The Crow: City of Angels

Los Angeles is now officially the host of the apocalypse. Sure, New York once had the edge on impending social collapse and the Third World is still a prime contender as the starting gate for the Four Horsemen. But L.A. now has the End of Time thing signed, sealed and delivered.

Just check out such movies as Strange Days and Escape From L.A.. In each, LaLaLand has become a wasted Sodom barely fit for wild dogs and movie producers. Even a dead man might have second thoughts about traversing such a demented landscape.

Then again, Los Angeles may only be fit for the dead. At least that is the underlining attitude in The Crow: City of Angeles. Less a sequel than an elaborate reworking of the original Crow, City of Angeles manages to take the dark tone of the first film and push it further.

Too far, perhaps. The movie plays like a vindictive dirge at a black mass hosted by the manic depressive set. In its weird mix of punk nihilism and spiritual redemption, The Crow: City of Angeles achieves a sense of visual stylization that far exceeds its limited narrative grasp. But that alone already places it well ahead of its current competition in the Gotterdammerung category.

Despite the lingering controversy over the bizarre accidental death of Brandon Lee during filming of the first Crow, the second movie has managed to find a reasonable way to both reference and connect with the original. The young Sarah is now an adult (Mia Kirshner) and has moved to Los Angeles in a failed attempt to escape from the post-industrial rot of Detroit. Plying her trade as a tattoo artist, Sarah discreetly wears a pair of crow's wings on her back and is haunted by nightmares involving a man and his son being gunned down by a nightmarish band of aging rockers.

But the murders are no dream. Ashe (Vincent Perez) and his son are inadvertent witnesses to a gang slaying ordered by Judah(Richard Brooks) and his henchmen have strict policies about not leaving any clients for the Federal Witness Protection Program. Since Judah is some sort of unexplained mix of new age gangster and fallen angel, he fear no mortal agent. Only a force from beyond life can harm him, which Ashe is more than happy to do once he returns from the dead.

At which point, The Crow: City of Angeles becomes a strangely brooding combination of crypto-fascist fantasy and fin-de-siecle romanticism. Judah and his gang thrives upon calculated doses of extreme violence and sexual decadence (with enough S&M references to qualify as soft-core pornography), while Ashe and Sarah are two innocents with enough purity in their hearts to stock a convent. No wonder Curve (Iggy Pop), Judah's right hand man, finds them both baffling. Neither of these characters seem to have any place in a Los Angeles as hellish as the urban acid trip configured in the movie.

But while the plot of The Crow: City of Angeles settles into a dry recitation of Ashe's murderous hunt, the visuals (and music soundtrack) takes off in their own highly charged direction. The movie successfully takes the pop surrealism of the music video format and convert it into a sustained exercise that largely holds the viewers' attention. The film ironically approximates a drive-in movie made by Fellini while on a heroin rush. Framed within the context of the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration, the movie turns each killing into a quasi-religious ritual.

The Crow: City of Angeles will not be to many people's taste. But then, neither was the original. Likewise, the movie's last stretch turns dopey as it scrambles for an ending. Even within its own mystical universe, the film's final reel defies rational explanation.

But the real achievement of The Crow: City of Angeles is its odd ability to sustain a long, lingering chord of dark otherworldly angst. It plays like a rough night on the far side of the moon, which means that it successfully captures at least one aspect of contemporary Los Angeles. It remains a city of dreams, both good and
bad.

The Phantom

It takes real gall to run through the jungle in a purple suit. But the Phantom has demonstrated such brave audacity for nearly four hundred years. Or at least that is what the local natives would have every one believe.

So convincing are their tales that these natives have successfully struck fear into the heart of evil doers across seven continents. Good story tellers, these chaps. Too bad they were not hired to make this movie about the lavender avenger. They would have done a better job.

Not that the movie The Phantom is totally awful. Actually, it is an extremely faithful adaptation of the old comic strip. But that is also its problem. The movie provides nothing more than a basic run through of the comic's original story while never finding any dramatically engaging focus for the big screen. What you see is what you get. Nothing more and nothing less.

On the plus side, the movie has a relatively charming performance by Billy Zane as the 21st Phantom (for the Phantom impaired, this is a superhero job that is faithfully passed on from father to son for many generations). He is a young and decent guy who has just recently stepped into the family's business after his father (Patrick McGoohan) met an untimely demise while on a minor case. Since the family's business largely consists of beating the stuffing's out of assorted poachers, grave looters, and general malcontents, Zane's Phantom is lucky to have an athletic physique along with his youthful good looks.

What he doesn't have is much in the way of feminine company. Presumably, it gets lonely in the jungle and even a ghost who walks must have a yen to run on the wild side. But the mad schemes of a power mad tycoon (Treat Williams) inadvertently gives the Phantom an unique opportunity to meet women.

One is his old college sweetheart Diana Palmer (Kristy Swanson), the spirited daughter of an important New York newspaper publisher. The other is Sala (Catherine Zeta-Jones), the leader of a band of leather-clad female pirates. Since Diana is helping her father to fight Williams' Xander Drax ( and Sala is employed by Drax to kidnap Diana), the Phantom eventually has to choose between these women and their respective ambitions.

Likewise, he is going have to ditch the funky suit for awhile since Drax is based in New York and the Phantom has to stop him from acquiring a set of three ancient skulls. When assembled, the three skulls are capable of unleashing more power than the world has ever seen. Besides, the man who killed the 20th Phantom now works for Drax and dad, who keeps slipping his son advise from the great beyond, would like to settle an old score.

As stated, Zane is charming but a little too low key for the lead. Williams makes for a surprisingly weak, and often silly, villain. MacGoohan delivers a weird Barry Fitzgerald impersonation as he hams it up with a variety of "Suffering saints alive" lines. Swanson is okay but a little drab, while Zeta-Jones is extremely striking as a macho-femme with a soft spot for men in tights.

But what The Phantom really needs (and most lacks) is a strong story. At the very least, the movie could have used a few original ideas.

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

In the '60s, nerdy young couch potatoes watched Star Trek and Batman. As they matured, their tastes grew more sophisticated. Now, they watch...well, Star Trek and Batman. But in each case, the new shows are far superior to the originals.

The producers of Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, an animated movie extension of the Fox Network animated series (minus Robin), were wise enough to remain faith­ful to the TV version. In fact, this fidelity is the movies strongest asset. If you like the current TV show, you'll like the movie. If you don't like the show, why would you go see the film, anyway? (I'll lay my cards on the table: I like the TV show.)

The movie's main character, as is the boob tube version's, is Bruce Wayne. As most of the civilized world knows, Bruce leads a peculiar life. By day, he's a moody millionaire who's never quite recovered from the murder of his par­ents by street thugs. But at night, he's a dif­ferent guy altogether. Some would even say he's batty. (If they appreciate bad puns, that is.) But hey, lots of people like to get all dressed up and head downtown in a heavily armed vehicle. (It really is safer that way.)

In Mask of the Phantasm, Batman quickly discovers that he's not the only hooded hombre who's battling Gotham's worst citi­zens. A ghostly creature called the Phantasm is rubbing out the local gang bosses — and the killings are being blamed on the Bat. A corrupt DA orders the police to bag Bat­man dead. The mob takes a different approach. They hire The Joker to do the job.

This would put a damper on anyone's day, but Brucie baby has other problems, too. A lost love has re-entered his life, and we know that, somehow, she's involved in he killings. It's a dark night for the Caped Crusader when he confronts the ancient dilemma of costumed vigilantes: deciding between love and his quirky hobby.

Mask of the Phantasm, like the TV show, has a reasonably strong plot. Granted, it's written for 12-year-old boys, but at least there's an actual script involved (unlike Tim Burton's run-amok production of Batman Returns). This new animated movie is more serious than the satirical '60s series, and is closer in spirit to the original comics.

Mask of the Phantasm does have its weak­nesses, however. The story relies too heavily on flashbacks — nearly half the film is flash­back. It's as if the movies creators were try­ing to do a cartoon version of The Conformist.

The movie's greatest and least forgivable fault is the poor quality of the animation. The graphics are a great mix of film noir and Art Deco, but they're done on the cheap, and the animation is limited. Come on, it's a feature film — spend the money to do it right.

So the newest Batman isn't great, but it isn't all bad, either.

And, of course, The Joker gets all of the best lines. That's the real reason why he smiles so much.

The Shadow

Can you spell the word tedium? The Shadow can. This movie also defines the word, because The Shadow is a colossal bore that manages to drain the fun out of one of the zippier superhero concepts ever cooked up by the pulp magazines of the 1930s.

What should have been good, clean, vio­lent entertainment has been scrambled into a sticky mess of incoherent story telling and terrible acting. Only the special effects are outstand­ing, and they're mostly devoted to showing you things that are supposed to be invisible. So the best parts of The Shadow are the things you see the least.

The current version of The Shadow is based more upon the original pulp novels than the old radio series, which means that the movie partakes of the books' more ram­bling structure. The whole concept of the darkly heroic Shadow was slapped together through a decade of hectic writing during the Great Depression, and the movie bor­rows freely from a wide menu of contradic­tory sources. The screenplay by David Koepp {Jurassic Park and Carlito's Way) should have provided plenty of room in which to maneuver, but the plot sputters repeatedly and never goes any place.

The movie is surprisingly incapable of milking a single drop of dramatic interest from the Shadows own murderous, shad­owy past. In this version, Lamont Cranston (Alec Baldwin) is an American-born war­lord who's killing his way to the top of the Tibetan opium trade. Despite his nefarious lifestyle, there's supposed to be an essentially noble spirit inside of the debased Cranston, so a Tibetan Buddhist priest forces him to take on the mantle of his own dark side in the pursuit of justice. He also teaches Cranston all sorts of nifty tricks, like mass hypnosis and mental telepathy.

Unfortunately, this priest teaches the same things to Shiwan Khan (John Lone), the last descendant of Genghis. Since Shiwan is a chip off the old barbarian block, he naturally wants to use his powers to con­quer the world. He intends to do this by blowing up New York City with a Chinese variation of the atomic bomb.

Lone may play a heinous baddie, but at least his character is colorful. As the Shad­ow, Baldwin is dreadful, except when he poses in the costume. Penelope Ann Miller, as the Shadow s love interest, is equally bad, giving a performance that weaves between spaciness and bad comedy. Only Jonathan Winters — as Cranston's uncle, the bum­bling police commissioner who can't figure out the identity of the shadowy figure who's spooking the city — breathes any life into this movie.

So if you really want to frolic in the wild exploits of The Shadow this summer, your best bet is to locate recordings of the radio show. They're exciting.