Starring Alan Arkin, Kate Fitzpatrick, Christopher Lee, and Michael Pate
Directed by Phillppe Mora
Music and Lyrics by various
Superheroes, especially of late, have conquered almost every media they've appeared in, from comics to TV to radio...except the musical stage. As anyone who saw Spider Man, Turn Off the Dark on-stage a decade ago can tell you, superhero cliches, with people flying and throwing things around and villains with insane world-domination plans, don't really mix well with bursting into song and huge dance routines. Spider Man wasn't even the first attempt to mix superhero and musical conventions, as we'll discover with our first two entries this week. How does this major sci-fi flop from Australia look nowadays, with far more serious science fiction hitting theaters? Let's start with a newsreel detailing more about the incredible career of Captain Invincible and find out...
The Story: Captain Invincible was the most beloved hero in the United States during the late 30's and 40's, defeating gangsters and Nazis alike...until he went under suspicion in the McCarthy witch hunts of the 1950's. Before he can be arrested, he takes off into the horizon, never to be seen again.
In the early 80's, New York is hit by a strange ray that makes immigrants want to instantly leave their homes and move to a certain housing project on the edge of the mainland. The President of the United States, who a huge Captain Invincible fan, wants the Man of Magnet back on the job. Policewoman Patty Patria (Fitzpatrick) is the last person to have seen him...wandering around, muttering and drunk. It's up to Patty to get him back into fighting shape and bolster his confidence in truth, justice, and the American way. Supervillain Mr. Midnight (Lee) has his own plans for Invincible...and he won't let him get in the way of his plans for world domination.
The Song and Dance: This is one of those movies where everything is so weird, after a while, you just sit back and run with it. Arkin and especially Lee throw themselves into their roles, chewing every bit of scenery in sight, and have a marvelous time doing so. And who knew Lee in particular had a pretty darn decent voice? His part of "Mr. Evil Midnight" is a rich, campy delight. For an Australian production, there's also more goofy jokes about America than you can shake a red, white, and blue flag at, especially involving Midnight's hideout in the deli and Patty's speech over "The American Eagle Network."
Favorite Number: "We Need a Hero" starts with the President cursing out his underlings when they can't figure out how to handle Midnight's scheme, and ends with him leading the heads of a military in a chorus routine saluting the government's need to call in for help. Meanwhile, Captain Invincible laments about his lost career pointing out that the good and the bad aren't so different in the country flavored "Amazing How They're Alike."
"Mr. Evil Midnight" is another huge chorus routine, as Invincible explains to Patty and the riders on the subway what Midnight does, while Midnight sings about his delight in being nasty with his scantily-clad chorus girls. Lee also gets to show off his wonderful voice as he and his devilish dancers try to coerce Invincible to "Name Your Poison" and return to drinking.
What I Don't Like: Even for a satire, this doesn't make a shred of sense. The movie just cuts from incident to action sequence to musical number with no rhyme or reason. Many important bits of information, including how Midnight finally regains his powers and him rescuing the trapped new home owners in the end, are alluded to but not shown.
Midnight's plan revolves around forcing ethnic families out of the country in the hopes that white Americans will cheer him for it...and it tends to hit a little too close to the mark with the racial tension in the US lately. Other aspects, including those stereotypes and all of Invincible's bellyaching about the changes in America between 1950 and 1983, are almost annoyingly dated. It's also pretty obvious Kirpatrick was dubbed (although the bad sync may have been intentional), and her soft rock ballad is the silliest and most boring song in the film.
The Big Finale: No movie with Christopher Lee can be all bad, and indeed, while not a lost treasure, this one can be a lot of fun. It really lives in its own warped world where the usual logic doesn't apply. If you can run with that and are a fan of superhero movies or Lee, you may get as much of a kick out of this one as I did.
Home Media: As far as I can tell, currently DVD only.
No comments:
Post a Comment