Science Fiction

Shapeshifter (1999)

Shapeshifter (1999)
AKA Shifter

Starring Paul Nolan, Bill MacDonald, Catherine Blythe, Emmanuelle Vaugier, Theodor Danetti, Serban Celea, George Ilie, Andrei Finti, Marioara Sterian

Directed by Philippe Browning

Expectations: Low.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

What do spies, gypsies, asteroids and shapeshifting have in common? Before watching Shapeshifter I would have said, “Nothing,” but now I know the truth. These disparate elements are actually all tied together in the grand scheme of life. While you go about your business brushing your teeth or walking your dog, there are people out there doing the big work, playing hypnotic new age music on glass bowls. And if that made no sense to you, don’t worry. It is not our place as common mortals to understand the work that goes on behind the scenes to ensure our lives are safe.

Shapeshifter starts out much more reserved, though, leaving the fantasy elements on the back burner and out of sight for the first 30 minutes. The story opens with a seemingly unrelated scene involving a gypsy kid picking up a fallen asteroid, but our tale truly begins when we meet Alex. His parents have recently quit the spy business and are moving back to the United States to enjoy the rest of their lives — or so they thought! The night they arrive, evildoers come by way of van and kidnap Alex’s parents! Good thing Alex was in the attic playing with his parents’ spy gear.

Galactic Gigolo (1987)

Galactic Gigolo (1987)
AKA Club Earth

Starring Carmine Capobianco, Debi Thibeault, Frank Stewart, Ruth Collins, Donna Davidge, Michael Citriniti, Tony Kruk, David Coughlin, Angela Nicholas, Barry Finkel, Todd Kimsey, J.E.L. Gitter, Don Sirasky, Bill Gillogly

Directed by Gorman Bechard

Expectations: Moderately high.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

After a few weeks off from the Full Moon series, I wanted to come back with a bang — an intergalactic bang! Galactic Gigolo tells the story of Eoj, a traveler from the planet Kroywen who won a two-week trip to Prospect, CT (AKA “The Horniest Town in the Galaxy”). Its reputation is apparently legendary universe-wide. Eoj is a broccoli on Kroywen (which is populated entirely by sentient vegetables), but thankfully he has the ability to transform himself into anything imaginable while visiting Earth. For his trip to Prospect, he chooses the form of “The Loveable Sleaze-oid” (Carmine Capobianco) and creates quite the stir upon his arrival.

Contrary to what that plot description might lead you to believe, Galactic Gigolo is not a heartfelt, emotional drama. I know… hard to believe. No, Galactic Gigolo is a dumb, stupid, low-brow sex comedy, and I mean that in the best way possible. Galactic Gigolo knows exactly how wild and absurd its premise is, and it revels in that. Therefore, it can be a bit disconcerting if you’re not ready for it. Even if you are properly prepared, it’s still not as funny as it thinks it is, but it’s all in good fun, and it’s definitely the best space-faring sex comedy about a shapeshifting broccoli that I’ve ever seen. The climax is a series of Three Stooges style gags and a bunch of pies to the face, so that should tell you right there if the movie is right for you.

Man of Steel (2013)

Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, Antje Traue, Harry Lennix, Richard Schiff, Christopher Meloni, Kevin Costner, Ayelet Zurer, Laurence Fishburne

Directed by Zack Snyder

Expectations: I’m so excited.

When they announced Man of Steel as a darker, Nolan-influenced take on Superman, I rejoiced. The Christopher Nolan Batman films were great! So this would be too! What I failed to think about was that by darkening the character and his world, it inherently changes a lot of what I enjoy about the Superman films. This is definitely a better stab at Superman than audiences were given in 2006 with Superman Returns, but even that film had something of a sense of fun. Man of Steel is virtually devoid of fun, and in that I found it to be one of the least enjoyable films I’ve reviewed throughout my Superman review series.

Man of Steel is considered a complete reboot of the series, but in a lot of ways it’s something of a streamlined remake of Richard Donner’s Superman I and II. The film opens with a lengthy sequence on Krypton, setting up an interesting dynamic between Jor-El and General Zod, as well as the traditional “baby Supes blasting off of the dying world” that everyone expects. This begins something of a pattern with the film where it doesn’t exactly feel as unique and fresh as they’d like you to think it is. Imagine The Dark Knight containing scenes featuring the “Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?” lines from Tim Burton’s Batman, and you’ll feel something of what I felt during this film. This is something they probably couldn’t avoid too much when trying to tell the story of General Zod, but I could have done without another version of Zod landing in middle America and smashing up a small town. There’s even a scene that’s very reminiscent of Supergirl‘s “flying ballet.”

Superman Returns (2006)

Starring Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey, James Marsden, Parker Posey, Frank Langella, Sam Huntington, Eva Marie Saint, Marlon Brando, Kal Penn, Tristan Lake Leabu

Directed by Bryan Singer

Expectations: I’m so excited.

There’s a point in Superman Returns when Lex Luthor looks upon his villainous creation and notes that it “lacks the human element.” This same thing could be said of the film overall. Superman Returns does its best to recapture the Donner magic, but instead of taking his lead and going forward with courage, Bryan Singer largely just trades on the built-up nostalgia for Donner’s classic film. But big-budget films are inherently different than they were in 1978, so while Superman Returns might replicate certain visuals and characters, it never recaptures the tone or the wonder that make Superman: The Movie a film that continually resonates with audiences. It is still enjoyable at times, though, even if millions of dollars in CG are in some ways less successful than the simple blue-screen FX of 1978 in making us believe that a man can fly.

By calling this a sequel to Superman and Superman II, Singer willfully puts his film up alongside one of the best and most successful superhero films of all time (and its troubled, but fun sequel). Singer’s film is nothing close to that level, and connecting it with things like Marlon Brando and the John Williams theme only shines a light directly on the film’s flaws. Any new Superman movie is already working against a huge amount of hype, but to say “This one is the true sequel to the great films you remember!” is really ballsy.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

Starring Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Mariel Hemingway, Jackie Cooper, Marc McClure, Jon Cryer, Sam Wanamaker, Mark Pillow, Damian McLawhorn, William Hootkins, Jim Broadbent

Directed by Sidney J. Furie

Expectations: I’m so excited.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

People don’t like this movie? Really? Please tell me why in the comments, because I just don’t understand it. The budget is definitely smaller here, and some of the flying looks noticeably bad. The story is a little jumpy, moving from one thing to the next somewhat haphazardly. And Superman’s adversary is Nuclear Man, a construct created by Lex Luthor from a strand of Superman’s hair who does a lot of yelling and acts like a pro-wrestler. Perhaps some of those reasons are your issues with the film? I’m still at a loss, because each and every one of those factors contribute to the stew of B-Movie awesome that is Superman IV: The Quest for Peace!

It’s the ’80s and the nuclear arms race around the globe is reaching critical levels. A schoolboy writes a letter to Superman, asking him to rid the world of its nuclear weapons, effectively disarming the world and the escalating situation. That might make the film sound like a really simplified call for world peace, but the film is much more concerned with entertainment than heavy-handed political messages. And besides, I’ve always enjoyed when comic characters are written into real world situations so I loved this aspect of the film. C’mon, Supes collects the nukes in a gigantic net in space and throws them into the sun for God’s sake! I don’t care what your political beliefs are, that’s thrilling cinema.

Stephen reviews: Galaxy Express 999: Eternal Fantasy (1998)

galaxyexpress999_eternalfantasy_1 Galaxy Express 999: Eternal Fantasy [銀河鉄道９９９エターナルファンタジー Ginga Tetsudo 999: Eternal Fantasy] (1998)

Starring Masako Ikeda, Masako Nozawa, Kōichi Yamadera, Kaneta Kimotsuki, Keiko Toda, Yoshiko Sakakibara, Noriko Hidaka, Yuko Minaguchi

Directed by Kōnosuke Uda

When I said in last week’s review of Adieu Galaxy Express 999 that it was an impromptu trilogy I had no idea just how true that was. Eternal Fantasy was not quite what I expected. Despite my assumptions going in, it was not in fact meant to conclude anything. Eternal Fantasy fully intended to have a sequel, and even advertised for it after the credits. But low and behold, no sequel was ever made. So the film that actually concludes the Galaxy Express trilogy was the only film that wasn’t supposed to be a conclusion. And just to compound the irony, Eternal Fantasy‘s tagline is, “The future will never betray you.”

This is a shame since the film has a lot of potential. I would have happily signed on for another sequel if one actually existed. The changes were a mix of good and bad, but on the whole, things were going pretty well. Its only huge failing is its cut-off ending.

Supergirl (1984)

Starring Helen Slater, Faye Dunaway, Hart Bochner, Peter Cook, Brenda Vaccaro, Maureen Teefy, Marc McClure, Peter O’Toole, Mia Farrow, Simon Ward, David Healy

Directed by Jeannot Szwarc

Expectations: I’m so excited.

On the general scale:

On the B-movie scale:

The opening scene of Supergirl tries its best to liken itself to the opening scene of Superman, showing us a strange, alien world inhabited by humanoids much like ourselves. But where that original scene was interesting, the one in Supergirl falls a bit short. It does ostensibly perform the same task, though: setting up the canvas on which the rest of the film will be painted. For Superman, that canvas was grand and heroic, but for Supergirl, it’s campy, over-the-top and very much in the realm of B-Movies. One of my favorite phrases to repeat to myself while watching movies like Superman, Thor or The Avengers is, “This is cosmic done right!” Supergirl is most definitely “cosmic done wrong.” That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its share of fun, but even by ’80s or B-Movie standards this is pretty lackluster.

Kara Zor-El (AKA Supergirl, AKA Linda Lee) is Superman’s cousin. She lives in a white sparkling place called Argo City, which is basically a chunk of the planet Krypton that survived the destruction of the planet. They don’t really explain it, I don’t really understand it, but that’s what it is. Oh, and apparently it’s under our ocean? That REALLY didn’t make sense to me, because they show Supergirl going through space to get to Earth and then she pops out of a lake on the studio backlot. So I guess that was supposed to be the deep, dark ocean she was going through. It did have a watery look at times. The lake part still doesn’t compute, though, especially given the film’s ending. Maybe they were trying to clumsily remind us of the adage that all streams lead to the ocean? I honestly don’t know. Anyway… Peter O’Toole steals the city’s power source (the Omegahedron!) because he’s a wascaly, wascaly wabbit, but through a bad chain of events Supergirl ends up losing the Omegahedron when it rockets out the city’s paper walls. Uh oh. So Supergirl jumps in the city’s diving pod in order to retrieve the power source, and thus our adventure begins. But, of course, the Omegahedron immediately falls into the hands of our villain, the evil witch Selena (Faye Dunaway), who uses it to quickly gain power and fulfill her dreams of world domination.