Title: The Phantom (1996)
Director: Simon Wincer
Cast: Billy Zane, Treat Williams, Catherine Zeta-Jones,
James Remar, Kristy Swanson
My introduction to the Lee Falk’s The Phantom was by way of
a cartoon show from the 80’s called Defenders of the Earth; boy I was a fan of
that show! It united Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician (another one of Falk’s
creations) and The Phantom in a show that turned them into a team of super
heroes who in every episode would go up against Ming the Merciless in his
attempt to conquer the earth. Back then I must have been about 11 or 12 years
old but little did I know that The Phantom had such a legacy as a character! Here’s
a character that started way back in the 1930’s as a syndicated comic strip. It
has gone on to appear in all sorts of media outlets including films, cartoons, video
games, comic books and novels. Sad part about the character is that even though
Lee Falk constantly made efforts to get the character out there to the public,
for some reason modern audiences never connected with the character, which is probably the
reason why the film made back ’96 flopped in such a big way.
After the mega success of Batman (1989) and its sequel
Batman Returns (1992) all the major studios were looking for a way to duplicate
the success of those films and so suddenly, comic book films where the hot
ticket. Before Burton’s Batman, big budget comic book films were a rarity. Yes
my friends, there was a time when comic book lovers were starving for superhero
films! We earned for worthy adaptations of our favorite comic book characters. A
glimpse of light showed itself on the horizon when Burton’s bat films made it
so big. After Batman comic book fans got least one big budget comic book movie every
summer. The problem was that most studios didn’t go for modern comic book
characters, for some reason they opted to go with old comic book heroes, like
The Rocketeer (1991), The Shadow (1994) and the film I’ll be reviewing today, The
Phantom (1996). I guess studios wanted to go the safe route by making films of
these established characters. No matter how old they were, studios thought
movies based on these characters would make huge bank at the box office because
they were classic super heroes. But boy were they wrong! Studios didn’t know it
back then, but people didn’t want to see super heroes from the 30’s, they
wanted to see modern day super heroes brought to life. The disappointing box
office success of these three super hero films based on old characters taught
film studios that what people wanted was something else, something modern. It
was 20th Century Fox who finally went the right way and did a film
based on Marvel comics X-Men (1999). Comic book movies haven’t stopped since,
the new age of comic book films was born. But it seems studios haven’t learned
their lesson entirely, cause they’ve just gone and spent 200 million dollars in
making The Lone Ranger (2013), which has immediately lost a ton of money at the
box office and is poised to become this year’s runaway turkey.
The Phantom, next to his horse 'Hero'
But what of The Phantom? Why did it flop? Aside from it being
an old comic book character? Well, to be honest, the film isn’t all that
exciting. I mean, be it old or new, what really matters at the end of the day
is if the film is worth a damn, if it entertains. So doe it? Well, in my book it half way does. For me the film never truly takes off. Even though
it was written by Jeffrey Boam; the guy who wrote Indiana Jones and The Last
Crusade (1989), The Phantom still managed to be boring and flat. Even the fights
were filmed in a boring way! Here I was watching the climactic fight between
the good guy and the bad guy and I was like, that’s it, this is the best they
could muster? The film isn’t impressive enough. I mean, I did appreciate the
way the film tried to convey this feeling of old adventure films, of the old
cliffhangers from the 50’s. Hidden caves, hidden treasures, good guys chasing
bad guys while riding horses, the hero jumping off planes, pirates, swords…cool
ideas, my only problem is in the execution, it all amounts to a boring film,
which is a sad thing to be if you’re a superhero film.
Another thing that rubbed me the wrong way was how many
elements were ripped off from the Indiana Jones films. I mean, okay, you got
the same guy who wrote Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to write this, but
damn the similarities are so many that you almost feel like you are watching
the Indiana Jones films all over again. Let’s see, the whole film is about
these three magical skulls, kind of like those three magical stones from
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)? When they get together they are
all powerful? Been there seen that. They have this scene where the bad guys
unite the three magical skulls and laser lights come out of the skulls eyes and
the lasers point out a spot on the map that shows the bad guys where they need
to go to get the third skull….which instantly reminded me of a similar scene in
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) in which Indy does the same exact thing. There
this scene in which The Phantom jumps off a plane with his girl and the plane
crashes on a mountain, a scene plays out in the same exact fashion in Temple of
Doom, even the shots are similar! Even the opening of the film takes place in
an old bridge, same as that old bridge that Indy dangles from in Temple of
Doom, so yeah, the filmmakers behind The Phantom used the Indiana Jones films
as a blue print. Unfortunately, they were unable to duplicate the excitement behind
those films.
On the positive side of things, the film does scream
Saturday Morning Matinee, and it does manage to have that old fashion sense of
adventure to it, and come on, let’s face it, that cheesy, cliffhanger stuff is
cool if you’re a genre fan. The overall vibe is fun and nutty, and when we take
in consideration Treat Williams performance as the villain ‘Xander Drax’, the
film is also over the top, not meant to be taken seriously at all. This is not a
serious or close to reality take on a super hero like The Dark Knight (2008), in
fact, this is the complete opposite, pure ridiculousness. In fact, the writer
of the film, Jeffrey Boam, wrote his original script as a spoof. Unfortunately,
the director didn’t go with the funny vibe, he tried playing it straight.
Still, you can see glimpses of the comedic elements that Boam put into the script.
I mean, we are talking about a guy wearing a purple skin tight suit while swinging
from tree vines in the middle of the African jungle! In fact when I think about
it, this film has a lot in common with the Batman television show from the 60’s!
You almost expect a WHAM! to appear on the screen when The Phantom punches a
bad guy. So I guess if you go in expecting pulpy, over the top, campiness, then
you should have a better time watching this, but still, there are many things
that hinder the enjoyment of the flick, for example, the sets are so obviously
sets! They didn’t even try to make them look realistic. The ending of the film,
which takes place inside of a cave is so obviously a sound stage it’s not even
funny! The whole thing looks so cheap.
Many directors were interested in bringing The Phantom to
the big screen. At one point, even Sergio Leone himself expressed interest in directing
the film! He even wanted to follow it up with a Mandrake the Magician film! Can
you imagine that? The Phantom directed by Sergio Leone? Damn, that sounds cool
just reading it! Joe Dante and Joel Schumacher were also at one time going to
direct, but the project eventually fell on the hands of Simon Wincer, the
director behind D.A.R.Y.L. (1985), Free Willy (1993) and Operation Dumbo Drop (1995).
If you ask me, any of the previous directors that came before him would have
made a better film. The studio had wanted to make this film since the late
eighties and early nineties, but various factors stumped the production. One of
the reasons why the project came to a screeching halt was The Shadow, which ended up being an abysmal failure, so suddenly, comic book films based on characters from the 1930's didn't seem like such a good idea. Still, the project pushed on and
we got The Phantom, which while not the worst comic book movie ever made,
leaves a lot to be desired. Still, the film does have a good performance from
Billy Zane as The Phantom. He actually pumped iron for more than a year so he
could get all beefed up for the part. He didn’t want to use fake muscles like
other superhero films. But then again the mind wonders: what would Bruce
Campbell have looked like playing The Phantom? That’s right my friends he was
up for the part! So was Dolph Lungdren! Instead we got Billy Zane, a lifelong
fan of The Phantom. So in the end, I’d say that The Phantom is still a fun
watch, just go in with low expectations and you just might have some fun.
Rating: 3 out of 5
Lee Falk and Billy Zane
5 comments:
Ah, good ol' The Phantom! I've always been an on-off-on-off-on-off-on-off fan of the Phantom comics all my life. Definitely a usually entertaining comic series, even if the hero is dressed like a purple dildo.
Agree with you Franco. The cast and script are largely fine. The big problem is the director Simon Wincer. He makes all the action scenes so dull and sluggish.
Such a shame as it could have been a good little film. Would have been very interesting to see Campbell in the lead but I liked Zane a lot in this.
I too was a huge fan of Defenders of the Earth. Don't know why they never tried to adapt that as film instead. There was also futuristic Phantom cartoon called Phantom 2040.
@Chris: Yeah, I hear the filmmakers took out the traditional striped underwear The Phantom wears because they looked too silly!
Jack mentioned it in his comment, but Phantom 2040 was actually a really good animated series, its highly recommended for any Phantom fan.
@Jack: Yeah, it was the director who dropped the ball, he's mostly a director of family films, not action adventure, a more skilled director in action and fx would have been more appropriate in my book.
Agree, Zane is awesome on this one, he was the perfect actor for the role. Campbell would have been interesting as well, but he would've probably hammed it up a lot.
A Defenders of the Earth movie would be like an Avengers film, really expensive! I actually bought the series on DVD and have been re-watching it on Saturday mornings, like back in the day! Of course, the stories are ultra simplistic, but I still like the show, Flash Gordon, The Phantom and Mandrake, what a cool combo.
I have to say that even though there are some things from the nineties' that I like, I've never much cared for it. I perfer the eighties.I know it's funny to judge an entire decade.
I mostly like it for the fact that it had hipsters who didn't say they were better than everybody and wanted to say what they wanted. And rap was tasteful back then and you had good messages in songs that sounded like they were only for adults.
And I mostly DON'T like it because it feels like a reactionary, overlong meme. After true hipsters came along. People came in and said "hey, that's a cool fad. Let's get it on it". So you had pretend hipsters which basically lead to pop-culture and the creation of Hot Topic.
But hey, that's me. Come check out my site some time. You're a good reviewer. Or should I say "connoisseur".
Great!
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