Simon Wincer’s “The Phantom” just doesn’t get any respect, damn it, and I think it deserves a lot more than it receives from movie fans. Not only does director Wincer embrace the source material of the Phantom, but he casts someone like Billy Zane, who fits so well in to the mold of the Phantom, it’s eerie. I just wish more audiences appreciated the boldness of the pulp hero sub-genre for “The Phantom” to have caught on and perhaps spawn a movie series. The best we got in the nineties was a pretty awesome animated series that provided a futuristic spin on Lee Falk’s comic strip superhero. “The Phantom” is a sleek and breezy action film in the vein of “Indiana Jones” that finds Zane as Kit Walker.
Tag Archives: Fantasy
Tales from the Hood (1995): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]
Twenty years later, and Rusty Cundieff’s horror anthology “Tales from the Hood” is probably the most socially relevant horror anthology ever created. 1995 gave way to some pretty tame horror entries, but “Tales from the Hood” doesn’t just try to scare, but has a good time delivering some schlock, and sneaks in a lot of social commentary about the race and class warfare that divided us then and continues to divide us more than ever, today. It’s too bad the movie never caught on as a cult classic, since re-watching it years later has allowed me to appreciate it so much more. “Tales from the Hood” tells four horror tales centered on an urban setting and social problem that ensues to this day, incidentally, and they end up being rather compelling and often very creepy.
The Deja Vuers (2017)
Director Chris Esper and writer Jason K. Allen have a lot of ideas about fate, irony, and destiny and integrates them well in his absurdist comedy short about a couple that meets on a bench one afternoon. “The Deja Vuers” is funny, but it’s also quite intelligent, arousing some unique thoughts about how much control we have over our own lives. Are we following some rhythm, or are we voluntarily setting the stage for our own futures? Kris Salvi is great as a man named Chuck who approaches Morgan one day while sitting on a park bench. He insists he’s had déjà vu with her, and remembers them meeting in a dream.
V: The Final Battle (1984)
This time around “V” embraces its science fiction roots more, allowing for a lot more looks in to the rebellion, and the inclusion of new corners of the visitors’ world and the rebels. Most of all, there’s the introduction of a Visitor/Human hybrid that becomes one of the larger symbols of the war, and is pushed back and forth between the resistance and people that think the visitors can stop the invasion and work with Earth. Months after the humans sent out the beacon for other alien species to help them take down the Visitors, nothing has happened and the humans are still trying to stop the Visitors and their plans. Now the Visitors are building new tactics, which includes armor that can deflect bullets, and a form of torture leader Diana has concocted that allows her to convert humans to the side of Visitors for programming.
V: The Original Miniseries (1983)
It’s been said time and time again that if we don’t learn from history that we’re doomed to repeat it, and “V” is a remarkable miniseries that examines what happens when history repeats itself. Set in a not too distant future, Earth is visited by a massive race of anthropomorphic alien beings that looks very human in nature. Though imposing, the alien race presents itself in a charming and docile manner, and interrupts civilization to settle alongside us. Known as the Visitors, they’re a very uniform mass of beings, all of whom proclaim themselves our friends after arriving in a fleet of large ships one day. By garnering help from various governments and influential people to acquire various chemicals and minerals for their ailing world, they agree to give Earth access to their advanced technology which they promise will cure diseases of all kinds. Soon enough, though they begin to insinuating themselves in to the general populace and before long create an environment of unease and tension among some individuals.
Hercules and Xena – The Animated Movie: The Battle for Mount Olympus (1998)
In the nineties, Hercules and Xena garnered humongous fan bases that were vocal and loud. And this was long before the internet became a common facet in every home in the world. Hercules begat Xena and Xena became the more popular of the pairing, with Hercules still showing up every so often to remind us that, yes, Kevin Sorbo was still on his journeys as the half god. Both series were so big they even prompted a ton of merchandise, including a prequel TV series aimed at kids starring a very young Ryan Gosling, and this animated action movie, which barely clocks in at eighty minutes. I’m not sure if this movie is even considered canon, but it is Hercules and Xena together again, fighting evil Titans and trying to stop the evil Goddess Hera.
Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins (1995)
The first time I ever saw “Mortal Kombat” was in 1992 when I stopped by a grocery store on the way to school and saw a pair of guys battling one another on the arcade cabinet. Though “Street Fighter 2” was huge, “Mortal Kombat” made its own waves by realistic character models and some of the most vicious video game violence ever conceived in its era. So came the 1995 movie where not even then was there this much babbling about supernatural forces, and tournaments. “The Journey Begins” works overtime to build a mythology from this simple video game, and fails big time. It feels like someone at Threshold Studios were alerted about the upcoming movie and only had about two weeks to build a respectable animated tie-in.