- at any rate, it's turned by the use of flowing waters-- while a metallic knife-pendulum swings down to gut him when he comes into range. These two perils add some variety in contrast to the expertly-done but sometimes repetitive fisticuffs.

RAIDERS OF THE SUN (1992)

 

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

Yawn. Here we have yet another apocaflick from Filipino filmmaker Cirio H. Santiago. Prior to 1992 he'd directed half a dozen movies on this theme, and this one is just as desultory and low-impact as most of the others. (I need to rewatch WHEELS OF FIRE, which I recall being a little better.)

  The movie's three writers stuck pretty closely to the George Miller template, though this time, the prized commodity is not gasoline but gunpowder. Heroic Brodie (Richard Norton, who'd made one previous apocaflick with Santiago) belongs to the Alpha League, a beneficent political group seeking to bring back democracy to the wasteland. One of the League's own officers, a fellow named Clay, deserted to found a gang of raiders. This backstory proves pretty inconsequential, because the raiders' secondary commander Hoghead (Rick Dean) gets a lot more screen time being evil. Hoghead (and yes, he wears a replica of a hog's-head for a hat) abducts the cute wife of Brodie's fellow commando Talbot. Talbot goes undercover so that he can infiltrate the raiders as a new member to their ranks, and he gets the best scene in the movie: swiping a hundred-dollar bill from beneath the nose of a poisonous snake.

As for Brodie, he supplies the Miller-trope where the hero encounters a tribe of Edenic primitives. This time the tribe has access to a potassium mine, meaning that they possess the makings for the prized gunpowder. The primitives--most of whom are dwarfs, except for a full-sized Asian beauty who becomes Brodie's romantic partner-- just want to be left out of all the fighting, but of course Brodie persuades them that they should join his side out of self-defense. Speaking of fighting, Norton really executes more gun-fu than kung-fu. And though I didn't keep count of kung-fu scenes, it seemed to me that Norton's character had fewer than did the character of Vera, nicely executed by American actress Brigitta Stenberg. Her handful of fight-scenes were the only ones that stood out; everything else was from hunger.              

BTW, for a change the title actually means something. The village of the Potassium Primitives is named "Porto del Sol," which Brodie translates as "Gate of the Sun."