Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing is long gone, of course; I assume the audience that didn’t come to it was made up mostly of kids too young to be familiar with the comic, and of older folks who wouldn’t be caught dead at something called Swamp Thing. Personally, I look back on Swamp Thing with fondness. It didn’t turn out to be as much sheer fun as I had expected, but it did have an ingratiating love for its disreputable subject.

Adrienne Barbeau plays a scientist who joins a research group deep in the bayou; she meets a handsome project leader and a case of the mutual hots springs up. They’re working on a potion that will regenerate life in plants, or animals, or something like that, and it seems they have a pretty explosive juice that’ll do just that when – the bad guys show up. Led by Louis Jourdan (who gets to do some delectable eye-rolling), they have it in mind to use the stuff for their own evil ends. Adrienne’s beau grabs the only existing sample, is shot running out of the lab, and explodes into a ball of flame before he plunges into the swamp. As Adrienne is chased through the swamp during the next few days, she is repeatedly saved from the clutches of the villains by this … what else can we call it but – this “Swamp Thing.”

Director-writer Wes Craven’s work is highly regarded in some critical circles, but this is my first Craven film, so I can’t shed much auteurist light on Swamp Thing. The story is well told, but some of the dialogue – particularly in the expository first twenty minutes or so – is incredibly banal, especially the light-hearted humor. Lines like “You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps,” are delivered straightforwardly, without irony, suggesting that a? Craven has a pretty square sensibility, and actually thinks these lines are funny, or b) Craven is dutifully re-creating the kind of dialogue found in comic-book adventures. I hope it’s b) but I’m not sure. There are some funny things, like Jourdan’s hubristic speeches and the tacky makeup/costume he puts on near the end, when he drinks the elixir that transforms him into a hairy-backed, bearlike thing that is vanquished by our muddy hero in a bayou knockdown drag-out.

As for Swamp Thing himself, I expected him to look a little messier, with maybe more swamp paraphernalia hanging from him. But his heart is in the right place, even if the rest of him isn’t always. And I guess you could say the same thing about the movie.

First published in The Informer, May 1982

I had forgotten this was my first Wes Craven film – huh. Not sure when I caught up with the previous pictures, but I just read that this movie’s flop had Craven wondering whether his career was over. Louis Jourdan’s next movie was as a James Bond villain (Octopussy), so somebody noticed what he was up to here. Ray Wise played the scientist, and Dick Durock was S. Thing, a role he reprised in the sequel. Also: Adrienne’s beau? I never know if anybody notices this stuff. My “What else can we call it but –” riff was inspired by Mad magazine’s brilliant “Heap” satire, by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder, which was reprinted in one of the Mad books I gobbled up as a kid.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

After the lukewarm success of Superman III, the Superman series seemed to be dead; Christopher Reeve, who had made such a heroic Superman (and such a charmingly inept Clark Kent) declared he’d have no more of it. He wanted to be taken seriously as an actor, and he went to some pains to prove it in a string of box-office duds such as Monsignor, The  Bostonians, and the recent Street Smart.

Those films having stiffed, Reeve now finds it within reason to take the old role again. But it may be more than career inertia that lured Reeve back into the tights and cape. He’s been given some creative control on Superman IV – he’s credited on the screenplay – and he’s turned the project into a message movie.

This is achieved in much the same way that the latest Star Trek movie became a save-the-whales picture. Superman IV is an anti-nuke movie, although it wraps its message in the familiar characters and situations that have made these films so successful. Prompted by a letter from a schoolboy, our hero decides to eliminate all the nuclear weapons on the Earth. And he does.

However, it turns out that this idea is just one tendril from a real jellyfish of a script. There’s also the dilemma of the Daily Planet being taken over by a Rupert Murdoch-type scandalmonger (Sam Wanamaker); then there’s his daughter (Mariel Hemingway), who takes much romantic interest in Clark Kent; another tentative match between Superman and Lois Lane (Margot Kidder); and, of course, that archvillain Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman), who’s up to his old tricks.

Hackman’s scenes serve up much of the film’s fun. His campy villainy remains from the first two Superman films, with the assistance of a dim-witted nephew (Jon Cryer). This time, he’s got a strand of Superman’s superhair, which he clones into a solar-powered anti­-hero called Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow) who does battle with Supe on the moon. In one of the film’s funniest scenes Hackman chides Superman, “You’re so involved with this world peace thing, you don’t have time for social calls,” and advises the Man of Steel to relax; get a hobby, or a pet.

The film is much too rangy and fragmented, but their are flashes of the old wit. Much of the likable, self-effacing tone is here, under Sidney J. Furie’s direction, and the easy comedy that surrounds the Clark Kent character is intact.

But is also feels rushed, and it’s too short at 90 mlnutes to hook us deeply. The movie needs another half-hour to stretch out; I had the feeling that whole scenes had been slashed out at some point in the filmmaking process. Some bridging scenes might have explained the biggest mystery in the film: How exactly does Superman eliminate the nuclear weapons, anyway?

Apparently he grabs them as they’re shot up into space, one by one, although this doesn’t explain how he will account for every warhead. Worse, we then see him gather the missiles into a galaxy-sized fishing net, swing it around, and heave the whole mess into the sun. This cockeyed image throws the movie’s anti-nuke message into the realm of the incredible, where it will probably remain until a real Superman comes along.

First published in the Herald, July 28, 1987

I’m afraid I have forgotten everything about this movie, including the fact that it reunited the old gang and threw Jon Cryer into the mix. But I do remember the feeling of a non-event, especially the almost insulting running time; Cannon Films produced the movie, and along with taking their cut-rate approch during the filming itself, they also ripped a bunch of footage from an original preview version. I’m not sure why I accuse a Superman movie of going into the realm of the incredible, but maybe you know what I mean.

Batman

Since last December, a coming-attractions trailer has provided some sights that often outclassed the movies that followed it. It was the preview for Batman, a new treatment of the great comic-book character (created 50 years ago by Bob Kane), and the trailer was full of tantalizing visions of a slick Batmobile, an incredible Bat-costume, and an outrageous look for Batman’s arch enemy, the Joker.

That the Joker is played by Jack Nicholson and Batman by Michael Keaton helped fuel the anticipation. So did the fact that the movie was directed by the gifted young director of Beetlejuice, Tim Burton. And the news that the budget had climbed to anywhere from $30 to $50 million suggested all the stops had been pulled.

So, how is it? Well…Batman is fun, offers an evening’s worth of thrills, and contains a few shots and moments that are quite flabbergasting. It is also not a very good movie. On some basic level, Batman doesn’t really know what it’s about, and from the first, it fails to find a satisfying groove.

One reassuring aspect becomes clear from the beginning: This Batman has nothing to do with the campy 1960s television series. Bruce Wayne, the millionaire, spends his free time wearing tights and a hard-shell bodysuit and scaling the skyscrapers of Gotham City in search of evildoers. He’s avenging the death of his parents, shot down in the street before his eyes when he was a child, and he’s serious about it.

In the film’s early scenes, a loopy criminal, Jack Napier (Nicholson), is cornered by Batman in a chemical plant. Falling into a vat of toxic material, he is transformed into the Joker, whose hideous face is matched by his hideous jokes (and yet, as he points out, “Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?”).

The Joker takes Gotham on a roller coaster of terror, but Batman is there to counter every move. What’s a criminal genius to do: “Can somebody tell me,” the Joker wonders, resplendent in his purple suit and green hair, “what kind of a world we live in where a guy dressed up as a bat gets all of my press?”

These battles are played off against the rather pallid romance of Bruce Wayne and Vickie Vale (Kim Basinger), a photographer who falls for the troubled millionaire.

Burton achieves some dazzling angles on Gotham City, a weird, overgrown metropolis, and he catches the menace in the dark clouds than glower over the church tower that serves as the setting for the final showdown of the adversaries.

A triumph of design, the film can’t seem to tell a story. It took 10 years for the project to pass through various scripts and directors before this version hit the screen, and no one found a coherent tale to tell. Scenes feel isolated, unconnected; a scene in which the Joker parties down in an art museum is weird and funny, but what does it have to do with anything else in the movie?

Burton cast Michael Keaton as Batman because he thought an everyman was needed (the theory: if Bruce Wayne were a superman to begin with, why would he dress up like a bat?). Keaton is not bad, but the conception of the role renders him nearly catatonic—an eccentric who simply doesn’t hold down a 9-to-5 job.

This leaves the field open for Nicholson, who is not about to miss this opportunity. Of course Nicholson attacks the role with demonic fury; he twists out the Joker’s punchlines with heroic energy. When Batman flags, just watch Jack: he’ll pump in the laughing gas.

First published in the Herald, June 22, 1989

Yeah: shrug. I remember that summer, hearing people quoting lines from the movie to each other, and thinking that a new generation (I was 30) was taking over the watching and processing of movies, somehow. The word “fanboy” wasn’t in use, as far as I know (and I wouldn’t have known then whether it was), but this movie, and the increasingly complicated arguments about its authenticity and faithfulness to the spirit of the meaning of Batman, was a turning point that has led us to movies today.

Supergirl

There are few things sadder than the unmistakable chill of a craze gone cold. The first two Superman movies captured the imagination of the movie-going public and made a star out of the likable leading man, Christopher Reeve. The excitement was already cooling when Superman III appeared, awkwardly tailored to incorporate Richard Pryor.

Reeve has long since hung up his cape, but those industrious producers of the series, the Salkind family, insist on going to the well at least one more time. Yes, it’s Supergirl, the Man of Steel’s feminine counterpart—also a longtime DC Comics character—but this time out, the thrill is gone. And, apparently, not too many people care.

The Salkinds went back to the formula that made the original Superman such a delight: an unknown player as the hero, a big-star villain, a largely comic tone, and the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

Some of these elements actually work. Helen Slater, making her film debut in the title role, is quite adorable. She shares Reeve’s ability to communicate goodness without making it seem yucky. But she doesn’t always hold the screen too well against her fellow actors—one of whom is Faye Dunaway, the villain who has a hunger for “total world domination,” as she demurely puts it.

She gets her chance. In the undersea community of Argo, Kara (Slater) asks the great Zaltar (Peter O’Toole) what a certain funny round ball is all about. Zaltar explains that the glowing orb is the power source for the whole society (at least, I think that’s what he says—the sound went out at this point when I saw the movie). Kara accidentally lets the ball slip through the Saran Wrap covering of the planet. She goes to the Earth’s surface to retrieve it.

This little doohickey happens to land in Dunaway’s lunch. She’s a witch, picnicking in the vicinity. Sensing (correctly) that it may instill her with ultimate power, she grabs the thing and heads back to her lair, in an old amusement park, and starts doing nasty things to people.

Meanwhile, Kara enrolls in a local girls’ school, claiming to be the cousin of Clark Kent. As luck would have it, Dunaway is often on the scene, and the two lock horns when the witch flexes her magical muscles by trying to make the campus hunk (Hart Bochner) fall in love with her. Instead, he loves Supergirl, and Dunaway starts twitching those magnificent eyebrows and flaring those unforgettable nostrils.

I wish this had been more fun, but the fact is, Supergirl is without style or wit. The early scenes are rushed—there’s none of the lovely myth-making of Superman—and the action is just plain silly. Superman was funny, but when the chips were down, you (admit it) cared about what was going to happen next. That never happens here.

Director Jeannot Szwarc, of Jaws 2 fame, used to be a pretty decent television director—he made many episodes of “Night Gallery” and “Columbo”—and he still is a decent television director. The good news is, he probably won’t be allowed near another Super… project (if there is ever another one). The bad news is he’s already filmed Santa Claus, another legend cinematized by the Salkinds.

The big S and the red cape may be retired for good with this one. On opening night of Supergirl, the thundering music and traditional stormy credit-roll were greeted by a half-empty theater. Nobody seemed excited in the way they did when the Superman movies opened. Regardless of what you think of Supergirl, that’s a little sad.

First published in the Herald, November 24, 1984

Obviously Reeve would later climb back into the role, but the proposed Supergirl franchise was not to be. Szwarc had his big-screen shot, then returned to television, where he is still crankin’ ’em out. He did only one “Columbo,” according to IMDb.com (the one with Vera Miles), but many a “Night Gallery” and other series fare.

The Return of Swamp Thing

Durock – Locklear – Swampy Redux

As comic-book heroes go, Swamp Thing is surely a poor cousin to Batman, especially in this summer of blockbusters. You don’t see any full-color spreads in Newsweek about Swamp Thingmania.

However, Swamp Thing also has a summer movie, and he acquits himself reasonably well, although admittedly at a lower level of ambition than the man in the cape. The Return of Swamp Thing brings us up to date on the status of the vegetative superhero, last seen in 1982’s Swamp Thing. Like that film, Return is a clever B-movie, delivered tongue-in-cheek.

Louis Jourdan returns as the evil genius whose experiments have gotten out of hand in the bayou country. (In one scene he begins reciting lyrics from Gigi, which is either an index of how far this actor’s career has fallen or a measure of his healthy sense of humor.) His laboratory in the swamp is full of experimental cross-bred creatures, such as a cockroach man.

Heather Locklear is his stepdaughter, who comes to his lab to investigate the mysterious circumstances of her mother’s death. Naturally, Jourdan takes one look at her and wants to use her for a genetics experiment.

Luckily, the Swamp Thing (Dick Durock) is around to protect her. The dialogue between these two provides the movie’s high points, as when Heather coyly asks the big man, “Is there a Mrs. Swamp Thing?”

They are meant for each other, although the Swamp Thing has his doubts: “Me—your boyfriend?” he wonders. She says, “Why not?” To which he replies, in a rare moment of self-reflective bitterness, “You said it yourself: I’m a plant.”

Director Jim Wynorski keeps things light. Locklear can’t act; when she’s called upon to sound anguished—”I seem to be haunted by things I can’t resolve”—she sounds as though she’s ordering a Diet Coke. But she can fill out an evening dress, which is the main requisite for the role.

First published in the Herald, July 6, 1989

The summer of the Tim Burton Batman—now that was a big deal, if not a great movie. That anybody even thought of putting out a Swamp Thing sequel is kind of charming, and apparently it wasn’t terrible. The question about Louis Jourdan, by the way, seems to have been answered in favor of his healthy sense of humor. Director Wynoski, according to IMDb, is an extremely hard-working gentleman, having most recently made Piranhaconda for Roger Corman’s zany series of made-for-TV monster movies.