The Running Man (1987) – Review

There have been many screen adaptations of the works of legendary horror writer Stephen King, some that have resulted in great movies like The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me but we’ve also had to suffer through the likes of Dreamcatcher and The Dark Tower, but in 1987 the world was treated to a film based on a book written by King under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, a film that starred the king of action 80s films, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s The Running Man isn’t quite an “In Name Only” adaptation of the book but what similarities the film has with its source material are few and far between. The novel is set in a dystopian United States during the year 2025, in which the nation’s economy is in ruins and world violence is rising and people participate in violent game shows so that their families can receive whatever winnings are earned – the participants are not expected to survive – the main character is a man named Ben Richards who needs money for his gravely ill daughter’s medicine. After rigorous physical testing and mental testing, he is chosen for The Running Man, the Network’s most popular, lucrative and dangerous program, where the contestants are declared enemies of the State and are sent on the run. While they are allowed to go anywhere in the world they are chased and hounded by the general public, who get a huge bounty if they kill them. But the Network doesn’t rely on the bloodthirsty public as they also send out professional hitmen to ensure that there are no survivors, needless to say, not much of that survived the transition to the big screen.

Note: The Ben Richards of the book was your basic every-man and while he is physically fit he is no Superman and certainly not built like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The protagonist of the movie may be named Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) but he is nothing like his book counterpart, in this version he is a police helicopter pilot who refuses to fire on a group of unarmed civilians during a food riot and then framed by the government as the “Butcher of Bakersfield” for the very thing he was attempting to stop. So yeah, right off the bat the movie quickly diverged from the source material in favour of making this a more typical Arnie action flick. That’s not to say this is a bad thing, as 80s action movies go this one is a lot of fun, but gone is the thoughtful dystopian tale from the book in favour of over-the-top action moments and a handful of Arnie’s trademark one-liners. The book also didn’t have a female sidekick which the film gives us in the form of network employee Amber Mendez (María Conchita Alonso) who starts as a hostage but ends up tossed into the Running Man game when she starts to question the facts surrounding the “Bakersfield Massacre.” To say their relationship has a rocky start would be a vast understatement.

 

What’s a little bondage between friends?

Where the book had the game take place all across the globe, with the protagonist hounded by informers and professional hitmen, the movie places the game in four quadrants of a confined neighbourhood that was destroyed during a past earthquake. They are hunted by armed mercenaries called “Stalkers” who look more like Marvel Comic supervillains than they do professional killers. It’s clear this movie was borrowing quite a few elements from the World Wrestling Federation as the Stalkers are larger-than-life personas and quite flamboyant – casting several actual wrestlers hammers that point home quite nicely – and they are easily the most memorable element of the movie. Of course, the idea of the government using entertainment to placate the masses is nothing new, the Roman Empire practically invented it with their “Bread and Circuses” gladiatorial games, and as a science fiction trope it’s been mined quite often – the original Star Trek series even had an episode called “Bread and Circuses” – but it was with this movie that the idea of using flamboyant gladiators took the concept to the next level, giving us the likes of Stalker turned commentator “Captain Freedom” (Jesse Ventura), the pyrotechnical “Fireball” (Jim Brown), a chainsaw toting “Buzzsaw” (Gus Rethwisch), the chilling killer “Professor Subzero” (Professor Toru Tanaka) and the electrifying opera singer “Dynamo” (Erland Van Lidth) who all do their best to bring down Ben Richards.

Note: As cool as Jim Brown was, and I admire Professor Toru Tanaka with all my heart, but the title of best Stalker belongs to Erland Van Lidth as Dynamo, he was right kind of over-the-top character that this movie needed.

Now, as cool and badass as all those Stalkers were the real star of The Running Man is its amoral host Damon Killian (Richard Dawson), whose casual cruelty to all – even to his own staff let alone the people whom he sends out into the game to die – made him a truly great villain and proved to the world that Arnie didn’t need musclebound adversaries or creatures from outer space to be a good antagonist.  Even though Richard Dawson certainly couldn’t take Arnie in a fight he was the figurehead of all the evils that this totalitarian society represented and thus he was the perfect embodiment of what our heroes were fighting against. You can’t punch a government or a corporation in the face but you can take your anger out on their spokesperson, and in that area, Richard Dawson excelled at creating a truly smarmy villain, one that had us eager to see get his comeuppance.

Note: Numerous people who worked with Richard Dawson on Family Feud say that in real life Dawson was quite a bit like his character Damon Killian in his nasty handling of underlings.

Stray Observations:

• The opening text crawl tells us that “By 2017, the world economy has collapsed. Food, natural resources and oil are in short supply. A police state, divided into Paramilitary Zones, rules with an iron hand.” While this didn’t quite come to pass give it a few more years and we still might get there.
• We get a commercial for a game show called “Climbing for Dollars” which is the only hint of there being other violent game shows for the public to watch.
• The footage of the attacking helicopters is lifted from the 1976 King Kong remake which had me wishing to see a fight between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kong.
• Mendez finds the original unedited footage of the Bakersfield massacre, but what purpose could the government have for keeping such damning evidence around?
• If Richard hadn’t refused to fire on the rioters how would they have spun the massacre without a patsy to frame? Would they have claimed, “They were coming right at us!”
• The game’s professional killers are called “Stalkers” but as the contestants have been injected with tracking devices, and the course they run is heavily monitored, it doesn’t require much in the way of stalking skills to track your prey.

 

As if giving them high-tech weaponry wasn’t enough of an advantage.

Even though Tri-Star’s The Running Man was not all that faithful to the source material, something that plagues most Stephen King adaptations, the result was still a very entertaining film – though its entertainment value will hinge on your ability to handle an overabundance of Arnie one-liners – and the film’s production value is excellent as is Schwarzenegger’s supporting cast, which includes the likes of Yaphet Kotto and Mick Fleetwood as freedom fighters. The film has developed a bit of a cult following over the years but it still falls below the upper echelon of 1980s action films and is considered by many as a lesser Arnie outing. Overall, this over-the-top satire is a fun critique of American television culture that will continue to engage fans of the sci-fi action genre and is easily one of the entertaining takes on The Most Dangerous Game.

The Haunting (1999) – Review

In 1963 Robert Wise helmed an adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, which was a wonderfully executed psychological thriller with subtle horror aspects, flash forward to 1999 when Jan de Bont, the director of Twister, helmed a new take on the novel, one that didn’t bother with pesky little things like subtlety.

As was the case with the original story, this film centres around Eleanor Vance (Lili Taylor) a meek and mild-mannered woman who had spent the last eleven years caring for her invalid mother, who was rather demanding to the point of being a complete bitch, but now she is dead and Eleanor is about to lose her home due to the cruel machinations of her asshat sister (Virginia Madsen) and dickhead husband.  Then out of the blue, a phone alerts her to a money opportunity that could help solve her problems, so she quickly accepts an invitation to participate in an insomnia study that is being held by Dr. David Marrow (Liam Neeson) at the ominous Hill House. Unfortunately, the study Marrow is working on is not actually about insomnia, instead, his true purpose is to study the psychological response people have to fear and he intends to expose his subjects to terror to see how they will react in a given situation. Joining Eleanor on this rather dubiously ethical experiment is the bohemian bisexual Theo (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and goofball Luke Sanderson (Owen Wilson), who in the book was the heir to the estate but in this movie is just here to provide some comic relief. As the story unfolds this group will spend their fateful weekend in a mansion plagued by terrifying ghostly occurrences that are, at first, chalked up to group hysteria but soon a more sinister reason is revealed as the mystery of Hill House is exposed.

 

“Should we call the rest of the Scooby gang?

One of the most glaring issues with this adaptation is the departure from the source material, Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill House, as well as Robert Wise’s 1963 adaptation, was a deep sense of psychological horror but that is not the case here.  In this adaptation, director Jan de Bont was more concerned with creating a thrill ride rather than a psychological thriller. Both the original novel and Wise’s adaptation focused on the unravelling of the characters’ sanity in a haunted house, relying on subtlety and the power of suggestion to terrify the audience, in contrast, Jan de Bont’s version abandons these subtleties in favour of a more overt CGI-driven approach, one that sacrifices atmosphere for spectacle. While this film boasts an impressive cast and visually stunning set design, the supernatural elements fall short of capturing the psychological depth and suspense of the source material.

 

This is more about visual eye candy than anything else

The characters in this adaptation also suffer from one-dimensional development and their cliche-ridden dialogue isn’t something even this talented cast could overcome. The characters on display here never transcend their stereotypical roles, such as the fragile troubled heroine, the sexually fluid beauty and the comic relief, respectively. There’s little to invest emotionally in this group and the relationships between these characters feel forced and underdeveloped. As our protagonists wander down dark and foreboding passageways it becomes apparent that the film is more about the gorgeous and creepy setting rather than the people within. The elaborate special effects and CGI used to bring the supernatural occurrences to life often overpower the story’s subtlety and the plot into a Haunted House thrill ride.  It should also be noted that the one thing that dates the film is the look of the 90s-era computer animation, while the statues that come to life look fine the ghostly images of the murdered children look like a cross between Casper the Friendly Ghost and soap bubbles.

 

“Let’s keep it dark, really dark so no one can see how bad the CGI effects are.”

Stray Observations:

• Eleanor’s sister and brother-in-law are so cartoonishly rotten, to the point that I half expected the ghosts from the Hill House to eventually hunt them down.
• If the housekeeper of a creepy mansion told me “We live in town, nine miles away, so there won’t be anyone around if you need help. We couldn’t even hear you in the night. No one could. No one lives any nearer than town. No one will come any nearer than that, in the night, in the dark.” I’d have packed my bags and left immediately.
• Hill House was built by a 19th-century textile tycoon in the hope of populating it with a large family, but why it is full of architectural optical illusions, hidden passageways, mirrored hallways and a carousel room is beyond me. It’s more a Walt Disney attraction than a home.
• On the first night Marrow’s assistant is injured by the malevolent forces of Hill House and she is taken to the hospital by another of Marrow’s group, but even though they are told “Hey, I want you guys back as soon as possible” we never hear from them again. Did both of them decide “Fuck it, we’re not going back to that spook show.”
• On the second night Eleanor wakes up and follows ghostly voices and tiny bloody footprints that mysteriously appear on the floor to a hidden room. This is after they had just discovered “Welcome Home Eleanor” written in blood on Hugh Crane’s portrait, yet she’s still up to following ghosts through the halls of this spooky-ass mansion? It’s at this point that I lost all sympathy for her character.
• Hugh Crane was clearly an evil man, abducting and murdering children, but would he have commissioned a portrait that looked like something you’d find in Dorian Gray’s attic? Did he ask the artist “Can you make me look like a nightmare in the flesh?”

 

I’d say this art style was a little on the nose.

Without a doubt, the one aspect of this film we can all agree on is that the production design was great, with Hill House working as a character in itself and its Gothic architecture, creepy statuary and eerie interior lighting providing a chilling backdrop to the unfolding events of this story. If only the story was worthy of it. And to be fair, Jan de Bont’s The Haunting does sport some nice practical effects and the art direction was simply fantastic, not to mention the set decoration by Cindy Carr which elevated the entire production to a whole new level, making Hill House a character in and of itself. Say what you will about the bad CGI and cheap jump scares this film has killer production values and makes you want to wander these amazing halls and rooms.

 

Book your tour now, the only cost is your soul.

But good art direction can only get you so far, and this adaptation was hobbled by a script that sometimes veered into melodrama, with characters reacting predictably to supernatural events while lacking the depth and nuance of Shirley Jackson’s original novel or Robert Wise’s 1963 adaptation. The reliance on jump scares and loud sound effects also diminished the psychological horror elements that made the original novel so captivating and the pacing also feels uneven, with a slow start and a rushed climax that leaves many questions unanswered. Despite these flaws, Jan de Bont’s re-imagining does manage to pull off a few moments of genuine terror and intrigue, and if you’re a fan of haunted house tales and can overlook the film’s narrative shortcomings, The Haunting may provide an entertaining, albeit somewhat superficial, horror experience.
 

In the end, The Haunting is a visually appealing but ultimately poor adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s classic ghost story, one that is overshadowed by its inability to capture the psychological depth and subtlety of the source material. It may be worth a watch for horror enthusiasts, but it doesn’t quite live up to the legacy of its literary inspiration.

Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975) – Review

From the jungle adventures of Tarzan to the dark city streets of The Shadow, heroes from the pages of pulp fiction have provided plenty of fuel for Hollywood, though with varying degrees of success, and today we will be looking at one of the least successful of these attempts, one Warner Brothers had hoped would spawn a long-running franchise such as MGM’s Tarzan films, alas it died on the vine.

This film kicks off when Doc Savage (Ron Ely) learns that his father has died under mysterious circumstances while exploring the remote interior of the Central American Republic of Hidalgo and after an assassination attempt, by someone sporting a tattoo of the Mayan serpent god Kukulkan, he takes his team of experts, known as the “Fabulous Five,” consisting of Major Thomas J. “Long Tom” Roberts (Paul Gleason), Colonel John “Renny” Renwick (William Lucking), Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett “Monk” Mayfair (Michael Miller), Professor William Harper “Johnny” Littlejohn (Eldon Quick) and Brigadier General Theodore Marley “Ham” Brooks (Darrell Zwerling), on a journey where they must face dangerous enemies and obstacles, all while trying to uncover the secrets of Hidalgo and its legendary treasures.

Note: Fans of W.D. Richter’s movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension will notice that the multi-talented Buckaroo Banzai and his “The Hong Kong Cavaliers” was an obvious homage to Doc Savage and his “Fabulous Five.”

The plot of this particular adventure surrounds a lost Mayan tribe which Doc Savage’s father had recently aided and for his kind deeds had been awarded by the inhabitants the village’s pool of molten gold, not surprisingly, this led to the man’s murder at the hands of the international criminal and smuggler Captain Seas (Paul Wexler) who, along with a corrupt local official Don Rubio Gorro (Bob Corso) they have destroyed all records of this transaction and now plan to exploit the villagers as slave labour and make off with all the gold. Needless to say, Doc Savage and his friends are a definite hindrance to this plan and so the bulk of the film consists of various attempts to kill Doc Savage and the Fabulous Five, unfortunately, none of these attempts are all that credible and none of the various henchman come across as even remotely threatening. Case in point, in two scenes we find Don Rubio sleeping in a giant baby crib but no reason given for this, it’s just weird and certainly doesn’t instill fear.

 

There is strange, and then there is stuff like this.

This film was produced by George Pal, the man behind such science fiction classics as Destination Moon and War of the Worlds, but where those movies took their subject matter seriously this take on pulp hero Doc Savage was more on the campier side of things and was closer to something akin the Adam West Batman television series rather than the pulp adventure hero created back in 1933 by Henry W. Walston and Lester Dent. While director Michael Anderson, working from a script co-written by George Pal himself, seemed to be attempting to capture the pulp flair it was a struggle he failed at as the overall tone never quite gels. The movie takes place in the 1930s and I’ll give the filmmakers credit for managing to capture the essence of the era with its stylish costumes, set design, and music, but the campy humour leaned a little too far towards the bizarre for it to completely work.  This was certainly not helped by the goofy use John Philip Sousa’s military marches as part of the film’s score and the overall end product became an easy target for movie critics and cinema-goers alike.

 

Is that gleam in his eye from the fear of critical reception of this film?

Stray Observations:

• This is Ron Ely’s second time bringing a pulp action hero to life, he played Tarzan on an NBC series for two seasons in the late 1960s.
• Doc Savage has his name embossed on all of his vehicles, which makes him one of the earliest examples of branding. I wonder if Donald Trump was a fan.
• Captain Seas breaks out into a maniacal laugh that is so cartoonishly over-the-top that you have to wonder if George Pal was trying for a parody of the genre.
• Actor Michael Berryman makes his screen debut in Doc Savage: Man of Bronze, but unlike his often-villainous roles in films like The Hills Have Eyes, he plays a rather erudite coroner.
• As gold boils at close to 4,000 degrees there is no way a pool of gold, as depicted in this movie could exist next to a jungle village, as everything in its proximity would burst into flames.
• This movie takes the title “Man of Bronze” a bit too literally, in the pulp stories Doc Savage is a man of peak physical shape, with his trademark bronze-haired and bronze-skinned, but with no actual superpowers, while in this movie, he’s more a “Man of Steel” as bullets bounce of his chest as if he were from Krypton.
• After defeating Captain Seas in one of the most one-sided fights in cinema history, Doc Savage performs brain surgery on Seas to rid him of his evil tendencies, which I must say is morally and ethically dubious at best.
• Both Doc Savage and Superman have a secret Arctic lair called “The Fortress of Solitude” and while Doc Savage was the first to have such a structure, going by this movie his was not all that comparable.

 

Unlike Superman, Doc Savage never brings girls here for sex.

As a fan of the original Doc Savage stories, I was excited to see this film adaptation and while the movie does capture some of the excitement and adventure of the source material it falls short in several areas. One of the main issues with the film is its pacing because even though there are plenty of action scenes and thrilling set pieces, the plot often feels rushed and disjointed. It jumps from one scene to the next without giving us enough time to fully absorb what’s happening on screen. Another issue is the film’s special effects and I do mean special. While the practical effects are decent for the period, the visual effects are often clunky and unconvincing to the point of being rather goofy-looking.

 

Tremble at the sight of magical cartoon snakes.

Despite these flaws, there are still some things to appreciate about Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, Ron Ely delivers a solid performance as the titular hero, capturing his intelligence, physical prowess and sense of adventure, all while somehow managing to keep a straight face in a plot that became more ridiculous and bizarre at every turn. The supporting cast, including a love interest played by the beautiful Pamela Hensley, all did their best with their respective roles made all the more impressive as this involved delivering some of the worst dialogue ever penned. Overall, this film was hindered by a pathetic budget, a sluggish script and some truly painful attempts at camp, with ninety percent of the humour falling flatter than a pancake in a gravity well, so its chance of success was minimal at best. That the film ended with a promised sequel is probably the funniest moment in the movie.

It’s clear that Hollywood will continue to mine these classic pulp stories because if comic book superheroes can bring in billions of dollars at the box office why not these pulp heroes as well? Sadly, aside from Tarzan and Zorro, there isn’t a great track record of cinematic success, with Billy Zane as The Phantom and Alec Baldwin as The Shadow having dismal box office returns, but who knows, maybe someday the likes of Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve will take a crack at these adventure tales of old and the Man of Bronze may live again.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) – Review

The 1930s and 1940s produced many fun serials, bringing us such entertaining offerings as Flash Gordon to Captain Marvel to the screen, but while the serial format died off long ago director Kerry Conran took that pulp feel and added in a dash of Hayu Miyazaki, not to mention a whole lot of inspiration from German Expressionism and a heaping helping of dieselpunk, all to create his film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, a nice homage to a bygone era. The question we are asking today is “Did all of this translate into a good movie?”

Set in an alternative 1939, the film transports us to a world on the brink of catastrophe, where larger-than-life heroes and futuristic technology collide in a mesmerizing spectacle. The plot of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow revolves around an impending global disaster as key scientists disappear one after another, prompting reporter Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) to begin her investigation, and despite the warnings of her fatherly editor (Michael Gambon), she puts herself in the path of the mysterious Dr. Totenkopf (Lawrence Oliver) who unleashes an army of giant robots upon the city. To be fair, if I had an army of giant robots this is exactly what I’d do.

 

Who doesn’t love giant robots?

As the mystery unravels, Polly must turn to “Sky Captain” Joe Sullivan (Jude Law), who is not only the commander of a private air force but also her former lover, because why not add emotional drama in with your giant robots and mad scientists, and the two quickly find themselves in a race against time to thwart the malevolent Dr. Totenkopf’s sinister plans. Aiding them on this venture is Dexter “Dex” Dearborn (Giovanni Ribisi), ace mechanic of the Sky Captain’s Flying Legion, who can track the signal the robots are controlled by. This leads our heroes to Nepal and an abandoned mining camp where they have a nasty encounter with Totenkopf’s assassin (Bai Ling), who retrieves from Polly two vials that are crucial to Totenkopf’s evil plan – Polly hid these from Joe even though the dying scientist told her that if Totenkopf got his hands on them the end of the world would begin – and while our “heroes” miraculous survive a deathtrap and the ticking clock of the plot is now in overdrive, the movie has time for a pit stop in the mythical land Shangri-La.

 

A Lost Horizon of boring detours.

After that scintillating diversion and finally, with a clue as to where Totenkopf’s secret base is located, Joe and Polly again take to the skies, but with low fuel and a destination that does not appear on any map, Joe is forced to call upon an old friend, Franky Cook (Angelina Jolie), commander of a Royal Navy flying aircraft carrier. Personally, I’d call on Angelina for pretty much anything, from a ham sandwich to world saving she’s my go-to phone-a-friend. After surviving another encounter with Totenkopf’s robot minions the movie’s plot finally circles the last act as Polly and Joe reach what looks to be Skull Island – it does have a lot of dinosaur-like creatures, sadly, Kong is obviously long gone – and it’s here that they discover Totenkopf’s evil plan. It seems that the two vials Polly had briefly held contain the genetic material for a new Adam and Eve which Totenkopf can use to rebuild a new master race. This generic/genetic reboot will be loaded aboard a rocketship, along with a collection of miniaturized animals – a space “Noah’s Ark” if you will – and when the rocket reaches space, the afterburners will ignite the atmosphere and kill everyone on Earth.

 

Can our heroes stop this evil plot?

Stray Observations:

• The title character “Sky Captain” was mostly likely a nod to the serial Commander Cody: Sky Marshall of the Universe from 1953.
• The giant robots that attack the city were clearly inspired by the Max Fleischer Superman cartoon “The Mechanical Monsters.”
• As the machines are blasting away at the street to get to the generators, the sound effect used is the same as the Martians’ guns from The War of the Worlds (1953).
• Sky Captain and Polly Perkins pass over a sunken steamer named “Venture” which was the ship that brought King Kong to New York City.
• Angelina Jolie’s character sports an eye patch and commands what is basically a Helicarrier. Could she be a Nick Fury from a Marvel Multi-verse?

 

“Let me tell you about the Avengers Initiative.”

One of the film’s main attractions is its distinctive visual style, which seamlessly blends CGI backgrounds with live-action performances. The monochromatic colour palette coupled with occasional bursts of vibrant hues provides a sense of retro-futurism that’s captivating to behold. The attention to detail in designing the film’s technology and environments is commendable, effectively immersing the audience in an alternate 1939. However, the heavy reliance on green screens and CGI also contribute to a disconnect between the actors and their surroundings, resulting in moments that lack genuine physicality and emotional resonance. The blend of Art Deco-inspired environments, giant robots, futuristic aircraft, and breathtaking landscapes create a sense of wonderment that harks back to the golden age of adventure cinema, but even if one must admit this is a visually striking film it ultimately falls short in terms of storytelling, character development, and cohesive execution.

 

The film definitely needed more Bai Ling.

The storyline, while not groundbreaking, carries a nostalgic essence of classic pulp fiction serials and captures the spirit of the era it emulates but its overall narrative is its Achilles’ heel, despite Conran’s attempt to emulate the spirit of adventure serials, it ultimately fails to construct a compelling and coherent story. The plot revolves around a generic “save-the-world” premise, with mysterious robots attacking major cities and a group of heroes racing against time to uncover the truth behind the threat. Unfortunately, the plot lacks depth and complexity, leaving the audience with a predictable and underwhelming journey. Characters are mere vessels for the plot, devoid of genuine development or relatable motivations. Jude Law’s Sky Captain and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Polly Perkins, despite their star power, are given little to work with in terms of character arcs, resulting in a lack of emotional investment.

Note: Polly sabotaged Joe’s plane which resulted in him spending six months in a Manchurian prison camp, all because she thought he cheated on her, making Polly more of a villain than a heroin. Are we seriously supposed to be rooting for her?

The strained dynamic between our two leads is but one of many issues this film suffers from as Kerry Conran futilely tries for a balance between adventure, romance, and humour but fails miserably as these shifts between elements felt jarring and disjointed and the attempts to incorporate elements of campiness and nostalgia often clashed with the modern sensibilities of the visual effects, leading to moments where the film’s tone becomes uncertain. Furthermore, the pacing is uneven, with the film feeling overly rushed in some areas and needlessly prolonged in others. This lack of pacing cohesion exacerbates the issues with character development and narrative coherence.

 

When neat visuals trump proper plotting and good characterization.

In conclusion, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is a visually inventive film that while aspiring to pay homage to classic adventure serials. it ultimately faltered due to its weak storytelling, underdeveloped characters and inconsistent tone. While it successfully captured a sense of retro-futuristic wonder its lack of emotional depth and narrative substance prevented it from achieving its potential as a truly engaging cinematic. But say what you will about the result, for good or ill it did kick off the “Digital Backlot” mini-boom that would bring the world such films as 300 and Sin City.

The Phantom (1996) – Review

The 1990s saw many a studio scrambling to snatch up comic book properties, hoping to launch a franchise to rival the one Warner Brothers had with their Batman movies, and in 1996 Paramount Pictures would take their shot at the superhero genre with an adaptation of Lee Falk’s comic strip hero The Phantom. Would they be able to “Slam Evil” or would their attempt end up in the “cinema dustbin” with other failed comic book adaptations?

Set in the 1930s, The Phantom follows the adventures of Kit Walker (Billy Zane) the 21st in a line of heroes who have taken on the mantle of The Phantom, also known as “The Ghost Who Walks” due to his perceived immortality, to fight injustice and protect the innocent. The story begins when Kit learns of a nefarious plot by evil businessman Xander Drax (Treat Williams) to obtain three powerful artifacts known as the Skulls of Touganda, which could grant him unimaginable power, but with the help of his loyal wolf, Devil, and the resourceful journalist Diana Palmer (Kristy Swanson) he will embark on a globe-trotting quest to thwart Drax’s plans and save the world from catastrophe. This is not to say he won’t spend some time brooding in the Skull Cave, as any enterprise like this requires a good pre-brooding, but with the right friends at his side good will most likely prevail.

 

Just remember, there is no smoking in the Skull Cave.

Directed by Simon Wincer, 1996’s The Phantom has your standard MacGuffin plot, with both the heroes and the villains running around trying to acquire a certain object for some reason or another and in the case of this movie the MacGuffin is three skull-like artifacts that will not only provide the user with immense destructive power when combined but can also, individually, point to the location of their missing counterpoints. This predates Apple’s “Find Your Phone” app by several decades. This particular Easter Egg hunt is kicked off when a group of grave robbers tangle with The Phantom while acquiring the first of the Skulls of Touganda. One of the robbers (James Remar) escapes with the Skull but there is more than the lost skull to contend with as The Phantom learns that this particular robber is a member of the Sengh Brotherhood and is also the one who killed his father (Patrick McGoohan), the previous Phantom, and if the Brotherhood gets a hold of all three Skulls the world could fall into darkness.

 

Lucky for us, neither of these Skulls is crystal.

If there is one slightly disappointing aspect to this rendition of The Phantom it would be that, once again, we have a hero who uses guns but fails to actually shoot anyone with them – often taking the clichéd route of shooting the guns or blades out of his opponents’ hands – and it’s not like I want to see a Punisher level of carnage out of a comic strip hero but if the likes of Indiana Jones doesn’t have a problem shooting Nazis why does The Phantom have an issue killing members of an evil group who are trying to take over the world? Of course, that is a minor quibble in an otherwise incredibly fun film, one that has such a great cast of villains to clash with The Phantom. Aside from Treat Willams wonderfully chewing the scenery, as the power-hungry businessman Xander Drax, we get the Great Kabai Sengh (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), head of the Sengh Brotherhood, and a group of sky pirates led by the beautiful and dangerous Sala (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who may end up helping the good guys in the end, because it’s that kind of a movie.

Note: A femme fatale who leads an all-female group of pilots in league with a supervillain does remind one of Pussy Galore from James Bond’s Goldfinger.

Stray Observations:

• This movie is loosely based on Lee Falk’s first stories from The Phantom comic strip, “The Singh Brotherhood” and “The Sky Band.”
• Like Batman, comic strip creator Lee Falk borrowed and drew inspiration from the Zorro stories, with a hero living a dual life, but instead of a Batcave he’s got a Skull Cave.
• Not only does this film have a Pussy Galore knock-off we also get a scene where one of Drax’s criminal associates decides to opt out of this evil scheme and is murdered by Drax while walking out, which is a standard Bond villain cliché 101.
• When two of the skulls are placed together they will give the location of the third. Lucky for the villains, they’re in a room that has a world map on the wall for the skulls to point out the site of the missing skull, but what would they do if a map wasn’t handy?
• In both big chase sequences, through the jungles of Bangalla and the jungles of New York City, we inexplicably see bullets spark off the trunks of trees. Did no one tell the filmmakers that trees aren’t made of metal?
• As was the case with the 1994 adaptation of The Shadow, the hero is given two “longslide” 1911 automatics which didn’t exist until several decades later than the period this movie is set in.

 

Did both The Shadow and The Phantom have time-travelling gun dealers?

One of the film’s strengths is its dedication to staying true to the original comic strip as the filmmakers gave us the Phantom’s iconic purple costume, his dual pistols and his trusty white horse, Hero, which were faithfully recreated here. But more important is the fact that Billy Zane delivers a charismatic performance as the titular character, capturing the Phantom’s stoic demeanour and sense of duty, while also proving to have a nice dry sense of humour. Great cast aside, it’s the action sequences that are where this movie shines brightest as it combines classic adventure elements, like swashbuckling swordfights, daring escapes and treacherous jungle adventures in the most fun ways imaginable. It’s clear that the filmmakers had a genuine love for the material and this passion is evident in the thrilling set pieces that populate the movie. The lush jungle landscapes provide a visually appealing backdrop for the action and its score by David Newman complements the adventurous tone and adds to the overall nostalgic atmosphere. Overall, this film is a campy action-packed tale that has everything fans of comic book heroics could want and one that would make for a great double bill with Joe Johnston’s The Rocketeer.

Note: This movie was originally going to be the first of a trilogy, however, after it bombed at the box office the two sequels were cancelled.

In conclusion, while The Phantom may not have reached the same level of success as other superhero films would later achieve it remains an entertaining adventure tale that is suited for those who appreciate classic comic book storytelling. It’s a nice throwback to a simpler era of superhero cinema and it serves as a reminder of the enduring appeal of characters from the pages of pulp fiction. If you’re a fan of vintage adventure and are willing to overlook some of its shortcomings, The Phantom is worth watching, if not for the sake of nostalgia alone.