Godfrey Ho Appreciation Month - Let's Talk About Catman!

Cartoon by Christopher McElfresh

Catman in Lethal Track (1990)

Godfrey Ho is well known for his ninja films, but he also took a stab at other action sub-genres as well.  Case in point: Catman.  Catman is a recurring character who had reportedly only appeared in two Godfrey Ho films.  The first, which told of Catman’s origins is called Catman in Lethal Track (1990).  The second one, which had Catman pursuing a dangerous cult leader with Soviet connections, was titled Catman in Boxer’s Blow (1993).  In true Godfrey Ho fashion, these films were both released under one of Ho’s many, many pseudonyms and were also spliced in with two completely different and unrelated Hong Kong martial arts movies then redubbed to make them both “work... together..?”

Catman in Lethal Track, being the first and most essential film in his repertoire, glosses over the character’s origins and gives us a hint at who this character really is.  Of course, it’s Godfrey Ho so comprehensibility is often cast aside in lieu of more... entertaining pursuits.  Bear with me, here, this is going to get preeeety retarded.

The origins of Catman begin with bravery.  Two agents are walking along when they witness two junkies in the process of robbing a delivery truck with only one piece of cargo.  Are you ready for this...?  It’s a radioactive cat.  Yep.  Apparently we just carry those around in regular old pet cages.  Ho, attempting to get as close to ripping off Spiderman as he can without getting his ass sued off by Marvel Comics, then proceeds to give us some of the most awesome 90 minutes of film you will ever see in your entire life.  I am not kidding here.  I’m only going to focus on Catman’s story points as the irrelevant other film really just detracts from how awesome the titular hero is.  

Anyway, the two agents decide to intervene and, using the baseball bats they were carrying, (Presumably either for batting practice or for their audition of the stage performance of The Warriors) take on the two thugs.  During their engagement with the two punks, one of the agents gets scratched by the radioactive cat and is imbued with superpowers.  Over the course of the next few scenes we get Catman exploring his newfound abilities like the power to turn a TV on and off...

Catman and his buddy go on a crime-fighting escapade and ultimately face off against the gang the thugs they owned in the beginning of the film belong to.  Of course, the heroes (or the screenplay, however you decide to like at it) are really dumb and get led right into a trap, end up chained to trees and are preparing to be turned into ground chuck by explosive rounds.  Catman, however, is invincible and the explosion doesn’t kill him, it merely gives him the cover to slip his chains and vanish.  He breaks his buddy’s chains and runs into the brush leaving his friend to get turned into swiss cheese by about forty rounds of automatic fire.  Of course, the friend is totally okay and gets back up and runs away.

From here we see Catman and his buddy fight off the baddies, picking them out one by one in the clearing of the woods.  Note, judging by the timing of the scenes that led up to the heroes being brought to the woods, they’re probably just about a mile from a major metropolitan area and anyone can hear the reenactment of Platoon that is going on in the city’s backyard.  HA!  But, details!  Who gives a crap about details?!

The second film, Catman in Boxer’s Blow, is a lot weaker, with less fun badness and more sloppiness.  The plot involves Catman and his partner looking into a deranged cult leader who is part of a deadly Soviet ring.  Really, in my opinion, the funniest part of this film is how they start off this movie with their own M, in the form of a chubby politician who gives them their mission.  Boxer’s Blow is just weaksauce, lacking the laughs of the first one, still, it is Catman!

If you haven’t guessed yet, I think Catman is awesome.  He is one of the goofiest superheroes I’ve ever seen played straight and I just love how Catman-actor Jonathan Isgar hams up each performance with the typical hero cliches like posing with his fists on his hips and wearing a getup that is both goofy and epic.  The one liners are pretty great too, spouting off lines that would have been dated in 1965 like, “It looks like we’ve seen the last of our old friend!”  Watch these movies.  Both are in the public domain (as are many of Ho’s films) and are very much worth your time, Lethal Track in particular.  If you like fun, bad action movies, they really don’t get much better than this.

The Dark Knight Rises Review.

Cartoon by Christopher McElfresh

The Dark Knight Rises is the highly-anticipated finale to the massively successful and critically-acclaimed Christopher Nolan Dark Knight Trilogy.  So, how does this one stack up in the trilogy?  Well the best thing I can say is it is my second favorite film in the trilogy, after the Dark Knight, if only because it is a pretty intense, dark story with great set pieces, not because it is a great film.  The events that occur in this film line up nicely to a (somewhat) probable, violent, tragic and truly frightening series of events, culminating in an army of maniacal zealots and violent criminals keeping the good citizens of the city of Gotham in their homes, in fear for their very lives.

Initially, while I watched the film, I was utterly pissed off by just how broken this film really is.  There are so many problems with this movie, it may take a two-parter to really, honestly provide the necessary information as to why I did not thoroughly enjoy this movie.  Still, I’m going to keep this brief and start with this very important note:  If you take this as a dumb Summer action blockbuster, it is good by comparison.  However, if expectations are set for an intense, powerful, psychological drama with action, like the Dark Knight, then you will be entirely disappointed.



WARNING!!!:  SOME SPOILERS AHEAD

I’ll start with the acting.  First off, the best performances in the movie.  For me it goes to Michael Caine (no duh?!) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  The latter is essential to the plot, while Cain’s Alfred is there when the plot needs some drama and then he disappears, ultimately getting thrown out entirely until the very, VERY end of the movie.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the principal connection of the idea of Batman to the average citizen and the downtrodden.  He is the embodiment of the idea of a hero and how heroes inspire the best in us.  His character really drives this movie, as he is the actually conscience of the City of Gotham and he takes up the mantle during a large chunk of the movie where the Bat is out of the picture.  

Now, the worst acting comes from the two main sources of conflict in the most of the movie, Tom Hardy as Bane, and Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle (she is never actually referred to as “Catwoman”).  Starting with Bane, Tom Hardy’s accent is simultaneously unintentionally-hilarious and incomprehensible.  Probably about a third of his lines are actually coherent, the rest sound like a jumbled mess of digital filters and some really bad ADR that sounds like it was recorded clear on the other side of the world and sent to the editing booth via the worst possible mail service in the world on a dirty old audio cassette tape.  Now, my understanding is that test screenings had people saying they couldn’t understand ANYTHING that was said by Bane so they redid the whole of his lines and added them back in.  Note, this is third-hand information that I have not fully verified.  

The Dark Knight Rises Batman Logo Flat-Brim Baseball Cap

Now, I’m devoting a whole paragraph to Anne Hathaway because her character represents a principal issue with this whole film.  Catwoman had no reason to be in this movie.  Those who know me know that I have no love for Anne Hathaway.  Oscar aside, I find her exceptionally annoying and her expressions and vocal gymnastics she goes through in the Dark Knight Rises only further affirm my dislike of her as an actress.  I don’t know how she is personally, but as a talent, she is greatly lacking.  In DKR she is lost in how to carry Ms. Kyle.  She bounces between voices and demeanors and even goes so far as to mimic Eartha Kitt, Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry (WHY!?) all in a single brief scene.  This is not a good performance and it hurts the movie, not only because it was bad, but because it was completely unnecessary.  As I mentioned, she bears none of the weight of the plot and it is entirely obvious that she was written into a final draft of the script to throw in another female lead that wasn’t kidnapping fodder.  This is ultimately my big issue with this movie.  The Dark Knight Rises has studio stink all over it.  

You can make a freaking drinking game out of the elements that are obviously marketing decisions, not artistic ones.  A few other examples of this include the return of Cillian Murphy as Dr. Jonathan Crane as an evil judge and the last-minute reference to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character name change from “Robin”.  Both of these were eye-rolling and unnecessary and were obviously meant to quell speculation and ensure they can make the same little Scarecrow action figures, this time with a Dark Knight Rises graphic on the cardboard packaging instead of Batman Begins.

The Dark Knight Rises Bane Tee

DKR is really just a poor Batman Movie.  Batman is barely in it and when he is he is thoroughly getting his ass kicked.  I do like it when the movies makes their heroes breakable and human, but this is excessive.  The first time he doesn’t make the climb out of the pit I said “Man, you’ll get there.  I know you can do it Bruce!”, the second time I said “Oh, come on!” and when he finally makes it out I thought “About freaking time!”  The scenes with him in prison are some of the most boooooring parts of any movie I’ve seen all Summer, bringing the intense events we see in Gotham to a grinding halt so we can watch Christian Bale work out.

Now, I’ll offer few more positives before I seem like too much of a hater.  The action is good.  Like, really, really good.  This makes the Dark Knight Rises a fun sit, if you fast forward through the dragged-out prison scenes.  I did not completely hate DKR, and I was thoroughly entertained throughout most of this film.  The exciting action is sort of what pushes this one just a little higher than Batman Begins for me.  The climax is tense and well-done despite them going for the lowest-common-denominator in the obligatory “bomb diffused in the last second” cliche.  I do, however, like how the various citizens of Gotham work together to stop Bane’s boss, Bane himself and their army instead of just having Batman do all of the heavy lifting.

All in all, as a Summer blockbuster, DKR is not a bad movie.  It is a solid film with lots of good action and some great tension.  Still, it is not a great film.  It is not going to be a game changer and it certainly feels like a massive step backwards from the Dark Knight.  It will continue to make a ton of money through its run and through merchandise, but at this point, the Avengers remains my favorite blockbuster of this Summer so far.  I haven’t seen a single film yet in 2012 that can come close to the fun I had while watching that movie.

A Little-Late Film Review - The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

Cartoon by Christopher McElfresh

More than a decade ago Evil Dead begetter Sam Raimi launched a rebirth for Spider-Man, who had been mostly neglected by the studios, and turned it into a Hollywood cash cow.  A few years later, the first sequel to the series became one of the very few sequels in film history that were actually BETTER than their predecessor.  And then he broke it.  Spider-Man 3 was such a tremendous pile of FAIL that the series subsequently died.  Now, five years after we saw an emo Tobey Maguire slide not-so-gracefully across a dance floor causing a synonymous groan amidst the isles of theatres across America, (500) Days of Summer-director Mark Webb takes up the reins of the beloved franchise to redefine, revitalize, and make Columbia Pictures a shitload of money.

I’m not going to spend too much time on the story as, since this review is a little late, I’m sure anyone reading this has either seen it, or has already read up on the film.  Still, I wanted my piece to be out there, for the twelve people that will actually read this.  I’ll start by saying that this film is definitely a different take on the story.  

Batman Begins made it cool to have a darker tone in your comic book movies and, because it worked in that film, Hollywood once again misses the point entirely (it’s par for the course, really) and assumes the dark tone was precisely why those movies were pretty good.  Well, they were wrong.  We’ve seen a number of comic book franchises completely slaughtered on screen over the last few years and, with the exception of the Dark Knight and the Avengers, it has been brutal.  The Amazing Spider-Man is another film that tries to go this route, and the “dark” tone does not really seem to fit in this universe.

The premise takes Peter Parker all the way back to High School where he struggles with bullies and with his crush for the out-of-his-league-obligatory-female-co-star Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), who was one of three lovely ladies whom Peter Parker courted over the years in the comics.  Many of these high school scenes are really just set up so we can see him master his powers and fight the film’s villain along the walls and ceilings of its corridors.  It also provides some lead in to the romance between Parker and Stacy but is not the location at which their real character interactions and arcs occur.  What I’m basically saying here is most of the high school scenes are pointless, really.  I do, however, appreciate the inclusion of legacy Spider-Man jock Flash Thompson in the story, though he really only exists as a thin point of conflict, and the most pedestrian of villains, the bully.  His character is never even fully realized.  He gets his ass handed to him at basketball in a scene that is kind of entertaining but is really just trailer-bait and then his attitude and role changes entirely when Peter’s Uncle Ben is killed, at which he is pretty much dropped from the film entirely.

The scenes leading up to Peter obtaining his abilities can only be described by the most dreadful of film descriptors: Boring.  It’s hard to really care about the characters as many of them are barely flashed over (the same mistake the X-Men movies made) and after Peter becomes Spidey we really couldn’t care less about most of them, mainly because the film doesn’t.  Aunt Mae just exists to worry about Peter and the few relevant scenes she has are wasted.  They cast Sally Field and Martin Sheen as Mae and Ben, which I speculate was an attempt to make the older audience and film nerds go “Ohhhhhh!” but is really just kind of distracting, and is sort of a waste.  Still, the intimate scenes with Ben reaching out to Peter are some of the best in the movie, and thanks to the caliber of talent behind the roles, we do get a sense that these characters really do care about their nephew and the path he is traveling.

The point where the film really falls apart is when we are first introduced to the villain, the Lizard.  This is an odd choice to me as it sort of defeats the purpose that (I think) they were trying to achieve: bringing Spider-Man into the real world.  If it were the doctor just slightly deformed, or maybe a different villain entirely (preferably), it wouldn’t have been so bad.  But the dumb-looking CGI villain is such a out of place and really killed much of the tension for me.  He just looks so... bad!  What’s worse is the actor they chose to play him is really only okay and his performance has about as much subtlety as an in-costume Cirque-Du-Soleil performer riding an LED-lit unicycle through Times Square while blowing a flaming vuvuzela.

The action scenes are where this movie really shows its mettle, as they are well-directed and paced.  Little moments of tension and heavy scenes of pounding action flood the screen.  However, much of the tension is lost when we realize that these two characters are virtually indestructible.  They’re thrown through walls, blown up, slashed and shot and yet they remain unphased.  It sort of kills the tension when your hero is Reb Brown-level bulletproof and is seemingly fully invincible.  Yet, the way they flow, and the way the camera is used makes these gladiatorial bouts look good.

Now, a note on performances.  This is one of the Amazing Spider-Man’s biggest strengths over the original trilogy in my opinion.  Andrew Garfield is a much better actor than Tobey Maguire and the same applies to Emma Stone versus Kirsten Dunst, despite the fact that they are playing different characters.  The scene stealer, however, has to be Captain Stacy, Gwen’s father, the loud-mouthed, gung-ho leader we’d expect from a character played by the talented Dennis Leary.  The only performance I really didn’t like was Rhys Ifans’ villain.  I just found him too cartoonish and hammy for this film’s tone.  I also would like to point out a good performance from E.T.’s C.Thomas Howell in a small part as a construction worker and devoted father.

All that said, as negative as this review may sound, I would actually recommend this film.  It is not some great achievement, but compared to most comic book movies, it is not all that bad.  There is enough enjoyment to be had in this film to warrant a recommendation.  It just requires the viewer to put aside pretension and maybe just a little expectation to find entertainment in some of the film’s action scenes and the occasional bouts of humor.  The things that drag this one down is the endless melodrama, the lame villain and the idea that there really wasn’t any reason for this film to be made in 2012 (Besides making a ton of money, of course).