Film Review: THE PHANTOM (1996, Simon Wincer)

Stars: 3.8 of 5.
Running Time: 100 minutes.

Tag-line: "SLAM EVIL!"

Notable Cast or Crew: Billy Zane (TITANIC, TALES FROM THE CRYPT: DEMON KNIGHT), Kristy Swanson (DEADLY FRIEND, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER), Treat Williams (DEAD HEAT, HAIR), Catherine Zeta-Jones (ENTRAPMENT, THE MASK OF ZORRO), James Remar (RENT-A-COP, THE WARRIORS, 48 HRS.), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (MORTAL KOMBAT, PEARL HARBOR), David Proval (INNOCENT BLOOD, THE SOPRANOS), Casey Siemaszko (THREE O'CLOCK HIGH, BACK TO THE FUTURE), Samantha Eggar (THE BROOD, CURTAINS), Jon Tenney (MASTERS OF HORROR: HOMECOMING, TOMBSTONE), Patrick McGoohan (THE PRISONER, SCANNERS, SECRET AGENT).
Screenplay by Jeffrey Boam (THE DEAD ZONE, LETHAL WEAPON 2, INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, THE LOST BOYS).  Second unit directed by legendary stuntman Vic Armstrong (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, LIVE AND LET DIE, SUPERMAN, BLADE RUNNER, BRAZIL, RETURN OF THE JEDI).  Produced by Robert Evans (CHINATOWN, MARATHON MAN), Alan Ladd Jr. (BRAVEHEART, VILLAIN), and Joe Dante (GREMLINS, EERIE INDIANA), among others.

Best One-liner: "No smoking in the skull cave."

In a familiar, darkened alleyway:

"You know how I've been on a Billy Zane kick?"
–"Yeah, I guess."
"Well check out this one-sheet: look what I finally got my hands on."
–"SLAM EVIL?"
"No, THE PHANTOM!"
–"Well, it looks like it's called SLAM EVIL."
"No, it says THE PHANTOM.  See, down there."
–"Yeah, exactly.  It's all the way 'down there.'  So this movie is called 'SLAM EVIL' and it stars The Phantom.  Wait, is that Billy Zane?"
"Do you listen to anything I say?"
–"Not really.  Is it worth seeing?"
"Yeah.  It's good.  I mean, I use that word relatively."
–"I always assume you do."
"It's no TALES FROM THE CRYPT: DEMON KNIGHT, is what I mean."
–"What could be?"
"Basically, it's a family-friendly swashbuckling superhero flick with a sense of fun and grand adventure.  It's a product of that four or five year span when Hollywood kept making pulpy and/or Art Deco-ish vintage comic book movies that the public didn't really want.  Stuff like DICK TRACY, THE ROCKETEER, THE SHADOW, and the like."
–"I love THE ROCKETEER."
"So do I.  I'm just saying it wasn't a super-tenable business model."
–"So what is THE PHANTOM?"
"He's a 1930s comic book hero who's become one of the best-selling and longest-running characters of all time. He's been the subject of serials, TV shows, video games and the like.

He's basically Indiana Jones combined with the Lone Ranger and DANGER: DIABOLIK.  And that ranks pretty high in my book."
–"I like Indiana Jones."
"Well, good, cause this thing is packed with Indy references, in no small part due to the participation of Jeffrey Boam (co-writer of LAST CRUSADE) and Vic Armstrong (stunt coordinator and Indy double for the entire trilogy).  There are fedoras; rope bridge scenes;

 Though this is a little more SORCERER than TEMPLE OF DOOM.

missing artifacts with magical, face-exploding powers; there's scenes where a talisman points the way on a map with a colored laser:

 From RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

 
 From THE PHANTOM.

similar locales and production design:
 
 From RAIDERS.


From PHANTOM.

and there's even an extended truck chase scene that features some of the exact, blow-by-blow choreography from the classic one in RAIDERS:



And one moment, with floating CGI skulls:
 
 almost prefigures the finale of an Indiana Jones movie that shall remain nameless."
–"Wow.
"Yeah."
–"I remember a way's back, you were trying to make the case that Billy Zane's eyes and eyebrows were the true stars of TITANIC.  How are they here?"
"Well, it's like how in CYBORG, we meet Van Damme's isolated leg before we even meet Van Damme.  Adhering to that logic, we naturally get an extreme closeup of Zane's gaze before we see the rest of him."

–"I think he can see into my soul!"
"Yeah, he can.  Also, speaking of TITANIC, there's a scene here where The Phantom pops up in a ladies' locker room on a boat– and promptly apologizes to the damsels."


–"Billy Zane being chivalrous on a boat... now I've seen everything!"
"Exactly.  He's a very polite superhero, not unlike, as I said, The Lone Ranger, Superman, or perhaps Adam West's take on Batman.  Here he is, taking a moment out of an action sequence to pick up and return an old lady's purse."

–"Very nice."
"Also, he gives Kristy Swanson some black pearls in a scene eerily reminiscent of when he gave Kate Winslet 'The Heart of the Ocean' in TITANIC."

–"Kristy Swanson!  I had quite the crush on her, back when I first saw DEADLY FRIEND."
"Yeah, well now you can relive that torrid affaire de coeur all over again."
–"So wait, exactly what the hell is going on here?"
"It's a bit of a hodgepodge.  There's evil international corporations, vast pirate conspiracies, magical skulls, tribal sorcery, gunplay, horseplay, swordplay, wordplay, spandex-play..."
–"Who else is in this thing?"
"Our big villain is Treat Williams, who knows exactly what movie he's in, and he's knockin' it out of the park.  A typical scene might see him greedily clasping a magic skull and moaning, 'Ohhhhh, baby!'

Conversely, his top henchman, played by James Remar, is so used to playing it straight, he's struggling with the tone a little bit.  He plays it sort of like 'Indiana Jones gone to the dark side,' but it feels occasionally awkward.  Somehow this works in the film's favor."

–"You mean like that scene in TEMPLE OF DOOM when Harrison Ford drinks the Blood of Kali and acts like he's kicking heroin?"
"Let's forget about that for a minute.  He also gets to rock out some 'Gestapo chic' when he's fighting The Phantom in the city.  Plus, his counterpart is a villainous henchwoman played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, hereafter to be referred to as 'CZJ.'  This movie might be CZJ's finest hour."
 
–"Can we not do that?  The CZJ thing?'
"Ohhh, okay.  Anyway, she's out of control and cartoonish, like a secondary villain from CARMEN SANDIEGO.  If she had a mustache, she'd be twirling it.  The beauty of her performance can be distilled in a twenty-seven second video I have entitled 'Kristy Swanson and Catherine Zeta-Jones' Finest Slap Battles.'"

–"Intense!"
"I'll say.  Finally, there's a nice tertiary villain bit by David Proval, a notorious 'gangster-character-actor' whose performances often genuinely scare me."

–"That's all well and good, but it seems to me you're giving Billy Zane the short shrift here.  Is he not Ama-Zane-ing?"
"Oh, the Zane Factor is pretty high.  It's hard to believe this was nearly a Joel Schumacher movie starring Dolph Lundgren–"
–"WHAAAAT?!"
"Yeah, at least he got to make THE PHANTOM... OF THE OPERA, eventually.  Hell, and before that, directors from Joe Dante to Sergio Leone have wanted to take a crack at The Phantom."
–"You're blowing my mind.  Who would have been Leone's Phantom?"
"I could see Eastwood, Coburn, or Bronson, frankly.  But back to Zane.  Yes, he's ama-Zane-ing, or whatever, it's just that the role isn't one of his flashiest.  Don't despair, though, there are some fine moments.  For instance, off the top of my head:

BILLY ZANE WILL LEAP OFF A HORSE AND


ONTO THE HOOD OF A TRUCK, BUT JAMES REMAR WON'T NOTICE FOR HALF A SECOND


...AND THEN HE WILL NOTICE



BILLY ZANE WILL LOUNGE AROUND, HALF-NUDE, TALKING TO HIS DEAD DAD (WHO IS PATRICK MCGOOHAN)



BILLY ZANE WILL PET THE TIGER


(WHO, INCIDENTALLY, WAS PROVIDED BY ANIMALS R US)



BILLY ZANE WILL HITCH A RIDE ON THE UNDERBELLY OF A PLANE, LIKE HE'S ROBERT DE NIRO IN CAPE FEAR



 BILLY ZANE'S THIGHS WILL COME OUT OF NOWHERE


AND STRANGLE YOU


TILL YOU PASS OUT

–"Holy cow!"
"Yup.  Naturally, all of this leads up to a final confrontation where Zane and Williams face off while wielding magical lasers; Williams' emanate from the purloined skull, and Zane's shoot forth from his wicked skull ring.  Consequently, it sorta feels like the end of SPACEBALLS."




 
 
 –"Now that's a thing of beauty."
"It sure is."
–"Oh, by the way– is there smoking in the skull cave?"


"Don't say that too loudly:  Billy Zane's thighs are apt to pop out of nowhere and strangle you unto unconsciousness.  In other words:  no smoking in the skull cave."

–Sean Gill


EDIT:  I just discovered the existence of the following vintage "Got Milk?" ad, and I must include it, without comment, for the sake of future generations.

Only now does it occur to me... JUBAL

Only now does it occur to me...  that my lifelong dream to see Charles Bronson throw a table at Ernest Borgnine would one day be realized!

Sheer visual poetry!  And from the freeze-framing, it looks like Bronson is in fact heaving that table across the room, while Borgnine has been replaced by a stunt double.

The movie's pretty good, too– a loose (very loose) retelling of OTHELLO (with Borgnine as Marty– I mean Othello, Rod Steiger as Iago, Valerie French as Desdemona, and Glenn Ford as Cassio),

JUBAL is a beautiful Eastmancolor Western that's tense, well-acted, and bursting with Douglas Sirk-ian melodrama.  It's not quite as good as my other Delmer Daves favorites (DARK PASSAGE and 3:10 TO YUMA), but it's well worth your time (even though Bronson's only in a supporting role).  It's also clear that Sergio Leone was a Delmer Daves fan, and it's funny how many of the film's tableaux are comprised entirely of actors who would go on to work with the Spaghetti Master:

Rod Steiger (DUCK, YOU SUCKER) and henchman Jack Elam (ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.)

Charles Bronson (even wearing practically the same hat as in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) faces off with Steiger.

Junta Juleil's Top 100: #50-46

50. DUCK, YOU SUCKER (1971, Sergio Leone)  

One of Leone's finest achievements, and one which only grows in impact with each subsequent viewing. Beginning with the depiction of a man pissing on an anthill and ending with the mournful cry "What about me?," DUCK, YOU SUCKER is sort of the ultimate statement on revolution– its winners, its losers, its agitators, its perpetuators, and the seemingly endless supply of moneyed, oppressive motherfuckers who always manage to reappear after a revolution, like the regenerative heads of the Hydra. Leone pulls no punches here: even though it's peppered with action and humor, it's brutal, passionate, and operatic. It's James Coburn's Sean and Rod Steiger's Juan, two sides of the same coin, who criss-cross paths with one another– one in decline, and one unknowingly on the rise. So many emotions are captured to the point of perfection: the exhilaration of bank-robbing or riding out in open country, the disgust at watching blue-bloods stuffing their anus-mouths, the sting of betrayal and the deeper sting of the betrayed, the unequivocal horror of mass graves. Leone is writing his history of the Twentieth Century, the Era of Extermination, the epoch of man perfecting his ability to stamp himself out. Orwell saw the future as a boot stomping on a human face forever– Leone sees men pissing on ants, pissing on each other, clawing at one another in a bloodied trench of corpses as our overlords above prepare to administer the coup de grace, just as perhaps the overlords' overlords prepare to administer their own. It's monstrous, it's soaring, it's Goya, it's John Ford, it's Mozart, it's Pagliacci. Ennio Morricone is in top form, and he creates a score full of perhaps a dozen individualized themes, any of which could carry a movie on their own. Coburn and Steiger are grand, Antoine Saint-John is frightening, Romolo Valli exudes the proper complexity. It speaks to the sheer quality of Leone's body of work that even this is still his third-best film. (Side note: it's unclear if Leone thought that "Duck, you sucker" was a common English expression, or if he believed he'd be creating a new catchphrase with it, but either way, you've got to love those Italians.) 

 

49. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980, Irvin Kershner)  

My favorite film in the STAR WARS trilogy, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK saw Lucas kept in check via formidable craftsman-ly direction by Irvin Kershner, and an occasionally tragic, occasionally quotable, often mystical, and always two-fisted screenplay by old-Hollywood worshipper Lawrence Kasdan (RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, SILVERADO, BODY HEAT) and old-Hollywood player Leigh Brackett (RIO BRAVO, THE BIG SLEEP, THE LONG GOODBYE). Even chubby, post-fugue state, CGI-humpin' George Lucas couldn't find too much to mess with in the various iterations of EMPIRE we've seen since 1997. I don't know what to say that hasn't been said ad nauseum by STAR WARS acolytes already, but we've got Frank Oz taking the art of filmic puppetry to new and astounding heights, Boba Fett exuding Western-baddie cool without actually doing anything, Harrison Ford in his first appearance as a capital-A Actor, Carrie Fisher fueled by mountains of cocaine, towering and frightening stop-motion vehicles, elegant matte paintings, loads of C-3PO/Lando Calrissian homoeroticism, a hand-puppet that eats spaceships, an exhilaratingly complex John Williams score, more strangulation per capita than any comparable PG-rated space opera (even Chewie gets in on the action), abominable snowmen, Cliff Clavin, and a really awkward breakfast with Darth Vader. It's better than HOWARD THE DUCK is what I'm saying. 

 

 48. BRAZIL (1985, Terry Gilliam)  

An eye-popping dystopian cauldron of Kafka and Orwell brazenly stirred by visual mastermind Terry Gilliam, BRAZIL (originally conceived as "1984 AND 1/2") piles on the grandeur, cheekiness, and dread that one would expect from such an endeavor. It's filled with genius performances and memorable moments– Jim Broadbent freakishly contorting the rubbery face of socialite Katherine Helmond; the breathtaking clashes between Icarus-armor clad Jonathan Pryce and a gargantuan samurai; mustachioed Robert De Niro bursting forth from here, there, and everywhere, a postmodern anti-bureaucratic Robin Hood; Ian Richardson leading a phalanx of pencil-pushers, striding purposefully through an office which bears more resemblance to a parking garage; Michael Palin leading awkward, flustering torture sessions while donning a grotesque baby mask; the paralyzing paramilitary-style assaults on average Joes by the minions of the Ministry of Information– it's nearly two-and-a-half hours of nonstop hilarity, wonderment, and torment, and I'm fairly certain that Kafka (who was rumored to chuckle his way through readings of his manuscripts) would be proud.  

 

47. DOCKS OF NEW YORK (1928, Josef von Sternberg)  

Probably my favorite silent film of all time, DOCKS OF NEW YORK is a mist-enshrouded and shadow-entrenched look at life and love between grime-coated, seafaring brutes and suicidal, proto-Dietrich barflies. The entire first half of the film takes place in near-darkness– unforgiving furnace rooms, tenebrous alleways, murky canals, and a rough n' tumble tavern full of cheap drinks, cheaper drunks, and a rogue's gallery of other salty characters. But then the plot develops and this endless night ends– daylight hits, and it's stark and painful and shocking because we've adjusted ourselves to the darkness; it's the same effect as waking after too little sleep on the morning after a night of debauchery, and it's astonishing to really feel that intruding dawn in the context of watching a film. DOCKS OF NEW YORK is a treatise on impulse, the worth of human beings, and what it's like to spend a lifetime scraping the bottom of the (sardine?) barrel while catching only fleeting glimpses of happiness from between the wooden slats. Also see: THE SCARLET EMPRESS, MOROCCO, BLONDE VENUS, THE LAST COMMAND, et al. Sternberg's one of the greats, and I'd recommend any of his films that I've seen without reservation.  

 

46. SUNSET BLVD. (1950, Billy Wilder) 

What to say? That the funeral for an ape sequence is more subtly terrifying than any horror flick released in the last fifteen years? That Gloria Swanson is the scariest woman not named Joan Crawford to ever draw breath? That Erich von Stroheim is so damned classy they should give him an extra "von" or two? I mean, just look at this stuff:

  

  

  

  

 

  

If you haven't already, I mean... Just go see the damn thing. Coming up next... Even more Eigeman, sandwich-making with Crispin Glover, and more Argento! 

-Sean Gill