AVENGERS CONFIDENTIAL: BLACK WIDOW AND PUNISHER (2014)

                                                                         

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

Here's one of those very scattershot OAVs based on Marvel characters-- scattershot in this case because I doubt anyone in the customer base was longing to see a team-up of the Black Widow and the Punisher, not even one that includes some cameo-appearances of other Avengers and various ancillary (and pointless) guest stars. Actually, a better name for the project would have been "SHIELD Confidential," because the alliance between Natasha Romanof and Frank Castle comes about because the former is a loyal employee of the spy-cabal while the latter is a loner who wants no interference, by SHIELD or anyone, in his private crime-destroying crusade.                 

Though this video was produced by the Japanese studio Madhouse-- which provides better quality animation than one sees in most Marvel OAVs-- the story came from an American author of prose and comics, Marjorie Liu, and the master trope that Liu chose to pursue was that of "by-the-book enforcer must work with loose cannon." In theory the Punisher might seem well suited to be the loose cannon in any team-up, though there are a number of narrative problems that arise from involving Castle with stories involving spycraft, numerous SF-gimmicks, or both. Liu is on even shakier ground in trying to justify using the resourceful Natasha as the rule-follower. True, as a hired gun Liu had to "follow the rules" of the MCU Bible for these characters, and since no MCU production, live-action or animated, ever defined the terms of the Black Widow's allegiance to SHIELD, Liu allows that dramatic shoe to go on hanging in mid-air.                                                                                   

 The teamup comes about because Castle goes after an illegal arms dealer who's also being monitored by SHIELD for his connections to an evil organization called Leviathan. Nick Fury decides that since Castle mucked up their investigation, SHIELD drafts him in their crusade against Leviathan, and the Widow is assigned to keep the Punisher from getting too punitive. Castle plays along because he still wants to take down his original quarry and any of his buddies. Natasha tries to use reason and humor to shake Castle out of his monomania, but the problem there is that without the monomania, the Punisher has no identity. He's the last hero anyone should want tied into a complex espionage operation, but the Widow is stuck with him, much as Writer Liu was.                                                                   

The menace of Leviathan is so badly constructed that the group is responsible for two separate threats to world peace: one involving a super-soldier serum and the other some mind-control technology. The evil org's master, one "Orion," is a nothing villain, and since Natasha can't get any human reactions out of Punisher, the script works in a secondary threat: Elihas, an agent of Leviathan with whom Natasha was romantically involved. Elihas and Natasha still harbor deep feelings for each other, but it's never clear as to why Elihas faked his death and allied himself with an evil conspiracy. There's a loose implication that Elihas had a deep inferiority complex toward the Widow and wanted to become a super-soldier so that she would be proud of him-- though all this psychologizing is minimal at best. Punisher for his part wants nothing but the chance to take out more criminals-- though very briefly, he considers offing himself when he accidentally kills some innocents. But he gets over that little impulse.                                                                                   

  I must admit that even with the lack of substantive drama, even at the level of a good action-movie, CONFIDENTIAL is never dull, for there are a lot of battles counterpointing the unlikely duo's progress until the big fight in Leviathan's sanctuary, and Black Widow gets her best, and sexiest, animated incarnation here. In contrast to the toxic feminism of the MCU, which forbids the depiction of nubile femininity, Madame Natasha looks really good. Frankly the movie would have been better focused only on her, though I did like her initial fight with Punisher, in that once they throw down, Castle shows no compunctions against shooting the Widow dead if she doesn't get out of his way. Liu's script may have been influenced by productions like CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, given that late in the film it's revealed that Fury has been less than honest with his agents-- which is a surprise only to one of the duo. But Liu doesn't make the Punisher's credo of "personal vengeance above all" resonate, and even with the revelation of Fury's skullduggery, SHIELD's more organized campaign against evil still makes much more sense in terms of the world's complexities. A last complaint about Natasha's self-involved Lover-Boy is that Liu evidently gave him the name of "Elihas Starr." In the comic books this was the regular name of a criminal named Egghead, though the MCU used the name for a different character. But neither character was anything like the one to which the name is attached here, which seems to be a pointless bit of non-continuity.                                                                                                                

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (2009)

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

REVENGE received a lot of brickbats in its day, with one critic calling it "incomprehensible"-- which I for one find incomprehensible. It's just a formulaic sequel seeking to keep its audience's attention with even more giant-robot action and silly humor than the previous film. And it's hard to see any other logical avenue for such "high concept" filmmakers. For me the biggest attraction of the 2007 film was to see how its craftsmen attempted to make a kids' cartoon into a general-audience feature film-- which was an act that could only be offered once.

So, the plot. Despite Sam Witwicky having saved the Earth by (temporarily) destroying Megatron, he's attempting to live an ordinary life by going off to college, even though this separates him from girlfriend Mikaela. However, his contact with a shard of the "All Spark" causes him to experience visions-- which, in a circuitous manner, will lead him and various allies to discover a new threat to Earth's survival. But before they can do so, Megaton is resurrected while the Autobots' noble leader Optimus Prime is slain. Yet once the audience learns that only a Prime can defeat "The Fallen," a world-destroying Decepticon who's constructed as an "Autobot Devil"-- can Optimus' revival be far behind? 

Most of REVENGE is comfortably predictable and nothing more. The most unlikely development in my view was that the writers brought back Seymour Simmons (John Turturro) from the 2007 film. I described the character as a "minor dick-villain," but here he's a more rounded (if still goony) character who adds some variety to the human allies of the Autobots.

       

 

MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS (2020)

  

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

Japan turns out so many hyperactive comedies than it's almost a surprise when one of them-- namely, MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS-- takes the opposite approach. Here the premise is loony but all of the performers treat the proceedings in a restrained, deadpan manner.

Amateur scientist Takuma, who works for his parents' seafood restaurant, invents a chemical that can enlarge small animals into giants. I think he does so with the idea of being able to create big creatures to supply the restaurant, but he's not responsible for unleashing his "food of the gods" upon urban Japan. A rival, Hikomi, steals the chemical and dumps it in the sea, where it creates three gigantic kaiju: a squid (Irkalla), a crab (Kanilla), and an octopus (Tokalla). There are a few scenes where the big beasts display ancillary powers, and of course there's no explanation for these.

The main joke is that when Japan's defense forces can't stop the goony giants, the government creates a special department SMAT, Seafood Monster Attack Team. (Nice of them to use English for their acronym even though the film is subtitled.) For some reason Hikomi is part of this team despite his having created the crisis, and so is Nana, Takuma's childhood sweetheart. Takuma joins the team too, and they strive to find ways to thwart the monsters, with weapons like vinegar-blasters and a giant chef robot who, at the climax, turns the creatures into sashimi.

The movie's best joke is that while the defense forces battle the kaiju, small parts of the sea-monsters' bodies get sliced off, and somehow these get marketed so as to become great dining delicacies. So the movie is not just "The Monsters That Ate Tokyo," but "The Monsters Tokyo Ate." Though Takuma and his romance with Nana is mild fun, the monsters are the stars as they provide the narrative vector. 

LEGEND OF THE SEEKER, SEASON ONE (2008-09)

 

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

As I have only read the first of Terry Goodkind's "Seeker" books, WIZARD'S FIRST RULE, I can't speak to the overall quality of the series, or whether it was a crying shame that Sam Raimi's teleseries adaptation didn't get more than two seasons. But the first novel offers in part a theme opposed to most otherworldly Tolkienian fantasies. one that might boil down to, "Power of all kinds-- not just One-Ring power-- corrupts the good and the bad alike." The dramatic consequences of this theme are that even the three pure-hearted heroes are innately capable of harming one another, even with the best of intentions.

Though most of the 22 episodes of LEGEND's first season don't adapt incidents from the first book, the overall outlines remain the same. Large portions of Goodkind's unnamed fantasy-verse have been conquered by the military might of tyrannical Darken Rahl, whose long-range goal is to control all life through assorted sorcerous stratagems. However, it's been prophecized that a rare crusader for justice, the Seeker, is destined to kill Darken Rahl. Young Richard Cypher (Craig Horner) is raised without knowing that he is the Seeker, but soon he's drafted to fulfill his destiny by two other heroes. One is elderly wizard Zed (Bruce Spence), who arranged Richard's concealment from hostile forces. The other, Kahlan (Bridget Regan), belongs to a line of priestesses, the Mother Confessors, and she becomes vital to Richard's mission-- although she threatens it as well, as the two fall in love, causing distractions from their purpose.

Some storylines are definitely derived from Goodkind, as with an arc involving the heroes trying to keep Rahl from obtaining the Boxes of Orden, whose power can corrupt even the Seeker. Other episodes are built around "done in one" problems. Yet even the simpler episodes, despite comedy relief, often reflect grim realities about war and death. This may be a reason why LEGEND didn't catch on like Raimi's more famous fantasy-serials, HERCULES and XENA. 

Only one episode merits a rating of high mythicity, and that is "Denna," a faithful adaptation of a long sequence from WIZARD'S FIRST RULE. In this sequence, Richard is captured by Denna (Jessica Marais), who attempts to break his will via torture. Like Kahlan, Denna belongs to an all-female priestesshood, but where Kahlan's order compels obedience through the emotion of love,  Denna's order uses pain. To some, this might sound like Goodkind importing the Marquise de Sade into a Tolkienian fantasy-setting. Yet because Goodkind structured his world so scrupulously, the concept is both dramatically and mythopoeically compelling. 

One additional point of merit is that the showrunners did contrive a "wrap-up" in the final episode of Season One, in case they didn't get another order of episodes. At the same time, the producers alluded to a major event of the next Goodkind novel, STONE OF TEARS, and introduced in Season One's last episode the character of Cara, a Goodkind creation from a later novel-- and both the event and the character proved of paramount importance to the second and final season.           

BUTT ATTACK PUNISHER GIRL GAUTAMAN (1994)

  

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

There's not much info online about this one-shot obscurity, though one site translated about thirteen installments of a manga series, with the added info that the feature enjoyed about 60 chapters. I'm going to guess that the GAUTAMAN manga was not terribly successful, but that this lack of success made the franchise cheap enough for some studio to snap up the rights. Maybe the studio hoped to garner some attention with yet another fanservice-heavy "magical-girl" concept (though nowhere near as heavy as KEKKO KAMEN). As far as I know, there was just this 45-minute OAV.

From the thirteen chapters I read, the concept is relatively novel. Mari Amachi is a Japanese Christian of high school age. She's enrolled in an extraordinarily "multi-culti" school, the Perfect Religion Institute, where all students and teachers belong to a wide variety of religions. The manga starts off gradually, showing how Mari arrives at school and is befriended by future best friend Saori, a Hindu girl. However, the anime jumps ahead to a point where Mari and Saori have also become acquainted with another classmate, handsome Tobishima, with whom Mari is smitten. In the anime Mari has already been transforming for some time into "Gautaman," a name that may be a combination of the 1970s anime GATCHAMAN and the personal cognomen of the Buddha. Mari's origin is super-simple; the first time she's in peril, she calls on God for help, but instead the Buddha answers and gives her the power to change into Gautaman. It's not clear exactly what powers Gautaman has, for she's usually seen just hitting villains with punches and kicks. Once or twice, she satisfies the oddity of her name by slamming into someone with her big, well-exposed butt. Yet even in 45 minutes, there aren't as many butt-jokes as I expected.

As for the source of peril, Guataman's source of enemies is a gang called the "Black Buddhas," who want to force everyone at the school to convert to their religion, whatever it is. There's nothing remotely Buddhist about any of the villains: some of them dress up like octopi (I think they get turned into sashimi) and their leader calls himself "Pope Johann" and dresses accordingly. (He also turns into a Terminator at the climax.) Mari in her "secret identity" is terribly embarrassed by her alter ego's showiness, especially since Tobishima considers Guataman to be little better than a whore. Yet he really has no room to talk, for Tobishima is a member of the Black Buddhas.                       

The biggest surprise for GAUTAMAN is that for a one-shot OVA, it actually has a unifying arc despite the rampant silliness. Two-thirds of the way through, Mari's father recognizes her in her superhero ID, because-- he recognizes her exposed butt as that of his own little girl. Surprisingly, there's no sense that his butt-recognition is pervy in any way, which perviness is something one sees a LOT of, in anime. Further, because the dad disapproves of Mari being a half-naked hero, he tells her that unless she gives it up, he'll remove her from school. Of course at the end, Mari must become Gautaman to battle Tobishima in his super-villain guise. She wins, but then loses, because the OAV does end with Dad and Mari departing the school by train. We don't see Tobishima wishing her goodbye, but Saori does. She for her part had been tossing out a few lesbian overtures to Mari throughout the anime, and Mari didn't pick up on them, but for the conclusion she confesses to Mari as she leaves. Mari pledges that they'll see one another again-- roll credits. It wasn't anything heart-rending, to be sure. But it was at least an original way to finish up a video that was mostly naked boobs and butts, dopey religious jokes, and light lesbianism.

THE MAN FROM UNCLE (2015)

  

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

When I saw MAN FROM UNCLE in a first-run theater, I must not have read any contemporaneous reviews of it. I tend to assume that many if not all reviews would have led with, "don't watch this movie if you want entertainment akin to that of the loopy 1960s superspy-teleseries." In addition to being bored, I seem to remember being astonished that director/co-writer Guy Ritchie-- best known for some crime films and two high-tech Sherlock Holmes movies-- had made almost no attempt to emulate the series, except for setting UNCLE's action in the same era of the swinging 1960s. Most of the time, big-screen adaptations of small-screen successes are if anything too reverential toward their source material.

Watching the same film years later with my amateur reviewers' hat on, I must admit that I could cite dozens if not hundreds of movies more boring than Ritchie's UNCLE. But this mostly mundane espionage-film, even with a few uncanny gimmicks thrown in to put some "super" in the spy-jinks, is still very pedestrian. In contrast to the series, in which Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin were introduced as partners in crimefighting for the secret organization UNCLE. the movie insists on giving audiences a dreary account of "how they first met." The heroes' recruitment to UNCLE is brought in only at the story's end, as if to allow sentimental old-timers to imagine the film as a real-world prequel to the fantasy-series.

Since the Cold War was still at its most frigid in 1963, Solo (Henry Cavill) works for the CIA while Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) is some sort of an agent for the USSR. Because the CIA becomes aware of a plot by a Neo-Nazi organization-- loosely covalent with the TV show's "Thrush" group-- seeks to gain control of a nuclear weapon. This project, led by rich magnate Victoria Vinciguerra (Elizabeth Debicki), has obtained the services of a major scientific talent with the telling name of Teller. With an eye to luring Teller away from the bad actors, Solo goes to East Berlin to engage the services of Teller's daughter (Alicia Vikander). Gaby accepts the mission, but during her extraction from East Germany, Solo has a eye-raising (and fender-crunching) encounter with Agent Kuryakin. As played by Hammer, this Kuryakin is a Samson-like powerhouse, though no particular explanation appears for his being able to grab a car by the bumper and hold the vehicle back. Despite this hostile first meeting, the Kremlin wants to eliminate a new nuclear threat as much as the CIA does, so Solo and Kuryakin are assigned to work together, still using Gaby as a means of entrance into the social circle of Victoria and her allies.

In addition to Kuryakin's strength and the THUNDERBALL-like plot of a private entity gaining control of an atom bomb, there's one moment where one agent uses a laser-device to cut through a wire fence, but that's it for the fantasy-content in UNCLE. The relationship of the two heroes is thoroughly predictable: they don't like each other and bait one another, though by the conclusion they've become bound as danger-buddies. Gaby is a little more interesting than either character, for she's in the position of a vital young woman who finds herself playing den-mother to two handsome hunks while also pretending to be the fiancee of Kuryakin's fake character. Vikander and Elizabeth Debicki are allowed to channel a bit of sixties glamor through their attire, and one late development gives Gaby a little semblance of a "Girl from UNCLE." But Ritchie's main focus follows the pattern of a mundane action-thriller, and there's nothing memorable on that score. The film flopped, barely making more than its original cost, so this movie stands as one of the least successful adaptations of a small-screen show.

HONOR ROLL #312

 ELIZABETH DEBICKY, "Girl Hanging Around with UNCLE."

Damnit, the name should be "Gautawoman," not GAUTAMAN. 

"Little CHRIS HORNER sat in the corner..."

 IKALLA, KANILLA and TAKOLLA teamed up to start their own seafood buffet.

 Where OPTIMUS primes, can MEGATRON be far behind?

Not even THE PUNISHER could tolerate the punishment of being in an MCU production.

X-MEN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, VOLUME FIVE (1996-97)

 

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

Season Four was supposed to be the final one for the 90s X-MEN, but ten more episodes were ordered, albeit without giving the production company much money. So some of the episodes were done in-house to save money-- and oddly, I like some of these better than any from the previous seasons.

I said in my first review of the series that I could never celebrate the show because it wasn't "my" X-Men. But I also wasn't crazy about the series' concentration on action-- even well-mounted action-- at the expense of characterization. (Admittedly the cartoon arguably did the soap-opera thing better than did the live-action movie series.) In any case, the last 14 episodes on Volume 4-- which of course mingles stories from both Seasons 4 and 5-- sometimes show a greater emotional tonality than I've observed before. For instance:

Most of the episodes are so action-heavy that there's no time for romance. But the two-part "Storm Front" posits a (non-canonical) hookup between Storm and the extradimensional tyrant Arkon. Here I appreciated some scenes that lingered on the bodies of the two principals, playing up their mutual visceral attraction before any sweet nothings were uttered.

"Old Soldiers" explores Wolverine's early (pre-clawed) years in WWII, when he undertakes a special mission alongside Captain America. Nice interplay between the very different characters without resorting to a hero-fight.

Another tale feels like Claremont in his more playful phases, with Jubilee entertaining some kids with a fairytale-fantasy in which unreasonable facsimiles of the X's appear.

 "Bloodlines," a follow-up to Nightcrawler's previous guest appearance, stands as the best story of all five seasons, being a very accurate translation of his abandonment by his mutant-villain mother Mystique. This version of the hero is a moody religious fellow rather than the daredevil type from the comics, but the contrast between Nightcrawler's faith and Mystique's nihilism is well handled.

Finally, the real final episode, "Graduation Day," present the heroic mutants with the strong possibility that they may have to carry on without Professor X, A last minute contrivance saves the Prof, but he's still obliged to leave Earth, and so the sense of a dramatic transition remains.            

   

  

YPOTRON-- FINAL COUNTDOWN (1966)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*

MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

YPOTRON-- FINAL COUNTDOWN is only one of several titles for this multi-country production, but I might as well use the one appearing on my YouTube copy. The nonsense-word "ypotron" is tossed around several times in the film before the audience finds out what it connotes, and an English-language song even asks what the word means. I'll give it away here because it has consequences for the movie's phenomenality: Ypotron is an antiballistic weapon aimed at destroying America's Gemini space program, and it's the only marvelous item in the story, since the Bond-like hero only utilizes minor uncanny weapons like a lighter than dispenses tear gas.             

Argentinian star Luis Davila (billed here as "Luis Devil") had the misfortune to headline the dismal ESPIONAGE IN TANGIER, but his second and last time venture into the Eurospy genre was a charmer by comparison. We first see him in his character of tuxedo-clad Robbie Logan, getting shot several times by a rifle. But it's just a test of the bulletproof vest beneath his clothes, administered by his colleagues in the agency Kosmos, which is supposedly focused only on affairs related to space defense. Logan then departs for a vacation from spying in Acapulco, where he shows off his ability to charm assorted gorgeous women.                                                                   

  However, another agent brings Logan news that three of his colleagues were mysteriously slain while working security for the European missile-factory "Indra." In addition, Logan's informed that there's a possible threat to an old friend of his, Professor Morrow. Logan reminisces about how he was a captive in wartime, possibly by the Nazis since he mentions being tortured by an overseer named Leichman. Morrow somehow saved Logan's life but then disappeared from public sight for roughly twenty years. To repay his old debt, Logan drops his vacation and journeys to Morrow's home in Europe. There he has a meet-cute with Morrow's grown daughter Jeanne (Gaia "AVENGER X" Germani), whom Logan never met except for seeing a photo of her as a naked baby (which of course he tells her about to intrigue her). Jeanne calls her father to come meet Logan, but it just so happens Professor Morrow is kidnapped by hostile parties unknown.                                                                                   

 Thus far, everything in YPOTRON sounds like a regular old spy-flick. However, for once I won't go over the plot in detail, because director/co-writer works in a twist rare in the Eurospy world. Jeanne of course gets mixed up in Logan's attempts to find her father, and to sort out the villains behind the mysterious Ypotron project. A lot of Eurospy flicks barely establish the nature of the main villain, but in this movie, the Big Bad is, shall we say, "hiding in plain sight," and the twist actually has a little emotional resonance for both Logan and Jeanne. The script also works in a lady spy played by Janine "KISS ME MONSTER" Reynaud, but she turns out to be Logan's ally, so no bad girls here.                                                                                                     

There are a number of clever lines in the script and production values are pretty good, so director Giorgio Stegani did pretty well with what seems to be his only spy-film. In fact, whereas a lot of these cheap thrillers fall apart in the final act, Stegani provides audiences with a well-choreographed fight between Logan and a Big Brute henchman (Fernando Bilbao, who played a version of the Frankenstein Monster in a couple of Jess Franco flicks). But the aforementioned plot twist is the big distinction of YPOTRON.      

SPACE MONSTER WANGMAGWI (1967)

 

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

I term the dominant function of WANGMAGWI "sociological" simply because the main plot involves aliens sending a giant monster down to 1960s Earth to kill all the humans and leave Earth free for colonization. While such a plot was a perfectly serviceable excuse for a giant-monster rampage, the writers seem confused about how to properly go about defenestrating the populace of a planet.

At the outset of the film, the unnamed aliens seem utterly confident that the Earth-people can do nothing to save themselves from the solitary, skyscraper-high creature-- presumably named "Wangmagwi," though I never heard the name used. The creature proceeds to rampage through Seoul, though its model-streets have been largely been cleared of people. So it's not clear how the aliens expect Wangwagwi to extinguish humanity. Keep stomping through cities and crushing people until, decades later, all the humans are dead?

Jets assault Wangmagwi's scaly hide with no effect, so the monster does have a Godzilla-like level of invulnerability. Yet when we hear Korean military men discussing the situation, they're reluctant to employ a nuclear bomb against the monster due to collateral damage. But if the monster succeeded in killing all the people in Seoul, then the Koreans could bomb him, right? Not until the climax does the subtitling for the aliens *seem* to indicate that Wangmagwi actually CANNOT survive a nuclear attack. Indeed, when the giant finally wanders out into the Korean countryside, the military makes one last jet-attack while planning a nuclear strike. At that point, the aliens just throw in the towel and remotely cause Wangmagwi to self-destruct. What? Was this the aliens' first defenestration? If not, clearly they suck at it. 

There's just enough combative action to keep the film in that domain, though the Koreans weren't able to make Wangmagwi's rampage as effective as even the lesser Japanese efforts. The humans are pretty forgettable-- a couple of clowns who bounce routines off one another while fleeing the chaos, and a young couple whose wedding is interrupted by the big critter. In fact, Wangmagwi channels his inner Kong by kidnapping the bride-- though technically the aliens are controlling the monster remotely, so her kidnapping makes even less sense than if the giant did it of his own will. The only human who has a good arc is an urchin who somehow clambers onto the giant's body, manages to work his way into the creature's ear and wound he inner ear with a knife. He also detaches the device with which the ETs control the monster, though this doesn't have much effect on the outcome. A heroic pilot rescues the boy and the bride before Wangmagwi destructs.

This kaiju flick was lost for a long time. In terms of film history, I'm glad a copy was found, but it's pretty small beer.

        

GENERAL INVINCIBLE (1983)

 

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

I'd never seen GENERAL INVINCIBLE before, nor did I know that it was one of the last movies to feature the Chinese kung-fu diva Chang Ling. To my surprise, I only found one substantial review of INVINCIBLE: this detailed post by the late Todd Stadtman. I was very intrigued by Stadtman's assertion that this film was pretty much the "final star turn" for the Taiwanese actress.

For me the greater question, though, was whether it was either (a) a fun but somewhat ephemeral chopwacky, like WOLF DEVIL WOMAN,  (b) a dull formula outing like DARK LADY OF KUNG FU, or (c) that rarest of rarities, a mythopoeic Asian kung fu film, like MIRACULOUS FLOWER. 

Well, INVINCIBLE is not another MIRACULOUS FLOWER-- though there are a few times where it feels like that's what it's trying to be. It's definitely not just a chopwacky, because such martial movies always seem the results of harried writers pulling anything and everything out of their asses in order to keep the audience entertained. One vague reference suggested that the movie might have been an adaptation of some other work, so that *might* explain why INVINCIBLE seems to be shooting for some metaphysical truth that the film's scripter couldn't articulate.

That metaphysical truth, in this fictional context, feels like someone trying to adapt the complex confluence of Chinese faiths and folklore regarding "the search for enlightenment," which in this fictional universe can also lead one to become a peerless martial artist. There's also a slight suggestion of a familiar western homily that might be phrased as, "What shall it profit a woman to win the martial arts world, if she loses her only shot at romantic love."

It's ancient China again, and a new emperor has just succeeded his late father. The new ruler gets wind of an assassination conspiracy directed at him by an unscrupulous Chief Justice, one Lu Ruh-Ti (Tien Feng). The emperor sends for the four dukes of his empire to serve as his protectors, but Ruh-Ti just compensates by putting out hits on the dukes. Only one, "Duke Philip," concerns us, for he's the father of our heroine.  

 Oddly, though Chang's character Sparrow is the star of the show, first we see the love-interest she's doomed to lose, "Mean Red" (Adam Cheng). Red is seen washing out of a martial-arts test given an imperturbable teacher, "The Old Master," and after being kicked out of the Master's school, Red seems more than a little perturbed.

Then Duke Philip's killed, and Sparrow-- who passed her tests with the Old Master (but evidently never met Red) -- is called upon by her retainers to go after her father's killer. But even though the courtiers call Sparrow "general"-- a title that really means nothing to the plot-action-- she's a retiring type who doesn't like politics. She's also prone to epileptic fits, though this only comes up three times in the movie and never has much importance either. Still, one of the courtiers embarrasses Sparrow by taking his own life to force her to act. So she takes her mute slave (called only "slave") and seeks to find the one-armed killer of her father. (FUGITIVE jokes are taken as a given.)

She does eventually kill the killer, who puts her on the trail of the evil Chief Justice. But Sparrow's more significant encounter is with Mean Red. She pretends indifference to Red's flirtations, but she allows him to join her quest once she learns that Red used to be a student of the Old Master. He, however, despised the Old Master's high-flown devotion to transcendence of human emotions and his utter lack of compassion. (Maybe that's why Red is "mean?") However, if I followed the choppy script, Red is also a servant of Ruh-Ti, and ALSO may or may not also go by the name of Swift Thunder. 

So yeah, this is one of those chopsockies where new character-names are thrown out with wild abandon, and the English translators don't manage to follow it all. Early in the film Ruh-Ti references some mysterious ally named "Red Sow" and the dubbing says it's a "she." But when the character appears late in the film, it's a male-- and by any name, the character's not important to the movie. (Possibly this was some book-character shoehorned into the crowded story.) The Stadtman review asserts that a female martial artist named Ruh Yuh (played by Lin Dang) is one of the Chief Justice's allies. However, she spends most of the film trying to persuade Mean Red to join her in her own domain, so I felt she might've been intended as an independent player. Certainly she's tries her utmost to seduce Red away from Sparrow, and, to my surprise, she wins the romance contest.

The film's greatest appeal is that the credited author (who has just four IMDB credits) seems, in a very confused way, to filter a lot of real Chinese metaphysical concepts into this opus. The Old Master appears in a lot of flashbacks, uttering weird pithy observations like "nothingness leaves the door of transcending." And after the defeat of Ruh-Ti, the Master shows up to engage Sparrow in mystical combat, apparently just because he really wants to be sure Sparrow's fit to succeed him-- somehow, I never quite figured out what he wanted her to do. There's a flashy power-battle, the Master loses. Yet he doesn't die, but just walks away with a strange downbeat conclusion. Ruh-Ti, by the way, wasn't just content to knock off the emperor and his supporters. He's conspiring with Persian scientists (!) to create crystal knives which are somehow going to help him conquer the world. 

The upshot is that though INVINCIBLE seems like an issue of DOCTOR STRANGE that Stan Lee wrote for Chinese investors while dropping acid, at least the movie's never dull. It ends with Sparrow, sitting in lotus position with a rainbow in the sky, and that's not the worst image with which Chang Ling could (more or less) conclude her diva-career.

            

    
   

TRANSFORMERS (2007)

 

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

Though I've never quit watching TV cartoons no matter how old I got, certain shows just never got on my radar, and the many iterations of TRANSFORMERS, as well as their imitators, are among them. And yet, looking at a list of the top ten highest-grossing films for 2007, the Michael Bay TRANSFORMERS kicks the ass of all others on the list (mostly sequels of one sort or another), except 300-- and I don't usually feel any great desire to rewatch 300. 

I'm not a huge fan of Bay, though I think his critical drubbings are unjustified and overdone. As for the writing-team on the first two TRANSFORMERS movies, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, their track record ranges from mediocre to the tone-deaf awfulness of the TREK films of the same era. Yet somehow these talents took a very simple kids' cartoon of the 1970s and gave it tons of Spielbergian brio. In fact, the 2007 TRANSFORMERS is a better Spielberg movie than most Spielberg films of the period.

Further, the actors playing the young leads-- Shia LeBeouf as Sam Witwicky and Megan Fox as Mikaela Banes-- turned in lively performances far more appealing than their usual "flavor of the month" offerings. Together they comprise the venerable trope "Nerdy guy impresses hot girl," but their cutesy romance works because it's kept peripheral to the central mystery: who are these shape-changing robot ETs and why are they are hiding on Earth in the forms of trucks and planes?

TRANSFORMERS also benefits from a canny juggling of patriotism (the movie came out six years after 9-11) and skepticism. An early scene depicts American airplanes forcing a mysterious helicopter to land on their military base-- only to have the 'copter transform into a mammoth Decepticon robot who trashes the military's best weapons like a pocket Godzilla. At the same time, only one data analyst, one Maggie, is able to figure out that the attacker isn't the spawn of Russia or China, while everyone else runs around without a clue. A super-secret military organization is shown to be responsible for salting away the Whatsit that both the noble Autobots and base Deccepticons seek, and I admired that late in the movie the script introduced a minor dick-villain for Sam and Mikaela to humiliate.     

Conversely, the script is ingenious in finding ways to make the Autobots likeable without over-explaining their goodness, as I think the cartoon did. The writers accomplished this by channeling Disney's LOVE BUG, having the Autobot Bumblebee morph into a car for Sam. Bumblebee does this to learn information from Sam that will lead the hero-robots to their goal. But the teen and the alien robot bond, partly through Bumblebee's inability to speak articulately, making him seem more like a faltering child than a spying ET. Later, Autobot leader Optimus Prime will provide all the needed exposition in the honeyed tones of Peter Cullen, but Bumblebee's more basic appeal sets the pace.

There are comedic bits that don't work, but they're fewer than the ones that do. Moreover, even though I was never a TRANSFORMERS fan, I appreciate that Bay and his team treated the adventure-theme straight, and one line from Sam to Mikaela speaks to the youthful need to trespass boundaries:

"Fifty years from now, don't you wanna be able to say you had the guts to get in the car?"  

            

HONOR ROLL #311

 A big part of the success of the Transformers live-action was thanks to the voice of the late Peter Cullen giving life to OPTIMUS PRIME. 

TENG KUANG-YING is yet another guy in a movie.

"No wang at all. No wang at all. WANGMAGWI has no wang at all."

Not a good pic but that's YIN SU-LI at left, preparing to get her butt kicked by the heroine with the handsy outfit.

 FERNANDO BILBAO provides one of the better fight-scenes to appear in a Eurospy movie.

I ran out of X-women so I'll finish up the reviews of the 90s X-MEN with the group's most X-traordinary male member, CYCLOPS.  

THE MARK OF ZORRO (1974)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*, 
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*                                                                                                                          Director Don McDougall, whose long list of TV episodes includes some very nice work for shows like RAWHIDE and Classic TREK, probably had to make the best of things when he drew this assignment. He had to take the script for the 1940 MARK OF ZORRO, one of the most sumptuous swashbucklers of the Classical Hollywood era and squish its plot and action down into about 75 minutes. Still, enough of the mythic aspects of the 20th-Century Fox version of Zorro come through that I can give this 1974 MARK a fair rating.                                                                                                       

 The telefilm's best asset is star Frank Langella in the dual role of Zorro and his foppish civilian ID Diego Vega. The actor had to follow closely in the shoes of Tyrone Power, but I thought he gave both characters as much mojo as anyone could under the circumstances. Ricardo Montalban is in a similar position, playing Esteban, the military power behind the corrupt alcalde's rule, but in some ways he's better off, since his normal acting-style was more florid than that of his predecessor, and thus his Esteban doesn't seem too derivative. The rest of the cast deliver decent perfs, from Gilbert Roland and Yvonne deCarlo as Diego's dad and mom, to Robert Middleton and Louise Sorel as the alcalde and his perhaps unfaithful wife. Anne Archer gets one good scene as the romantic interest Teresa-- the one taking place in the church, where Zorro's pretending to be a priest-- but her character doesn't get nearly as much attention as the Linda Darnell version did. She doesn't even get a final clinch with the hero at the conclusion. Her casting in terms of her age is a bit odd too. In the 1940 film, Gale Sondergaard, then a little over forty, played the aunt of Teresa, and that role was played by Linda Darnell, who was then seventeen. In contrast, Anne Archer was only seven years younger than Louise Sorel. There's an odd remark by Middleton's character about how some figure akin to Zorro may have been observed in "The Pyrenees" of Spain, which was perhaps meant to address where Diego got the idea of Zorro. Possibly this remark was in the 1940 film too, but I'm not inspired to find out.

AMAZONS AND GLADIATORS (2001)

 

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

While my recent screening of BATTLE OF THE AMAZONS yielded only stinky cheese, AMAZONS AND GLADIATORS offers a more pleasing aroma.

In the BATTLE review, I said that it was no sin to be unoriginal, only to be lazy. In GLADIATORS writer-director Zachary Weintraub produced a cheese-fest consisting mostly of sexy men and women fighting each other, motivated only by a routine revenge fantasy. And the feminist tropes of the film are just as superficial. Nevertheless, GLADIATORS is never lazy but delivers its conflicts with considerable energy.     

Most of the action takes place in a fictional Roman province, "Panne," supposedly "60 years after the death of Christ." But it's a very mutable history, for its villain is the real-life Roman officer Marcus Crassius, famed for putting down the slave revolt of Spartacus. In this tale, Julius Caesar fears the popularity of Crassius (Patrick Bergin) with the Roman people, so the emperor appoints the soldier governor of Panne. Crassius resents being exiled from Rome, so he becomes a tyrant to the common folk under his reign. As one of his depredations, he kills the mother of heroine Serena and consigns the young girl and her sister Gwyned to slavery. As adults the two of them (played by Nichole Hiltz and Wendi Winburn) are trained as dancers, but their beauty attracts the attention of Roman officials. Gwyned (she of the oddly British name) becomes reconciled to a ritzy captivity, but Serena kills a Roman who tries to rape her. Luckily, there's an Amazon captive (Jennifer Rubin) close to hand, and the warrior-woman not only helps Serena escape, she paves Serena's path to join the Amazons of Queen Zenobia.

There was a historical Queen Zenobia who battled Rome, but she wasn't a contemporary of Crassius (and neither lived just 60 years after Christ's death). Real Zenobia also had no association with the Greek legends of Amazons, but this one-- who's not a major character here-- rules a tribe of female warriors who live out in the forest. They don't steal men to mate with but are defined purely as rebels against Roman authority. Serena trains as a woman-warrior and nurtures a desire to be revenged on Governor Crassius. Ultimately, after a lot of complications, Serena gets the chance to duel Crassius to the death in his low-rent imitation of a Roman arena.

The most amusing feminist trope comes after Crassius' death, when the assembled Amazons, having put down the small contingent of Roman soldiers, warn the arena-patrons never to abuse women, or they'll face Amazon vengeance. GLADIATORS is more compelling, even in its cheesiness, when it simply depicts women as willing to fight for justice-- even if these justice-fighters just happen to all be unbelievable hotties. There's no attention to how the Amazons came to separate themselves from patriarchal rule, nor is there any sense of their even having a culture or religion; they only qualify as a "weird society" by the mere fact of being an all-female tribe. There are a few puzzling scenes where a wisewoman utters predictions of Rome's imminent doom and even claims that Serena will play some role in that downfall. Only at the end does the prophet provide closure, claiming that Serena's Amazons will participate in the sacking of Rome, alongside the more typical suspects, the Goths and Vandals. I don't think that Goths, Vandals or even early converts to Roman Christianity would be very welcoming to Amazonian customs. But within the movie's terms, I suppose the apparent fulfillment of the prophecy falls into the uncanny domain as well.      

LUPIN III: MISSED BY A DOLLAR (2000)

 

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

MISSED BY A DOLLAR was the last Lupin TV special to be animated in the traditional fashion. More importantly, though, DOLLAR is much less dominated by the tropes of wild fantasy found in many Lupin stories of the period. Here the master thief and his gang oppose an evil financial cabal that seeks to manipulate world events, and the only metaphenomenal elements of DOLLAR are the rather low-level tricks Lupin uses to bamboozle Zenigata.

As usual the Lupin gang only oppose greater evils as a means of maintaining their freedom to commit generally harmless crimes. In fact, in the opening sequence the master thief begins the adventure in an apparently legal venue: participating in a New York auction (albeit in disguise) for a rare ring. However, another party outbids Lupin by a mere dollar, and on top of that, Zenigata arrives with a squad of New York cops to seize the master criminal. Never daunted, Lupin simply evades the cops and steals the ring, However, an enforcer working for the mystery bidder steals back the ring and tries to kill Lupin in the bargain. Of course all Lupin viewers know that this means war.

Lupin briefs his comrades in crime on his plans: the ring can guide one to a fabulous brooch, which in turn confers incredible luck upon its possessor. It's not entirely clear why Lupin wants the brooch. He natters a bit about a Lupin Empire, but somehow he convinces Jigen and Goemon that the brooch will lead to a big payoff. Fujiko isn't interested because she's become fascinated with the world of high finance, though she changes her tune when reversals decimate her wealth. Fujiko's attempt to transition from crook to high financier proves the reverse of Lupin's new enemy: Cynthia Craymov, already the head of a banking empire. Her father was the deposed tyrant of a small country, so Cynthia wants to rule an empire founded in high finance. She believes implicitly in the brooch's power to convey luck, though said power is never unilaterally proven. Her main enforcer is an ex-KGB killer with a penchant for knife-fighting, but Cynthia's cool resolve makes her the main opponent.

There's a subplot in which Lupin appears to fall to his death, in such a way that both his friends and Zenigata are convinced he's finished. The sequence is good for a laugh as Zenigata mourns his foe (or at least the impossibility of ever accomplishing his monomaniacal goal). There are some decent but workmanlike action-sequences, with Fujiko getting just one femme-formidable scene in which she shoots a guy menacing Goemon. In the end Cynthia's crimes are exposed and the brooch ends up in good hands, though for a change all four of the super-crooks end up temporarily broke. There are some acidulous comments on the financial mentality, but anyone wanting a critique of capitalism would need to look elsewhere.  

JUNGLE RAIDERS (1945)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*                                                                                                                          I've thought of the perfect term for limited-location serials like this one and others in the oeuvre of producer Sam Katzman: "shuttle serials." Basically, because the producer of such serials doesn't want to film on more than two or three locations, the actors are forced to keep "shuttling" back and forth between roughly the same locations. JUNGLE RAIDERS, for instance, really just has two functional locations for its fifteen chapters: a jungle trading-post and a camp, surrounded by mountains, where a tribe of Caucasian Africans make their home. The back-and-forth shutting isn't quite as dull as it is in Katzman's LOST PLANET, but I was ready for the serial to be over long before it ended.                                                                                  

The initiating action is provided by two middle-aged scientists who seek the secret of the Arzec tribe: a root reputed to have great curative powers. The root is never important to the story, however. Doctor Reed comes to the jungle first and manages to befriend the Arzecs and learn the hidden location of their camp. When seedy trader Jake (Charles King) learns of Reed's accomplishment, he holds Reed prisoner in the cellar of the trading-post, trying to learn the natives' location in order to plunder their famed secret treasure. While Reed is being held, his colleague Doctor Moore shows up and manages to befriend the Arzecs as well, again motivated by an altruistic cause. Both Reed and Moore have grown children-- daughter Ann for Reed, son Bob (Kane Richmond) for Moore-- who come to Africa to rendezvous with their respective dads. Ann arrives first by boat, and Jake sends his feminine aide Cora (Veda Ann Borg) to intercept Ann, the better to use her as a club over her old man. Just slightly later, Bob drives to the trading-post area with his war-buddy Joe (Eddie Quillan), looking to find Doctor Moore.                         

What follows is just one twist and turn after another, as Jake and his allies seek to find their way to the treasure, while Bob, Joe and Ann only slowly suss out the danger to themselves and the two scientists. (Reed, BTW, remains in captivity throughout most of the serial's early chapters and only becomes significant after being rescued.) Things are further complicated by the power-plays of an Arzec female priestess named Zara (Carol Hughes), who wants to displace the priest in charge of the tribe's religion. Some narrative tension is provided by the way both villains and heroes are obliged to enter into temporary alliances, which usually end in some sort of betrayal.   

   Nice location shots and attractive performers keep things moving moderately well in RAIDERS. Richmond provides a strong lead as always, while King is welcome here as a scuzzy schemer, as opposed to the more standard mystery mastermind. Quillan is similarly distinctive, providing comedy relief that's actually funny, a rarity in serials. The serial's most noteworthy aspect-- not including the lack of backstory for the Caucasian tribe in a part of Africa with no Negro residents-- is the presence of two formidable female villains in one serial. In fact, toward the end of the serial the two nasty ladies have a brief catfight. It's nothing compared to the spirited bouts of PERILS OF NYOKA, but it qualifies the film for my "fighting femmes" category.