HULK VS (2009)

 

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

Arguably, following the conclusion of MCU's Phase Three, the Hulk was treated even more shabbily than Thor. However, for whatever reason Marvel's animation division didn't stint on exploiting the Green Goliath's name value, and even relatively late projects like HULK: WHERE MONSTERS DWELL and the AGENTS OF SMASH series look much better than sad live-action bile like SHE-HULK. That said, of the two short features comprising HULK VS, appearing the year after the exemplary INCREDIBLE HULK movie, is all that impressive. 

In HULK VS. THOR, two of the Thunder God's perennial opponents, Loki and The Enchantress, whisk Bruce Banner to Asgard. There Loki separates the Hulk persona from Banner and sets the Green Goliath on Asgard, with Loki himself pulling the Hulk's strings. Meanwhile, the evil duo consigns Banner to the realm of the death-goddess Hela.

The big problem with this routine outing is that for the menace to Asgard to be credibe, Bannerless Hulk must be a juggernaut who's far beyond Thor's capacity to defeat-- and that means that the video has to downgrade Thor. We're not really watching "Hulk vs Thor," because in every encounter, Hulk kicks Thor's ass-- and where's the fun in that? The video might've been titled, "Hulk vs. Asgard," except that the supreme power in the realm, Mighty Odin, is conveniently sleeping the Odinsleep during the crisis.

Thor does win the contest in a sense, for he browbeats Loki into chasing down the spirit of Banner in Hel, and convincing Hela (who is Loki's daughter this time round) to merge Banner with Hulk. This returns a measure of sanity to the rampaging goliath, and he goes back home, while Loki gets to suffer his daughter's less-than-tender mercies for a time. Other items of interest: (1) warrior-woman Sif gets a solo attack on Greenie, and scores a few good blows, (2) Enchantress is in love with Thor and resents the hell out of Sif, though the witch-woman seems okay with the possibility of Thor getting killed thanks to Loki's scheme, and (3) as in the later TALES OF ASGARD video, Asgard looks pretty good here.

In contrast, though HULK VS WOLVERINE is no deeper in terms of symbolic discourse, it's a helluva lot more fun. 

According to the continuity mentioned in the commentary, this tale is Wolverine's first encounter with Old Jade-Jaws, preceding a second encounter chronicled in the series WOLVERINE AND THE X-MEN. The feisty Canadian still works for his native government and barely knows anything about the Hulk, much less the never-mentioned X-Men. Hulk is suspected of destroying a Canadian town, so Wolverine, aka "Weapon X," is sent on a search-and-destroy mission. 

However, the real malfeasants are a team of four villains, three of whom are infamous Wolverine-foes. Lady Deathstrike, Saber-Tooth, and Deadpool are the infamous three, while the fourth is some low-grade X-thug, Omega Red, whom I do not know and who contributes next to nothing. The four super-fiends now work for the Weapon X facility, the same one that gave Wolverine his adamantium additions, and not only did they destroy the town, they're out to capture the Hulk. It seems their boss at the facility, the otherwise unnamed "Professor," wants to make more Hulks as part of an over-ambitious ordnance scheme.

The thing that makes this featurette so good is sharp dialogue and characterization. Wolverine is a testy hero, none too charitable with "weakling Banner," and the three good villains are also consistent with the traits of their comic-book originals. Deadpool's lines contribute most of the humor and are easily as clever as the best jokes from the live-action Fox films. It's practically one half-hour- long fight-scene and WOLVERINE'S take on the "Marvel heroes always fight each other" trope is one of the best I've ever seen in animation.

       

MONSTER MASH (2024)

 

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

Unlike the other two movies I've reviewed here that used the title of Bobby Pickett's famous novelty song, the 2024 MONSTER MASH is not a comedy. This is all the more remarkable since it's a low-budget film from that maker of mockbusters, The Asylum, and it doesn't appear to be based on any current successful film. It's not a perfect film by any means, but it's a better monster-mash than, say, the bloated, near-charmless VAN HELSING.

Doctor Victor Frankenstein (Michael Madsen, practically sleep-acting) is dying. He decides to start harvesting parts from the world's most famous monsters-- the heart of Ramses the Mummy, the flesh of the Invisible Man, and the blood of Dracula-- in order to create a giant homunculus, in which he will transfer his intelligence. To this end, he first sends his undead Monster (Erik Celso Mann) to capture the lord of vampires. But Dracula (Ethan Daniel Corbett) happens to be away from his crypt, leaving behind his daughter Elisabeta (Emma Reinagel). Since she's also a vampire, the Monster drags her back to Frankenstein's castle and sticks her in a cell, so that her daddy will come looking for her and also get captured.

Now, given that I enjoyed MASH on its own terms, I almost feel guilty about pointing out that for the entire ninety-minute length of the movie, Frankenstein does absolutely NOTHING to guide Dracula to Frankenstein's castle. I suspect that writer-director Jose Prendes knew that if Frankenstein observed this bit of logic, then there would be no reason for Dracula to assemble a task force of monsters, and what we'd have would just be another "Dracula vs. Frankenstein" flick. So the mad doctor leaves Dracula to figure things out on his own. Dracula happens to know a (non-monstrous) witch who guides the count to the mummy Ramses. Ramses teams up with Drac and they find The Invisible Man Griffin, and Griffin in turn brings in a friendly werewolf. 

While I'm glad that the various monsters don't do the Marvel thing where they fight before they team up, the lack of an immediate menace means that every time the monsters come together, it's a lot of talking head scenes. Admittedly Prendes' script gives some clever lines to the mummy and the invisible fellow. The wolf-man is a blank slate, but it's cute that his civilian name of "Charles Conliffe" is not the usual variation on "Larry Talbot" of WOLF MAN fame but is rather the name of the father of Talbot's girlfriend in the 1941 movie. Still, it's Corbett's Dracula whose grim sense of purpose lends even the talking-head scenes a degree of urgency. 

For a B-plot, the imprisoned Elisabeta builds up a friendship with the Monster, whom the neglectful mad scientist treats a pliable stooge. Mann does a very pitiable Monster, so that his scenes with the young vampiress somewhat make up for Madsens's equally neglectful acting-job. 

Eventually the Monster Squad finds its way to Frankenstein's hideout, but Dracula is separated from his allies, so that the evil doctor transfers his blood into the giant homunculus. This is where MASH's low budget most lets down viewers, for the giant CGI critter can't interact with the normal-sized monsters. So the goodguy-monsters have to defeat the behemoth with some rather predictable strategy, and the Monster--whose name is "Boris," ha ha-- joins forces against his "father" in the homuculus-body. 

The only other "name" performer in the film is Michelle Bauer, who plays, in very heavy makeup, a resurrected corpse who helps the witch in her divinations. I surmise that Prendes knew he didn't have the money to make an impressive movie, so instead he made a mildly enjoyable trifle with some decent performances, primarily by Corbett and Mann. Worth seeing if you keep your expectations on the low side.

          

V: THE FINAL BATTLE (1984)

 

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

At the end of my review of the original V miniseries, I described how Kenneth Johnson, creator of the V franchise, had contributed ideas to the 1984 three-part sequel. However, he parted ways with NBC and distanced himself from the project by letting his work be billed under the protest-pseudonym "Lillian Weezer." 

I also noted that it's impossible to know if Johnson's V-vision would have been better than what NBC put together with its own producers and their director of choice, Richard T. Heffron. Now, while I don't find in Heffron's repertoire as many famed accomplishments as I find in Johnson's, I did see a lot of the former's TV and theatrical works, and he certainly was no hack. I particularly admired a telefilm he directed regarding the Nez Perce tragedy, I WILL FIGHT NO MORE FOREVER.

One big advantage Heffron had was that Johnson's 1983 story supplied all the necessary setup for the Visitors' stealth invasion of Earth, thus eliminating much of the need for exposition in the sequel. But one great improvement is that Heffron's writing-staff pared down a lot of the extraneous characters from the '83 series. Additionally, whereas the main characters of Julie and Mike (Faye Grant, Marc Singer) proved a little banal in the first film, the addition of a third central character, Ham Tyler (Michael Ironside), provided a greater sense of conflict. Unlike civilians Julie and Mike, Ham joined the rebels as an experienced combat veteran, and he wasn't shy about expressing his opinions on how the resistance should be run, or even openly defying his "old pal" Mike. 

An equally strong parallel idea focused more upon the villainous head of the Visitor operations, Diana (Jane Badler). Technically in both serials, a male alien named John (Richard Herd) held the power of command over the mission, but Diana received much more attention in the '83 two-parter, and BATTLE found even more ways to play up the feminine fiend. In fact, she too had to deal with internecine troubles, since a superior officer, one Pamela (Sarah Douglas), comes to Earth to take over the project. However, Diana shows her propensity for super-villainy by simply assassinating her commander.

That's not to say BATTLE is perfect. Despite fewer characters, there are a lot of disposable subplots, giving the three segments a choppy feeling. However, the best subplot from the '83 serial-- that Earth-girl Robin giving birth to a hybrid-- receives strong execution. In fact, the Interplanetary Mama gives birth to two such hybrids, and Part 2 shows a particular moment of horror when Robin's birth of a human-looking girl infant, Elizabeth, is followed by a reptilian goblin springing from her uterus. However, Part 3 saves the heroes the difficulty of putting down the goblin-child, for it perishes by exposure to Earth-bacteria-- which development in turn gives the Earthlings the chance to show the Visitors that visiting-time is over.

There's also a decent arc for the quirky "good alien" Willie, played in a modest, self-effacing manner by the future Freddy Kruger. Compared to the Johnson narrative, BATTLE has much less pontificating about a return of fascism, and more visceral action. Even the Julie character, usually not seen in the field, gets to shoot down bad aliens with her laser pistol. Heffron and company also drop one of the plot-threads suggested in '83, that the Earthpeople might seek to summon some of the ETs who'd been enemies to the Visitors-- which was a terrible idea, even though it would have fit Johnson's labored WWII parallel. It's far more satisfying to see the Earthlings win the BATTLE on their own.

         

AGAINST THE DRUNKEN CAT PAWS (1979)

 

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

As distinctive as the title is, very little of the rambling storyline has to do with its heroine Lin (Chia Ling) using drunk-fu, or patterning her moves on those of felines. In fact, if the epithet "blind drunk" didn't mean something else, one could have credibly titled the movie "Against the Blind Drunken Cat Paws," since Lin spends roughly half the picture as a high-functioning, blind kung-fu artist.

Some time back, Lin was the martially-trained daughter of a prominent kung-fu master, who'd become famous for bringing bandits to justice-- specifically, 13 of the equally famed "14 Bandits." But the gang's leader Wolf Fang escapes, and he gathers a new mob, also called variously "14 Bandits," when the dub doesn't say "13" instead. Wolf Fang's forces-- including a blind female colossus (whose eyes are crossed) and a dwarf with a poisonous blowgun-- attack the master's domicile, killing him and many of the servants. Lin is blinded by the dwarf's poisons but gets away. Strangely, the film doesn't seek to get much emotional mileage out of this sad state of affairs. Director Shan Hsi-Ting-- who directed over 50 HK flicks, of which I've seen only a few-- merely has her holed up in some old temple with her little brother (also a kung-fu trainee) and her cat. It's not clear how Lin supports herself, much less gets all the booze she drinks (though sometimes she steals it).

However, the New 14 Bandits come to the town where Lin's hiding out, and their next intended target is some government official who also prosecuted Wolf Fang's earlier gang. The official has a kung-fu daughter named Wang (Sun Chia-Lin), and she and her unnamed female servant (also a "fu girl") seek to figure out a way to repel the villains. She makes common cause with Lu, a stalwart who had been engaged to Lin before she disappeared. Lu has recognized Lin despite her deshabille appearance, so he and Wang contrive a plan to make Lin admit her true identity. They tell Lin that the two of them are going to be married, and Lin can't tamp down her true feelings for Lu. Not only does she reveal her identity, she also cries so heavily, she weeps out the poison that has kept her blind for so long. 

Lin, Lu, Lin's brother and Wang are joined by a couple of other characters whose importance, frankly, escaped me. So they take on the 14 Bandits, who possess various talents, including Wolf Fang, who apparently has real fangs in his mouth. The various battles are decent, aside from those centered upon a supposedly "funny" character, but Chia Ling is the only performer worth watching. Her character's arc is compromised by these mostly uninteresting support-types, and so I can't say that CAT deserves to be on the list of the actress's best films. She would only make seven more movies before mostly retiring from the role of kung-fu diva.                   

IN THE NAME OF THE KING: THE LAST MISSION (2014)

 

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

The one good thing about MISSION is that it's so bad I won't have to spend much time on it.

It's also a minimal plus that we're now completely divorced from the faux-Tolkein RPG with which the series began. MISSION is close to being a remake of TWO WORLDS, with stony-faced Dominic Purcell taking over the role of the weary battle-scarred Earth-warrior from the far more charismatic Dolph Lundgren. Curiously, the writer for MISSION eschews the sympathetic-veteran type, choosing instead to make Purcell's character Kaine a reluctant hitman. This choice doesn't make for a hero in whom the casual viewer can invest, particularly since Kaine's "last job" involves kidnapping two little girls from a Bulgarian embassy in the US. Kaine, after having told his criminal bosses that the job is impossible, accomplishes it with very little trouble (no sign of any police action in the whole film) and imprisons the girls in a connex box for the bosses to pick up later. But before he leaves them in their temporary prison, he randomly swipes an amulet from one little girl.    

  Moments later the magical amulet whisks the bewildered assassin into a medieval village under current attack by a fire-breathing CGI dragon. Kaine takes shelter in one of the huts, owned as it happens by two exiled princesses, Arabella and Emelina (Ralitza Paskaleva, Daria Simeonova). Because Kaine briefly shot his pistol at the beastie, the ladies think Kaine's some sort of savior. They give Kaine a breakdown of previous events: they're hiding because a tyrant named Tervon killed their royal parents in order to take control of Bulgaria--

What? It's not the RPG fantasy-world of "Ehb," but medieval Bulgaria? I guess that when Uwe Boll negotiated with Bulgarian reps to shoot there with an all-native cast, someone thought that placing the film's action in a medieval version of their country might help tourism. That might've been interesting if there was anything one learned about Bulgarian history or customs, but as far as cultural depth goes, it might as well still be another interchangeable fantasy-verse.

Almost anyone can predict where the movie goes from here. Kaine doesn't want to get dragged into these RenFair shenanigans, but he learns that the only way to get back to his world to get hold of some other magical doohickey in Tervon's possession. Arabella initially doesn't like Kaine, but eventually they become slightly more romantic with one another. So Kaine goes from reluctant hitman to reluctant savior, with next to no character alteration, and there are lots of poorly staged battles, in which the two princesses show off their swordfighting skills.

Kaine does have one half-decent fight with Tervon before the Earthman returns to Earth. Once there, he suddenly turns on his employers and shoots it out with them, receiving some aid from-- the dragon, which followed him to Earth? What? Anyway, he kills all the other crooks and returns the girls to their daddy, who lets Kaine go free. He walks into the sunset with the dragon flying overhead.

I add the "clansgression" tag to this movie because when Arabella was talking about Tervon killing her parents, I could swear she said that (a) Tervon was her uncle, and (b) he got wroth with her parents because they wouldn't let him marry Arabella, his niece. I could be wrong, but I'm not going to waste any time rechecking the scene.

FEDERAL OPERATOR 99 (1945)

 

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


The postwar serial FEDERAL OPERATOR 99 turns from war to crime for its thrills. For almost all of its 12 chapters, the serial concerns the adventures of the titular Operator 99, Jerry Blake, to ferret out the robbery-schemes of master criminal Jim Belmont. In addition to the fact that hero and villain possess the same initials, the British-sounding Blake is a bit more elegant sounding than the standard staccato-sounding American serial lead-- and this accords with the portrait of Belmont, a sophisticated thief and killer who likes to lay his plans while playing classical music. Unfortunately, all he seems to know how to play is Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, which lends a certain sameness to each of Belmont's planned transgressions.

Only in one chapter does Belmont depart from naturalistic depredations-- like the one in the still above, where the heroine is menaced by a spinning airplane propellor. Belmont lures Blake to a special chamber, wherein one wall is transparent, Blake shoots at Belmont, only to find that the glass is bulletproof. Belmont can watch the destruction of Blake, after Belmont sets off a device that causes the sealed room to go up in flames. The hero escapes, of course, but the cremation-room is still one of the more memorable serial death-traps, though a little out of line with the mastermind's usual modus operandi.

HONOR ROLL #297

 MARTIN LAMONT provided a more cultured type of two-fisted stalwart.

Sword-girl RALITSA PASKALEVA seeks to make a Name for herself.

 I'm not sure this is SUN CHIA-LIN, but she shares the same hairdo as the performer in the movie...

  JANE BADLER did a good job playing a bad girl. 

Once again it's Dracula and the Monster who stand out in another "monster mash," as essayed by ETHAN DANIEL CORBETT and ERIK CELSO MANN.

The X-Men's version of the Frightful Four: DEADPOOL, OMEGA RED, SABER-TOOTH, and LADY DEATHSTRIKE.

FIVE RIDERS VS KING DARK/HANUMAN AND THE FIVE RIDERS (1974)

 

 

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

It's not often that a thief makes better use of his ill-gotten goods than the original owner. But such seems to be the case-- in an aesthetic though not moral sense-- regarding what the Thai company Chaiyo did with respect to the property of the Japanese Toei Studios.

Readers of this blog may recall my recent review of THE SIX ULTRA BROTHERS VS. THE MONSTER ARMY. This tokusatsu movie was a legitimate inter-company collaboration, in which the Japanese company Tsuburaya contracted to loan out its Ultraman franchise to Chaiyo, who crossed over the six brothers of the title with a Thai super-being, Hanuman, based upon the monkey-god of Asian mythology. As I noted in the review, Chaiyo eventually attempted to use that collaboration to make a legal claim upon the Ultraman property, but I believe that came some years later.

Apparently BROTHERS made money, so Chaiyo reached out to another Japanese company, Toei, and asked to do the same sort of project with the company's "Kamen Rider" franchise. But Toei turned the Thais down. Toei had enjoyed years of popularity with that property-- which, like Ultraman, brought in a new protagonist each season, keeping only a tenuous connection between each show through the overriding concept. In 1974, the current "Kamen Rider" show was titled KAMEN RIDER X, and Toei was confident enough in the franchise's moneymaking power that (from what I can glean) they released a half-hour special to movie theaters. This was FIVE RIDERS VS. KING DARK, which featured Kamen Rider X but also had the previous four Kamen Riders of other seasons as guest stars. 

I've watched an unsubtitled Japanese YouTube featurette that may or may not be the same release seen in theaters in 1974-- though I speculate that at most that show might be missing a few short scenes. King Dark, the regular opponent of Kamen Rider X, sends forth his "Myth Cyborgs" to capture ordinary Japanese citizens so that the King can drink their blood-- even though he's a giant robot who's usually seen lying on his side like a Buddha-statue. For reasons not clear to me, the other four Riders join Kamen Rider X to beat down the King's assorted monsters, including "Frankenbat," who looks like the Frankenstein Monster in a Man-Bat suit. In the end the King gets away, just as he would in a regular TV episode.

According to this review, Chaiyo decided to ignore Toei's refusal and made their crossover film anyway, in part by pilfering some of the footage from FIVE RIDERS. Most of this footage appears in the first thirty minutes of HANUMAN, and in later sections, the company used its own actors wearing replicas of the Kamen Rider costumes. The most one can say of the film's use of the Riders is that the heroes are pretty dull both in their original forms and in these unflattering imitations.

The writers for HANUMAN, however, interpolated scenes taken from ULTRA BROTHERS (solely scenes dealing with the Thai creation Hanuman) and devised new scenes in which King Dark also manifested in a human-sized form, garbed in armor and a big helmet. This version of King Dark rants like a maniac about feeding on virgin blood, and the viewers (some of whom were surely kids) see many victims, mostly female, being exsanguinated for the corpuscles. But the Riders begin cutting off the King's supply of blood-banks, so he demands a solution from one of his subordinates. Said flunky says that there's a scientist, Doctor Wisut, who can create new monster-pawns for the King. Yet the flunky asserts that for some vague reason, the only way to capture Wisut is to free a dead man from Hell.

This is where the recycled footage from ULTRA BROTHERS comes in. In that film, three bandits killed a young Thai boy. "Ultra Mother" brought the boy back to life by fusing him with the monkey-god Hanuman, who for whatever reason only appears a skyscraper-sized fighter. Flashbacks show how the giant hero avenged his murder by finding the three bandits, whom he slaughters mercilessly. These three men's souls end up in Thai Hell, and it's the head bandit, Kaan, whom King Dark's flunky claims to be the only one they can use to obtain Wisut.

There follows a brief tour of the tortures of the wicked in Hell-- very gory stuff for a kids' film-- and then we see the King of Hell railing at the three bandits, who I guess are new arrivals. One of King Dark's agents infiltrates Hell and rescues Kaan. The Hell-King's okay with that, because he knows Kaan will end up in his hands sooner or later.

Kaan is apparently given new powers by King Dark, for he spies on Doctor Wisut and his cute girlfriend Julie. Kaan then transforms himself into the image of Julie and lures Wisut into a trap. The continuity is jumbled-- we next see both Wisut and the real Julie in King Dark's realm. After Kaan fails to force Wisut to cooperate by tickling his feet (!), the evildoer threatens to drain Julie's blood. Wisut caves and creates Frankenbat, who, according to one line of dialogue, supposedly has powers superior to the Riders. Nevertheless, the heroes beat the monster. Wisut obligingly creates a bunch of less memorable monsters, leading to more fights between monsters and riders, with Hanuman eventually joining for his only new scenes. Kaan practically takes over as the main villain, chewing the scenery over and over until he's finally killed and sent back to Hell. There the Hell-King merrily cuts off the heads of all three bandits at once, maybe just for symmetry's sake, and King Dark escapes once again.

Though I'm not making any great claims for the HANUMAN film-- which I've heard only circulated in grey-market copies-- it is a lot more visually stimulating than the original RIDER featurette. That doesn't excuse the outright theft, of course. I can't speak to the overall quality of the Kamen Rider property, as I've barely seen any of the shows, but I'm sure there are a lot of Japanese tokusatsu that can equal the Thai movie for demented-seeming visuals. But the second (and probably last) appearance of Hanuman is still memorably bizarre, especially in comparison to the rather so-so first film.

REBIRTH OF MOTHRA III (1998)

  

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

After REBIRTH II scored high in the mythicity department, the third and final nineties Mothra movie returns more or less to the level seen in the first film-- though, to be sure, the script for REBIRTH III is more venturesome than that of the first film in the series. But again, the disparate elements of the script don't quite cohere well enough to make a pleasing whole.

REBIRTH III makes abundantly clear that the series doesn't take place in the Toho Studios Godzilla-verse. Though the first film had the crusading moth contend with a critter with a name that sounded like "Ghidorah," this time Mothra must fight King Ghidorah himself-- sort of. In the Toho-verse, King Ghidorah is a rampage-happy dragon, unleashing destruction for no particular reason. But when this multiversal version of Ghidorah comes to Earth, the big three-headed hydra suddenly has a new mission in life. While it's not entirely clear whether or not this incarnation is intelligent, this monster now captures and drains the souls of both humans and fairies to gain its sustenance, imprisoning his intended victims (many of them kids) within a membranous dome. Further, Ghidorah possesses enough sentience to exert mind-control when it encounters Moll and Lora. Ghidorah causes Lora to choke her sister, though Moll is able to escape while Lora falls into the confinement dome. This development reduces Moll's ability to send power to Mothra.

Belvera, oddly, isn't the evil provocateur this time. There's an early scene in which the three fairies seem to contend over some special fairy-tech upgrades to their respective daggers. But once Lora gets enslaved, the other two sisters are forced to bond to defeat the mutual threat of Ghidorah to both humans and fairies.

The most unusual element in REBIRTH III, though, is that there's just one youthful protagonist, a kid named Shota, and he's a preteen rather than a grade-schooler. He has a reasonably happy family-- two parents and two siblings, none of whom play important roles in the story-- but he has some vague conflict about going to school. Possibly the English dub left out something that the translators didn't think would play outside of Japan? As the dub has it, there's just one scene where Moll tells Shota that he's overly "sensitive" to the rigors of school life, but that this isn't anything to be ashamed about. The sentiment is admirable but the character of Shota remains unfocused. Shota does have one good moment where Moll needs his help and as a good kid, he has to gird his loins and grow some courage.

There's not really any reason for Moll to involve Shota, except that his siblings are inside the Ghidorah-dome and he wants to help rescue them. The kid's sent into the dome to deprogram Lora but this doesn't entirely work out, so Moll also comes up with a complicated plan to beat Ghidorah back in the prehistoric past, with a Mothra of the past-- I think. I didn't follow the plot's contortions very well. But the actors said their lines nicely, the two big monsters bashed each other about a lot, and the three fairy sisters enjoyed a reconciliation. So the series ends with more closure than kaiju movies usually get, and the writers wisely don't mention the issue of world pollution for a third time. III is the weakest of the three Mothra-flicks, but it's still watchable.  

THE SEVENTH CURSE (1986)

  

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

Most of the Western attempts to cash in on the popularity of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK-- most of which appeared in the 1980s-- were low-level formula at best. The two Duncan Jax films have the virtue of being the wackiest emulations of Indiana from the West-- meaning the US and Western Europe-- and I favorably compared the Jax films to many of the more brain-friend Japanese adventure-films. But what about Hong Kong? Certainly, that Asian  powerhouse could outdo the Westerners in sheer insanity?

Well, two of the laborers on THE SEVENTH CURSE, co-writer Wong Jing and director Lam Nagai Kai, did indeed produce their share of absurd adventures. But this specific film, adapted from a Chinese book-series, isn't a rival to Duncan Jax, much less Indiana Jones.

Just as Indiana's career is all about confronting specters of remote cultures, the hero of CURSE, Doctor Yuen (Chin Sui-ho) seems similarly constituted. He ventures to Thailand in search of AIDS medicine but has an ill-fated encounter with a local cult of "worm priests" when he tries to liberate a sacrificial cult victim. For Yuen's effrontery, the cult inflicts on him seven "curses," which manifest in his body as suppurations of flesh and pus, tormenting him until the seventh and last curse kills him. Yuen escapes Thailand and cheats death thanks to a female priestess who shares a piece of her breast-flesh with him (!) But to foil the curse permanently, he must return to the cult and somehow get the curse reversed, this time with the help of bazooka-toting Chow Yun-Fat and spunky reporter Maggie Cheung.

I don't take issue with the fact that the film's creators meant CURSE as "leave your brain at the door entertainment." But aside from a couple of big fight scenes, most of the time the heroes are fleeing from crude, practical-effects menaces like living skeletons and killer fetuses. CURSE is certainly okay escapist divertissement as it stands, but it's awfully predictable, not only in terms of the menaces but also in terms of the rather dull heroes. Compared to the most absurd films Hong Kong has been able to muster in the past, CURSE is third-rate at best.   

THE LEGEND OF FRENCHIE KING (1971)

  

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

After the passing of Claudia Cardinale in September, I reviewed one of her only films with mild fantasy content, BLONDE IN BLACK LEATHER. In that essay, I mentioned that I didn't know if I'd ever review Cardinale's 1971 collaboration with the then-living Brigitte Bardot, THE LEGEND OF FRENCHIE KING. Then Le Bardot passed this month, so I decided to watch FRENCHIE, like Bardot says in one line, "for the hell of it." To my mild surprise, there was also a smidgen of fantasy content in FRENCHIE as well: the villain of the story gets injured early-on, and he's kept out of the main action while a Chinese man uses an uncanny form of acupuncture to gradually restore him to health.     

Said villain, name of Doc Miller, exists only to set up the action. He commissions some geology expert to predict that there's oil on a deserted ranch, near a town, Bougerville. inhabited mostly by French emigrees. Miller then kills the expert, as if he's a pirate protecting forbidden treasure. and apparently buys the land legally, by wiring money through the venue of the telegraph. He takes his title with him on his way to claim his prize, but his train is held up by five bandits, the black-clad Frenchie King gang. Miller is injured and out of the picture for a long time, while the King gang reaches its hideout and reveals the audience that they're all young women, the daughters (by five separate mothers) of their bandit father, now deceased. While four of the sisters (Emma Cohen, Patty Shepard, Teresa Gimpera and France Dougnac) complain about the hard life of outlawry, Frenchie, aka Louise (Bardot) finds Miller's title. They don girls' clothes and journey to Bougerville, in their company of their Black servant. (Maybe the girls went west from Louisiana?)

However, Bougerville already has a reigning "queen:" Maria Sarrazin (Cardinale), who lords it over her four brothers (named for the Apostles) and over the ineffectual marshal, Jeffords (Michael J. Pollard). Though Maria and her bros are rowdy types, they're basically law-abiding horse-breeders-- until Maria learns from a separate soure that the "Little P" ranch holds oil reserves. She and her four brothers meet Frenchie and her four sisters, where Frenchie assumes the identity of "Doc Miller." When Maria forcefully offers to buy Frenchie out, the lady bandit knows that there's more to the "Little P" than is apparent.

 Afterward, the rest of the film is devoted to episodic encounters between the two "queens," with the "manly" Maria trying to intimidate the "womanly" Doc Miller, or alternately, to get Jeffords to invalidate the ranch-sale. To his credit, though Jeffords is the comedy relief, having zero chance with either of the starring beauties, he does stick to the law, and even hazily suspects that Doc Miller might be the bandit Frenchie, generally thought to be a man. All of the contentions between Maria and Frenchie-- as well as those between the four sisters and four brothers, who end up marrying one another-- lead up to a splashy, climactic fistfight between the dueling dominatrixes. It's easily one of the best catights in all cinema, and seems loosely patterned on the climactic fight between John Wayne and Randolph Scott in 1942's THE SPOILERS. After the girls settle their differences in a tie, they team up to rescue their siblings from the law. Implicitly the Sarrazins leave behind lawful activities and join the King Sisters in a life of happy outlawry.

FRENCHIE will win no awards for its very simple plot, and it's only a "feminist western" in a loose, non-didactic manner. Devotees of feminism ought to love the fact that even though Frenchie's four sisters are wed in holy matrimony (the multiple marriages reminding me of the Greek myth of the Danaids), both Maria and Frenchie remain completely uncompromised by romantic attachments-- and I suppose a "queer studies" resding would insist that they must be warm for one another's forms, though there's nothing in the US cut to support that theory. They're just two domineering women who, as Frenchie says following their big battle, would have fought for the hell of it even without the conflict over hidden treasure. The original director was one Guy Casaril, who apparently (according to IMDB) also contributed to the script, but he was replaced by Christian-Jaque. Like other French comedies, the humor tends to be droll rather than laugh-out-loud funny. This is seen in the closing shot of the Kings and the Sarrazins riding on the outlaw trail together, with the former group all clad in black and the latter all in white-- a clear shot at the stereotype of the white-clad good guy and the "black hat" villain. A few bits of slapstick happen for no reason: after the villain shows up to claim the ranch, where an oil gusher has spouted, he exults in the shower, which then explodes for no reason but to kill off the bad guy. Bardot and Cardinale play off one another well, despite rumors of contumely on the set, and just before the closing scene. Jeffords gives up marshaling, because the West's no longer a place for a man. (And he didn't even experience 21st-century feminism, which doesn't even offer hot babes.)

IN THE NAME OF THE KING 2: TWO WORLDS (2011)

  

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

Michael Weldon of the long vanished PSYCHOTRONIC magazine coined a great phrase for review of films like this one: "Sequels No One Asked For." Probably one of the least likely sources for added installments was Uwe Boll's flop fantasy 2007 IN THE NAME OF THE KING. I can only assume that Boll crunched some numbers and realized he could make some degree of profit by churning out extensions of this dubious franchise on a tight budget, for sale to cable/streaming.

So in my review of the original film, I found it to be a patchwork of poorly realized concepts from Tolkien and its alleged video-game source. But KING 2 is surprisingly good-- for about the first third of the film, after which it plunges into incoherence.

Boll starts out with action, showing a cloaked woman. identified as a sorceress (Natalie Burn), running from guys in black garments. She turns on them, flinging medieval grenades at some of them and dispatching others with twin daggers. She escapes into a space-warp. Cut to a martial-arts dojo in Vancouver, and we see Granger (Dolph Lundgren) demonstrating to a gaggle of peewee students the fine art of beating up four other adult attackers. It's a little confusing as to whether or not the attackers are being paid for their labors-- it looks like they're paying Granger for the privilege of getting ass-kicked. Maybe they lost a bet? Soon we're out of the dojo, as Granger goes home to a lonely apartment. It's efficiently communicated that he's former Special Forces and that he suffers some survivor's guilt, wishing idly that he might've died with some of his buddies.

Then both the sorceress and her black-garbed adversaries swarm into Granger's apartment, forcing him to fight for his life. Sorceress manages to grab the ex-soldier and whisk him into her world, the quasi-medieval fantasy-world of Ehb. The sorceress is killed by a bunch of warriors (after which she's pretty much forgotten for the rest of the film), and those warriors take Granger prisoner.

In short order the dazed ex-soldier is introduced to the "King" (Lochlyn Munro) of the title (whose only proper name, weirdly, is "Raven"), a big lug named Allard who seems to be spoiling for a fight with Granger, and a doctor (Natassia Malthe) named-- wait for it-- Manhattan. Actually, I don't believe anyone in KING 2 ever speaks that risible name, so I guess it's an in-joke. Raven apologizes for how his men roughed up Granger and informs the Earthman that he's the savior of Ehb according to some prophecy. Granger alone can destroy the evil sorceress known as The Holy Mother, and the confused fellow attempts to roll with this notion, as well as with being in some faux-medieval world. After some blandishments from the King and some threats from Allard, Granger's given a private room with a hot and cold running chippie. Granger dispenses with the chippie's services, but shortly thereafter he has his various wounds tended by the local sexy female doctor, and small sparks ensue.

I note in passing that even though Raven is strongly suggested to be the story's villain, Munro's approach to villainy is the exact opposite of the over-ripe performance of Matthew Lillard in the first film. Raven is sort of smarmy, and yet not without humor and the appearance of humility. That's why I could buy it that Granger more or less welcomes the chance to take on another killing-mission, even if it's for some medieval dude he never met before. Lundgren's charisma sells this notion better than the script does, and I could even buy that Sexy Lady Doctor is so taken with Granger's charms that she quickly beds him, though not without some morning-after regrets.

Unfortunately, the last engaging moment in the movie is when Granger wants to go off and assassinate the Holy Mother with nothing but a knife, but Raven insists on sending him along with Allard, Manhattan and a cadre of men. After this, Granger's arc as a soldier seeking surcease of sorrow comes to an end, and he becomes a cog in the jumbled gears of the story's clockwork. The detachment is attacked by more black-garbed ninjas, but Granger notices that one of the killers refrains from attacking him, the guy who's supposed to kill the ninja's lady boss. Does the Holy Mother have some special plans for Granger?

Well, no big surprise, the Holy Mother is the good guy and Raven is the bad guy. The old broad also informs Granger that she saved the child-heir of the previous regime ("The King Before," presumably the "Farmer" character) and sent that kid to an adoption agency on Earth. Did we really have to get another "prince-raised-as-a-commoner" trope, since it didn't work that well the first time? Also, for some reason Raven wants to unleash a plague on Earth, though I never saw how that was going to help him cement his power. The latter half of the film devolves into a lot of expositional blather and dull fight-scenes. Granger returns to his own world and doesn't "take Manhattan" with him, but the end of their off-again, on-again romance carries no emotional impact.

So instead of being blah all the way through like the first movie, KING 2 is promising at the start and then unravels into incoherence. I'm not sure which is worse.

ONE PIECE: Z (2012)

 

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

This OP movie draws more than did STRONG WORLD upon the social matrix created in Eichiro Oda's manga. Said matrix isn't concerned very much with anything but the ongoing contest between the seemingly endless pirates preying upon shipping in this predominantly aqueous environment, and the dedicated forces of the Navy, who seek to end all piracy. Both groups include a number of powerful people, some of whom have "Devil Fruit" powers-- all to furnish the nine "Straw Hat Pirates," the world's only "heroic pirates," with as many colorful opponents as you could shake a shonen at.     

Z is named for its villain and does a good job of inserting a cool new character into OP's ongoing continuity. The fellow's real name is Zephyr, and I'll call him that from now on. to distinguish the character from the movie's title. As a young man, Zephyr joins the Navy and distinguishes himself as a brave comrade and a master planner. He grows old in the Navy's service and becomes a trainer for many younger marines. But tragedy strikes, when a pirate with Devil Fruit powers kills Zephyr's family. Zephyr does his best to knuckle down and continue the law-abiding ways of the Navy. But a second tragedy strikes, when pirates massacre a ship at sea. Only Zephyr and two other officers, Ain and Binz, survive. And so Zephyr becomes devoted to a new cause: to eradicate the evil of the pirates, even if it means eradicating the world that pirates, marines, and civilians hold in common. To this end he arms himself with an artificial arm made of a material that's like kryptonite to Devil Fruit users. However, he oddly encourages his two officers to take on such powers, so they can raid a naval base for a special weapon. 

Their attack backfires, and Zephyr is hurled out to sea by an explosion. The Straw Hats find him, and he receives medical care from the ship's doctor, Tony Chopper. (I'm still not going to hold forth on the qualities of all nine crewmembers, but Tony's a good example of the manga's wacky inventiveness, for he's an anthropomorphic reindeer who varies between a "little cute form" and a "big brawny form.") Zephyr's two henchmen show up right about the time Zephyr wakes up and realizes he's among pirates. Zephyr, Ain and Binz fight the Straw Hats, who are wanted for various crimes though they never actually commit acts of piracy. Zephyr and company escape, but Ain's Devil Fruit power ensures that the Straw Hats will have to follow, for she causes four members of the crew-- Robin, Nami, Brook and Chopper-- to de-age by twelve years each. This development furnishes most of the movie's humorous byplay, of course.

Z does feel weightier than many other OP excursions, and that's probably because the script consistently elucidates that all the seekers in Oda's world, even merciless pirates, are pursuing "dreams" of some sort, and that even evil dreams are part of existence-- while the justice Zephyr seeks would eliminate all dreams, and all life. Yet Zephyr remains a mighty, admirable figure in his destructive quest for justice, and he and the Straw Hats' leader Luffy have a particularly strong battle at the climax. This is much more Luffy's film than anyone's, though everyone in the heavy ensemble does get some time, and there are various appearances of other characters whom a viewer will be expected to know from the comics. I can't quite claim that Z's theme reaches into very deep sociological resonance, but it's not just another wildly violent/wacky shonen either. 

HONOR ROLL #296

 Is it a stretch to call MONKEY D. LUFFY a great hero?  

LOCHLYN MUNRO wanted a kingly role, but not in an Uwe Boll film. 

Thanks to "Frenchie King," the legend of BRIGITTE BARDOT became even greater.

Watching CHIN SIU-HO in this film is like an everlasting curse.

  I know I usually name the actresses in live-action flicks but this time I'm just call all the fairy-girls by their group-name THE ELIAS.

Villainous KING DARK found himself turned into stolen property.   

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THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012)

  

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

It's extremely amusing that when Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) meets new romantic interest Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), she accuses of having a "practiced apathy." Apathy perfectly describes the third and last Christopher Nolan Bat-film. It's the work of a cynical filmmaker with no interest in the mythos he's exploiting for fame and glory, and when RISES is compared to either BATMAN BEGINS and THE DARK KNIGHT, it's hard to imagine this weak effort being anyone's favorite Nolan-Batflick--not even Christopher Nolan's.

So we pick up some time after DARK KNIGHT. That film started out by positing that Batman had managed to whittle down the forces of Gotham's underworld. For RISES, Nolan simply flips the script. Now crime has been all but neutralized by the regular cops, thanks to a miraculous piece of legislation, "the Harvey Dent Act." Only Commissioner Gordon and an essentially retired Caped Crusader know that this popular idol had feet of clay, though the false idol of Harvey Dent empowered the cops so that a bat-vigilante was no longer needed. Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) clearly has a guilty conscience for having helped perpetrated the Big Lie of Harvey Dent's sainthood. Wayne, though, seems content to molder around his mansion, much to the disapproval of Alfred (Michael Caine), who wants the retired superhero to pursue a life of marriage and baby-making. But Wayne's only passion, more or less redirected from crimefighting, has been to plunge all of his company's R&D money into a fusion-energy project, in part also sponsored by rich lady Miranda Tate. 

However, though one of Wayne's father-figures wants him to pursue the course of pipe-and-slippers, his other surrogate dad, Lucius Fox, encourages a return to crimefighter-mode. So does a proxy for a surrogate-son/Boy Wonder, a twenty-something cop named "Robin" Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who's figured out Wayne's deep dark secret. But as always, it's the bad guys who call forth the Batman.

Some forgotten film-reviewer of the 1970 DIRTY HARRY film made the incisive point that the regular cops were fine for dealing with regular criminals, but for super-criminals, the world needed a super-cop. Two super-crooks (not counting yet another piddling appearance by a road-company version of The Scarecrow) come to town not to duel with Batman but to ruin Bruce Wayne. (Alfred doesn't know the new villains' intentions when he castigates Wayne for returning to the superhero game, but the butler's ire mirrors the liberal director's pansy squeamishness toward vigilantes.) At any rate, a brand-new version of Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) steals Wayne's fingerprints, which are used to beggar the billionaire by none other than mercenary Bane (Tom Hardy). The latter fiend, equipped with a Darth Vader breathing-apparatus, resembles both the city-destroying Ra's Al Ghul (who was one of Bane's employers) and the Joker (in his cheerful desire to upend Gotham's financial structure). Oh, and there's a fourth villain in stealth guise, for Miranda Tate is really Talia Al Ghul, daughter of the assassin-lord who gave a wayward, guilty plutocrat the idea of becoming a bat. 

Since Ra's in the first film was a poor excuse for the comics-version, it's no surprise that the Demon's Daughter is similarly underwhelming. Bane in his original appearance was a stupid villain, but Tom Hardy's performance elevates the character slightly. However, the schtick from the comics, in which the villain breaks the hero's back, after which the latter just gets better later on-- is still lame. Nolan's mediocrity, though, knows no limits in his ruination of Catwoman. Hathaway gives her terrible character a game try, but a few decent fight-scenes don't make this Princess of Plunder anything but a wuss. Her only motive for robbery is to pursue a method of erasing her criminal past-- a redo of a similar trope from DARK KNIGHT-- and she betrays Batman to Bane with only minimal regrets. Nolan's Catwoman, as much as his Batman, is defined by what I previously called negative compensation: both are not pursuing positive ends but are fleeing the ghosts of their pasts. Not surprisingly, Nolan, after having given Bruce Wayne two previous drippy love-interests, can't even come close to getting the allure of Catwoman.

So it's another expensive Bat-fake, with carefully crafted (but empty) dialogue, some big FX-scenes at the climax, and a conclusion that does not show the Dark Knight "rising" in any way. i guess Nolan got what he wanted out the Bat-franchise, for he went on to a lot of big, bloated Hollywood projects, none of which I liked. I've accused Nolan of holding a Marxist sympathy for the criminals of his three Bat-films, but his investment in villainy may be more personal. His theft of the Bat-franchise certainly indicates that for him, crime did pay.

V; THE MINI-SERIES (1983)

 

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

Though I read IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, the Sinclair Lewis book that purportedly inspired Kenneth Johnson's two-part TV miniseries, I remember nothing about said novel. Johnson's V is more memorable than Lewis, thanks to those spiffy Visitor uniforms. Frankly, though, I think Johnson's main inspiration might have been those morale-boosting war movies of the early 1940s. Clearly, having the heroic rebels combat the tyrants by writing "V"-- as in "Victory"-- over the tyrants' posters was an explicit callback to Hollywood iconography.

That said, Johnson's story of a race of aliens who invade Earth using false promises and blandishments more than advanced weapons offers only a paper-thin critique of fascism. The Visitors also pose as human-like ETs clad in bright red outfits, but in due time the good guys learn that they're all lizard-like beings whose scaled bodies are concealed under plastic "human" skin-- a fairly clumsy gambit, though Johnson makes the most of various moments when someone tears away the false flesh. That the Visitors want to pirate Earth's water for the benefit of their dying homeworld is a standard enough SF-trope. However, Johnson really pours on the corn by claiming that these denizens of an alien environment just can't wait to chow down on homo sapiens. Not too many SF-authors would favor the idea that ETs from one world could even tolerate organic sustenance from another one. In addition, even though all of Earth is placed in the position of Europe under the sway of the Axis Powers during WWII, the most villainous member of the evil Visitors, deputy leader "Diana" (Jane Badler), is played by an American actress affecting a British accent.

Johnson introduces about twenty Earth-characters who respond in various ways to the wheedling impositions of the Visitors, though naturally most of them function as support-characters. The two who get the most attention are biologist Julie (Faye Grant) and reporter Mike (Marc Singer), who eventually uncover the awful truth about the aliens. Almost half of the mini-series consists of various sketched-out characters reacting to the Visitors' advent, and almost none of them are compelling as characters. I suppose I must acknowledge that one of those characters is a Jewish survivor of the WWII concentration camps, though this seems an indulgence on Johnson's part, given that the Visitors are not concerned with human racial or ethnic divisions. But one female teen, Robin (Blair Tefkin), has the misfortune to sleep with a handsome male visitor. This establishes a subplot about the first spawn of a human/Visitor mating, one that extends into the follow-up 1984 miniseries. In addition, a pre-Freddy Robert Englund shows up as one of a small number of Visitors who oppose the vicious plots of their kindred. These covert resisters eventually make common cause with the Earth-rebels, though again, not until the sequel series does their alliance become important. 

Though none of the actors are given the chance to work nuance into their performances, athletic Marc Singer, one year after his first turn as "The Beastmaster," keeps the action level high enough to counter the melodrama. The series was popular enough to generate a sequel the next year, on which Kenneth Johnson worked briefly before falling out with NBC executives. Thus whatever script-ideas Johnson contributed to the sequel were controlled by other authorities and not representative of his creative priorities. Johnson later authored a prose novel about how he felt the show should have progressed. As of this writing, though, it's impossible to say if his direction would have better or worse than what followed the original two-part series.

TERMINATOR: DARK FATE (2019)

  

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

Though FATE is indubitably one of the many films affected by Hollywood's version of DEI, it's not nearly as entertainment-free as many others from this unfortunate period. To be sure, the only entertainment stems from the abilities of director Tim (DEADPOOL) Miller and the FX-crew, and not from the script cobbled together by three writers swiping as much as feasible from TERMINATOR 2.

Like other films in the TERMINATOR franchise, FATE seeks to ignore later films in the series, in the case choosing to proceed as if it takes place a few years after the second film. Yet the script, presumably to suit the demands of producers, perversely cancels out the audience's good will by reversing the events of T2. Eight years after Sarah Connor and a T-800 Terminator (Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger) saved Sarah's son John from death by a T-1000, another Terminator (also Schwarzenegger) ambushes Sarah and John, kills John, and escapes. The time-travel paradoxes of this event are not explored, for the script's priority is to introduce two new female presences to this iteration. 

One of them, Dani (Natalia Reyes), is meant to provide a XX savior-figure in place of the slain John, for somehow his death simply changes the future so that Dani will be the great military leader who defeats Skynet. (The script initially fakes out the viewer with the implication that Dani's going to be the mother of a female savior, but the revelation is profoundly dull.) The other new woman warrior is Grace (Mackenzie Davis), a cyborg enhanced with mechanical implants, and who deals herself into this struggle even though-- she's from a totally different future with a different cyber-intelligence, Legion? Yeah, I didn't even try to follow the logic here. But Legion follows the same basic pattern as Skynet, sending back a metamorphic "fluid metal" Terminator (Gabriel Luna) to kill Dani. And somehow both aggrieved Sarah and the T-800 sign up to protect Dani and defeat the time-traveling assassin.

The crappy "dramatic" arcs of Dani and Sarah are worthless, hollow imitations of the superior John and Sarah arcs from T2, and the one for the T-800 is only minimally better than either, mostly because one suspects that this derivative film marks Schwarzenegger's farewell to his signature character. But though new faces Reyes and Luna are dull, and Hamilton returns to do nothing but scowl and glower alternately, Mackenzie Davis proves a much more charismatic presence than the other newbies, and Miller gives her plenty of demanding stunts that keep this otherwise dull pot boiling. The one good thing about this bad script is that because of it, FATE bombed at the box office, and it's to be hoped that at long last this franchise, which peaked with the first two films and never really blossomed again, will be allowed to fade into the past.