Todd’s Serial Blog

Originally I was planning to highlight Cowboys and Aliens  and have the entire post just be ‘Nuff said, but since the movie isn’t going to be released on DVD till December, I’m going to my second choice, Green Lantern.  An under rated sci-fi action film that plays more like a Silver Age superhero comic book than darker superhero films like The Dark Knight.

Hot shot, but irreponsible test pilot Hal Jordon is saught out by the ring of Green Lantern Abin Sur to take his place in the Green Lantern Corp when he is mortally wounded.  While Hal is learning to be a Green Lantern, their mortal enemy Parallax is heading for Earth to destroy it along with everything else in the universe.  The Corps decides to sacrifice the Earth and make a final stand on their home planet Oa, leaving Hal on his own to defend Earth, overcome his own fear and prove he is worthy to bear the ring to the skeptical leader of the Corp, Sinestro.

The film is full of lots of sci fi ring slinging action with Hal conjuring up ray beams, swords, assault rifles, brick walls, hot wheel ramps, fighter jets, and during the climactic fight he even throws out the old Silver Age favorite, a boxing glove. Though not up to the level of Captain America: The First Avenger or Thor, it is still an enjoyable superhero film, with a scene stealing performance by Peter Saarsgard as Parallax’s agent on  Earth,a nerdy, pushed around scientist infected by Parallax and uses his new found powers to revenge himself on those who have slighted him, both real and imagined, while his body morphs and deteriorates.

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Since I highlighted a film about an overly competent hero, I thought I would follow up with a film about a totally incompetent hero, Jack Burton (an hilarious Kurt Russell channeling John Wayne and Don Adams).  Like Bucharoo Banzai, Big Trouble in Little China was an odd mixture of martial arts action, slapstick comedy and supernatural horror that failed to find an audience during it’s original run, but has developed a thriving cult following on video.

The plot involves trucker Jack Burton helping his friend Wang when the man’s financee is kidnapped and taken into the catacombs below Chinatown where she will be used in a ritual to make a ten thousand year old translucent wizard Lo Pan solid flesh again.  With Wang and an interfering reporter tagging along, the overly confidant but totally inept Jack Burton braves demons and martial arts warriors as he goes to rescue the girl and destroy Lo Pan.

A clever twist to the film is that the side kick is really the hero, doing most of the fighting while the tough talking hero spends most of his time either knocked out, tied up or busy retrieving his dropped weapon during most of the action.  This makes his final confrontation  with the villain really scary since he has shown almost no ability to handle himself in any tense situation, yet he is the one who has to step up to the plate at the end. Of course it’s hard to be truly scared for him when you’re too busy laughing at the sight of his blustering heroic attitude while having bright red lipstick smeared all over his mouth.

If you have a liking for Indiana Jones style adventure, quick witted quips between a bickering hero and heroine, comedy out of the Three Stooges playbook, and dark caverns full of lightning throwing demons then this is the movie for you.

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Back in the mid-eighties when The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension came out, the makers touted that there had never been a character like him before; a neurosurgeon, astrophysicist, samurai warrior, secret agent and leader of the rockingest band to ever come out of New Jersey, The Hong Kong Cavaliers. The film was a strange combination of action, comedy and sci-fi horror that was just a little too different to find a mainstream audience, and disappeared quickly to resurface as a cult favorite on video, otherwise more would have realized Buckaroo Banzai was an updating of 30’s pulp hero Doc Savage and his Fab Five.

Such obvious origins aside, the film is goofily funny and exiting where Buckaroo and his bandmates, who are also scientific specialists in their own right, complete an experiment that allows a vehicle to pass through solid matter. When news of this is made public, committed mad scientist Dr Lizardo escapes from his asylum cell and heads for New Jersey, while Buckaroo is contacted by a  race of aliens hovering outside the planet’s atmosphere where they reveal that a universe lies inside solid matter and if Dr Lizardo, who is reaally a disguised alien, and his followers get their hands on Buckaroo’s device, they will be forced to blow up the planet to prevent Lizardo from invading their world.

Which sets in motion an adventure full of shoot outs, chases and an aerial dog fight between two spaceships, with the hero taking time out to jump on stage and knock out a rocking jam session or rush to the hospital and perform a brain operation.  The film is such a bizarre concotion with aliens disguised as either nerdy white guys or cool rastafarians, all of them named John, a hero who, when not in combat fatigues, dresses like Pee Wee Herman, and a Senator willing to look the other way about the evil aliens bent on conquest due to their company being the one that supplies the US military with most of it’s weapons and planes.

Truly an acquired taste of a movie, it’s fun to watch just for the cast list of then up and coming actors; Peter Weller, Ellen Barkin, John Lithgow, Clancy Brown, Jeff Goldbloom, Christopher Lloyd and Vincent Schiavelli.  Anyone who is a fan of pulp fiction or serials should get a kick out of this and remember, as Buckaroo says, “No matter where you go, there you are.”

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