AQUAMAN, KING OF ATLANTIS (2021)

  

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

I was sure there was no way this 3-part HBO Max series-- edited into a movie for the DVD market-- would be even passably good. The last time I saw this sort of "extreme bigfoot" animation, it was in the 2020 teleseries THUNDERCATS ROAR, which turned the THUNDERCATS franchise into low farce, apparently in a lame attempt to emulate Cartoon Network's popular TEEN TITANS GO.

To my surprise, KING is actually a reasonably well-done comedy-adventure despite all the silly humor-- which is all the more remarkable in that three of the four credited KING writers worked on THUNDERCATS ROAR. Possibly someone-- DC Comics, or James Wan, who produced the series-- told the scribes not to go overboard with the jokes and maybe ruin the movie franchise, given that Wan had enjoyed financial success with the 2018 live-action Aqua-movie and planned to direct the sequel. 

KING takes place some time after the events of the 2018 movie but is not strictly bound by its continuity, nor does its story play into the two-years-later Aqua-sequel. All that essentially matters is that Aquaman reigns in Atlantis and apparently has had some heavy dates with Mera, though the two are not yet married as they would be in the official sequel. But Aquaman is much more of a dweeb (with unexplained sea-green hair), and Mera is extremely pugnacious, constantly advocating that the two of them should punch their way out of problems. Yet, even though the comics character is more traditionally feminine, somehow the schtick of feisty Mera and the more reserved Sea King works pretty well. Also an unexpected plus: changing the support-character of Vulko-- a grave older man in the comics and in the live-action film (played by Willem Dafoe) -- into an anally retentive young guy.

The three episodes are plotted so that they seem like installments of the same story, largely because the first one starts with the hero and his squeeze investigating a missing Atlantean city. This leads them into battle with a Russian evildoer named Mortikov, who disappears in Episode 2, which focuses upon a classic Aqua-villain, The Fisherman, and then Mortikov returns in the third part, taking on a revised version of a very obscure Aqua-foe, The Scavenger. And as a bonus, the script works in the hero's vexatious half-brother Ocean Master. Further, when the writers worked in a couple of very minor "assistant menaces" who were and are ultra-obscure-- "The Fire Trolls" from the comic book, and "Mirror Men" from the Aqua-cartoon of the sixties-- I suspected the scribes were instructed to try winning over old comics-fogeys (like me) with nods to very old continuity-fodder.

But the use of "moldy oldies" didn't sell me on KING; I just liked the fact that a fair number of the jokes landed. A few were driven into the ground-- really, is the Atlanteans inability to understand how baseball works all that amusing? But others work reasonably well, particularly with regard to slapstick violence. When Mera tries to punch out Scavenger, the villain uses Aquaman as a shield, so that Mera ends up simultaneously hitting her boyfriend and apologizing for the hits.

Despite my positive comments, I think it's just as well this experiment was confined (thus far) to just these three outings.

BEASTMASTER, SEASON 2 (2000-01)

 

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

Compared to Season One, Two evinces more of an elegaic sense, a sense of changing realities and shifting allegiances. But one wonders if this was the original plan, before any shooting began, or if the writers were subconsciously reacting to the departures of some of the key supporting players, and the addition of new ones.

One major addition, which extends to Season Three as well, is the introduction of a potential romantic interest for Dar, who'd lost his lifemate at the end of Season One. Warrior-woman Arina (Marjean Holden) hails from another region-- maybe even another dimension-- but she like Dar has lost her people. Her purpose in her first couple of appearances remains vague, but after a time she becomes an employee of Season Two's "big bad." In due course, though, Arina is sufficiently inspired by the noble altruism of Dar and Tao to join them in more heroic endeavors.

Some of the early episodes of Two suggest that the previous season's main villain, King Zad, represents a fading approach to the acquisition of power: that of simply unleashing hordes of killers to scour the land. Zad's savages, the Terrons, get some substantial competition from a new band of warriors, the Nords, whose leader is supposedly more sophisticated than Zad.    

The more sophisticated tyrant is King Voden (David Paterson), who approaches conquest with a more deliberate, considered air. He's a master schemer rather than a warlord, and one of his big schemes involves taking over the city of Xinca, the home of Tao's Eiron people. Another plot is to suborn Dar's power, to make the Beastmaster turn his animal allies into Voden's shock troops. The episode "Rage" gives Voden something of a psychological backstory. He was one of two princes of the Nord people, but his brother Bakhtiar was the older son of Nord queen Margret, and thus first in line for kingship. Much like cunning Loki playing games with the forthright Thor, Voden taunts Bakhtiar so much that the prince becomes consumed with murderous tendencies. Bakhtiar's mother, wanting to save her favorite son, appeals to an old lover-- none other than the acidulous Ancient One-- to erase his memory and to enchant him so that he'll change into a beast, a puma, when stricken with the urge to murder. Naturally, Dar and Tao intervene to solve the problems of Bakhtiar and Margret. But since the showrunners didn't have any concern with those characters except to show Voden's treachery, both of them disappear.

The Ancient One has his own shakeup. He finally gets sick of "Sorceress #1" (Monika Schnarre) becoming invested in the drama of human lives, so he imprisons her in amber, and replaces her with Sorceress #2 (Dylan Bierk). However, #2 is just as much a human-booster, and she disappears at the end of Season Two also, while Sorceress #1 returns in that final season.

Season 2 also bids farewell to Dar's quixotic patron, the forest-demon Curupira (Emilie de Ravin), who seems to have picked up a mild fancy for her human servant. However, Dar becomes the unwitting target of a demoness chick-fight, for the water-demon Iara (Sam Healy) wants Dar as a lover. Iara wins the contest, exiling Curupira from the BEASTMASTER world, but by the end of Season Two, Iara also fades from said domain.      

All of this character-shuffling makes for pedestrian stories at first, and sometimes the writers work in mythological references that don't track well. "Golgotha" is the title of a jejune episode in which Dar breaks up a sacrificial cult. No person or place in the episode shares the name of the hill on which Christ was sacrificed. So apparently the writer just tossed in that reference because it sounded lofty and significant, even though the sacrifice of Christ, even to a non-believer, is functionally distinct from pagan sacrificial rituals. 

Then three scripts ascend into the realm of high-mythicity, all co-written by one Tony DiFranco-- and all three following one another in broadcast order-- almost as if once everything got sorted out, the writers got more venturesome. The 15th episode, "Centaurs." starts it off. Though BEASTMASTER is set in a world divorced from human history, it's still a mortal realm, and thus capable of being invaded by the denizens of more primeval realms. Two beings from such a realm, a male and female archer both mounted on horses, escape a cataclysm, and for once, they're the ones who pick a quarrel with humans. The archers Rax (female) and Sagitto (male, patently named after Sagittarius) start liberating horses from the warriors of King Voden, which naturally causes Voden to react badly. Dar and Tao seek to help the archers, who turn out to be bonded to their horses in such a way that they and their mounts can morph into centaur-forms. Voden, on learning the centaurs' secret, seeks to bring them under his control.

"Fifth Element"-- Dar and Tao accidentally release Annubis, a spirit of chaos (Bruce Spense), from the confinement placed upon him by the Ancient One in primeval times. Instantly the powerful deity wants to plunge the existing world into chaos, first by changing Tao into a dog-man (supposedly to make Tao resemble the god's former pet, Cerberus) and then causing torrential rains to pervade their world. Even serpent-woman Iara, now in charge of the natural world, can't stand against Annubis' mastery of the four elements, but Dar can, if he solves the riddle of "the fifth element." The mythological names are poorly chosen, but the trope of a deity who simply wants to eradicate the world to start over is mythically strong.

"A Terrible Silence"-- Iara abandons subtlety and seeks to make Dar her leman, but he refuses. Like frustrated Ishtar to Gilgamesh, Iara curses her servant. In this case, because Iara inherited all of Curupira's powers, Iara can strip Dar of his Doctor Doolittle powers. This, however, causes the entire natural world to fall into chaos, discommoding even the Ancient One and the second sorceress. Dar must complete a great task in order to regain his abilities.

But after those three tales, the show returns to relatively simple formulas-- even other episodes written by DiFranco. Arina returns after being absent for several stories but becomes more of a regular in the last season. And despite the Ancient One's prophecies, to the effect that Zad was doomed to fade away, he triumphs over King Voden, who brief reign as "big bad" comes to an untimely end--after which Zad takes on a new role in the third season.  

SISTER WRATH (2008)

 

While this film's alternate title NUN OF THAT was accurate in describing its wacky comical nature, I like SISTER WRATH better. While there have been a smattering of straightforward adventure-stories featuring vengeful nuns, the idea of undercutting the "merciful" association of nuns to make them into vessels of God's wrath carries its own vibe of absurdity.

In fact, nearly no one in director/co-scripter's Richard Griffin's world of crazy Catholics could strain the quality of mercy if their lives depended on it. The Church maintains a cadre of killer hit-nuns-- no word as to why there don't seem to be any male assassins-- and cheerfully sends them out to knock off sinners, primarily hardcore gangsters. But at the start of the movie, the nuns lose one of their number, so they need a replacement.      

Sister Kelly (Sarah Nicklin) is getting called on the carpet by Mother Superior for having beaten up a pedophile priest-- who foolishly shows up to see Kelly drummed out and gets pounded on by Kelly some more. Kelly is transferred to a new diocese, but as soon as she gets there, three gun-toting nuns show up and ventilate Kelly's penguin outfit, with her in it.

Surprise: Kelly ends up in Heaven, where she's expected to become one of God's holy hitwomen. Getting shot dead is like an initiation ceremony, and it means that she can once more descend to Earth, in a mortal body, and start knocking off cannoli-munching Mafioso. Only one problem: if Kelly-- now dubbed Sister Wrath-- gets killed a second time, it's for good. Kelly also learns that ascending to Heaven also has special perks, for being a "bride of Christ" means becoming part of the Heavenly Savior's own private harem. (To be sure, we don't see "Jesus" having sex with any of the hot nuns; presumably Griffin wasn't willing to get quite that crazy.)    

So on Earth Kelly is joined by Sisters Gluttony, Lust and Pride, and they start violently gunning down Italian gangsters. Local capo Momma Rizzo sets a killer to catch a killer, and a Jew to take down the Brides of Christ: one "Viper Goldstein." Viper's presence allows Griffin to take a rest from Catholic jokes in favor of Jewish ones, but no one could be offended as this sort of over-the-top nonsense. Many jokes fall flat and a fair number work okay, but the funniest moment is when the Killer Nuns get assistance from whoever was Pope in 2008. Perhaps Griffin signaled his cinematic inspiration for this movie, with its balls-to-the-wall gunplay and frequent fistfights, by having the papal eminence played by Lloyd Kaufman of TROMA fame.

WRATH is episodic and simplistic, but unlike a lot of "so bad they're good" poser-flicks, this one at least has a good level of energy.

            

LUPIN III: STEAL NAPOLEON'S DICTIONARY! (1991) n

 

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

For a LUPIN III TV special, DICTIONARY certainly has an interesting angle. It's one thing to begin with the premise that the family of Lupin has rumored to have hidden away some fabulous lost treasure. From this notion stems the inventive development that several world powers decide that they're going to hijack the treasure to solve their fiscal problems. (The dialogue doesn't mention that this is a reversal of the usual situation, where the Lupin gang is usually stealing from the powerful and the prosperous.) And the key to finding the rumored bounty is Napoleon's dictionary, which only became a part of history because the ruler supposedly said, "The word 'impossible' is not in my dictionary."

I don't remember how the world powers learn that the dictionary contains a treasure-clue, but even Lupin III doesn't know where it is, until a novelty car-race offers the item as a first prize. Since all the cars in the race have to be antique restorations, Lupin promptly rigs up an old flivver with special technology-- including the power of flight-- and takes part in the race, accompanied by a reluctant Jigen and later, a Goemon who unleashes his super-samurai skills in the name of "duty." (Duty as a thief?) The dogged Zenigata knows that Lupin will seek to win the race, so he too acquires an old car to participate, accompanied by Chieko Kido, a pretty young Japanese intelligence agent. Also joining the race is flirtatious Fujiko, though initially she seemed more concerned with seducing a handsome young millionaire racer-- at least until she decides she might make more dough by cutting in on Lupin's big score. Assorted agents of the world powers make the scene, though they don't join the race and seem to act erratically, sometimes trying to capture Lupin to pick his brain, sometimes trying to kill him. One such effort involves the Americans sending a tracker-missile to wipe out Lupin and Jigen, which the crooks only escape thanks to Lupin converting his car into a submarine and hiding from the missile in a lake.

The covetous agents are not particularly strong villains, but this allows the story to devote a lot more time to the comically obsessed Zenigata. He briefly captures his quarry, but disguise-master Lupin not only assumes the cop's likeness but makes up Zenigata to look like himself. This eventuates in one comic scene where the beleaguered cop has to pretend to be Lupin while in the company of Lupin's gang-members, and also an interlude in which "Zenigata" spends time in the company of Chieko. Unlike Zenigata, who's totally devoted to his quest for capturing super-thieves, Chieko has begun to have doubts about her dedication to serving a faceless intelligence agency. By the movie's end, Chieko does decide, with Lupin's help, to give up law enforcement, which decision stands in contrast to Goemon's dedication to peerless lawbreaking.

Goemon's big sword-feat here involves being attacked by several small tracker-missiles, which he carves up like sashimi. This LUPIN emphasizes comedy more than adventure, particularly in the revelation of the nature of the "treasure."

                                    

STEEL FRONTIER (1995)

 

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

Now THIS, unlike some of the sludge I've recently reviewed from the defunct PM Entertainment, is what the company was capable of when it put good people in charge of their low-budget action-movies. I've seen other good formula-flicks from director/co-writer Jacobsen Hart and co-writer Paul Volk, but STEEL FRONTIER is an exceptionally good reworking of the post-apoc subgenre and of the westerns that partly inspired them.

Once again, some idiot dropped the Bomb, and that instantly flung the remnants of humanity back into the framework of the Old West, with scattered enclaves of hard-working tillers of the soil, continually menaced by wasteland savages (cannibals called "roach-eaters") and by a roving gang of ruthless bandits. In deference to the influence of MAD MAX, this gang of "Death Riders" use automobiles rather than horses to cross the desert, and the bandits themselves seem to be rogue members of the US army. That their leader (Brion James) is given the name "Quantrell," emulating that of the post-Civil War raider, indicates that the writers wanted to allude to the power of the military to foster tyranny. Other members of the Riders include Quantell's second in command Acker (Bo Svenson), the leader's wimpy son Julias (John C Victor), and other weirdos, one of whom is named Chickenboy in reference to his feathery attire.        

 We meet the hero first, though, when he has to mercy-kill one of the Death Riders' victims: a man with his legs torn off, left to die in the desert. This is the taciturn Yuma (Joe Lara), whose origins are never revealed, though there's the suggestion that he might have been, like Mad Max, an enforcer of the law. Some reviewers compared Yuma to Jesus, I guess because he has long hair and because late in the film he gets wounded in the side. But there's a clever allusion to Yuma's real nature in a conversation between Quantell and Acker, where Quantrell opines that he doesn't like his gang's name because "Death rides alone." And who does director Hart immediately cut to, riding alone on his motorcycle to his death-dealing conflict with evil? Only one guess allowed.

 There are no great surprises to the plot. The Riders take over a peaceful town and began heaping indignities upon the residents, including beautiful Sarah (Stacie Foster) and her young boy. Yuma shows up and joins the Riders in order to whittle them down from within, before making an all-out assault, aided by Sarah and some of the more courageous townfolk. Quantrell, who's left town to coordinate with other members of his gang, finds out about the rebellion and leads more bandits to wipe out the whole town. Instead the bad guys are taken out and heroic Yuma gets the de rigeur final battle with the main villain, before cycling off into the sunset.

Aside from the allusions to Yuma being both Jesus and Death, the writers provided the actors with lots of quick emotional moments. Quantell, raging when he finds that Yuma killed his son. Sarah trying to get the cowardly populace to fight back. Sarah's son trying to save his mother from rape with a slingshot and undergoing a rite of passage as he manages to kill the idiot Chickenboy. Svenson confessing to Yuma that before the Bomb fell, he'd hoped to become an astronaut, and wondering if some of them are still in orbit above the ruined world. And though I've rarely been impressed with Joe Lara, here he does a fine job of putting across his version of a "man with no past." And for once, the usual PM policy of punctuating the drama with explosions, gun-battles and fistfights works to good effect.    

THE LAST WITCH HUNTER (2015)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*                                                                                                                                                 I'd never heard either positive or negative reviews of this Vin Diesel project, but now that I've seen it, HUNTER has one standout aspect. While I can tolerate a lot of derivative plots and characters in my search for good-- or even just fun-- adventure-movies, I'm aware that some viewers get immediately turned off by anything that seems stereotypical. For various reasons, HUNTER gave me some sense of how an adventure-hater feels when faced with an especially mediocre specimen.                                                                                                     

HUNTER, based on some D&D concept that Vin Diesel was able to copyright (somehow), hinges on Diesel's protagonist Kaulder being immortal. Thus a 14th-century Kaulder joins with other warriors to destroy the evil Witch Queen (Julie Englebrecht) who unleashes the Black Plague on the world. Presumably she has even worse plans in store for humanity when Kaulder slays her. And the dying Queen curses Kaulder with-- immortality? Wait, how does she know this will be an undesirable fate to this guy? Yes, I, like every fantasy-viewer, have seen umpteen stories about immortals who get existentially exhausted with eternal life. But the Witch Queen doesn't have any particular reason to assume that her killer is going to be so discomfited. This major stumbling-block in storytelling is just one of too many others.                                                   

   The audience doesn't get to see Kaulder learning the evils of immortality, for the film immediately shuttles to the present day. Though the Witch Queen is dead, an entire race of witches still exists on the fringes of regular civilization, and Kaulder has become an enforcer for an organization, the Axe and Cross, that monitors witch-activities. Neither the culture of the witches nor the monitoring organization get much elaboration, but Kaulder trusts one guy, Dolan 36 (Michael Caine), as his contact person. Dolan 36 is assassinated (apparently) and Kaulder launches a crusade to find the killer.                 

  Since Kaulder doesn't practice magic, he has to draft a witch to help his investigation, so he chooses, almost randomly, a hot young conjuress named Chloe (Rose Leslie). Chloe is given little reason to help Kaulder at first, though a convenient plot-device has Chloe's buddy knocked off by Kaulder's enemies, so this becomes motivation enough for her to risk her own life. (The writers probably wanted to imply that Chloe had the hots for the reticent hero, given a late scene where she seems jealous of another woman's attentions to Kaulder.) Kaulder beats down various unmemorable menaces until he finally learns that his enemies are out to revive the Witch Queen. This contingency isn't even anything the Queen arranged in anticipation of her demise. There's some gobbledygook about how Kaulder's immortal existence is the key to the Queen's revival, but it was all forgettable too. The final battle between Kaulder and the grotty Queen is fairly well choreographed, but everything else is from hunger. In 2015 the film made more than it cost, but not much more, which may be the reason no threatened sequel has materialized.

          

HONOR ROLL #298

 JULIE ENGELBRECHT needs a serious makeover.

BRIAN HUCKEBA always loses in games of "chicken."

Lupin converts CHIEKO KIDO away from law and order.

No soft answers will turn away the Wrath of SARAH NICKLIN.

While Beastmaster masters beasts, JACKSON RAINE seeks to master pratfalls.
 

DC fans really had to "scavenge" to come up with an Aquaman villain as obscure as SCAVENGER.

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.