FILM REVIEW OF "THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN" (1957)

Size obsessed science fiction filmmakers during the 1950s. They measured everything by bulk. Aliens, animals, humans, and robots either increased or decreased in mass. Actually, the first sci-fi film to explore the possibilities of people reduced in stature was Todd Browning’s “The Devil Doll” (1936) about a vengeful scientist who used humans that he had reduced in size to do his dirty work. Gordon Douglas' "Them!" (1954)qualified as the first major movie about small things being enlarged by radiation. “Them!” concerned huge irradiated ants. Inevitably, just as Hollywood had shrunk humans, they would also endeavor to enlarge them. Indeed, director Bert I. Gordon tried out this concept in 1957 with “The Cyclops” about a mutated 25-foot tall human in South America, anticipating Gordon’s own 1958 outing “War of the Colossal Beast.” When you compare the release dates of “The Amazing Colossal Man” (** OUT OF ****) with “The Incredible Shrinking Man,” it looks as if American International Pictures must have rushed former into release to exploit the latter film about a diminutive dude. The problem with director Gordon’s film is that it never generates either the suspense and/or tension that Jack Arnold’s seminal sci-fi classic mustered. Once our hero looms to 60 feet in height in “The Amazing Colossal Man,” nothing can challenge him in the same way that a house cat or a spider did the protagonist of “The Incredible Shrinking Man.”

“The Amazing Colossal Man” opens with a convoy of military vehicles—crossing the screen from left to right—traveling along an asphalt road through the desert as a narrator establishes the setting. “The time is two forty-five A.M., two hours and fifteen minutes before time zero. At time zero, a new type of atomic explosion--a plutonium bomb--will be detonated at Desert Rock, Nevada. These soldiers are to experience the plutonium explosion under simulated combat conditions.” The next sight that we see is several soldiers crouched in a trench in combat gear with helmets and special goggles as the bomb site officer at a distant command post (William Hughes of “Geronimo”) keeps the troops posted about the impending detonation. “Attention! Attention! All personnel. The time is zero minus thirty seconds. The plutonium explosion will take place at time zero. I repeat, the plutonium explosion will take place at time zero.” Dramatically, the officer commences the countdown. When he finishes it, the technician at the command center—a staff sergeant—clicks the mechanism to trigger the detonation. However, nothing happens. The command post officer cautions the troops: “Do not leave your positions. I repeat, do not leave your positions. The plutonium bomb has been triggered and will explode at any moment. The chain reaction did not complete its cycle as calculated. Keep your dark glasses on and stay where you are.” One of the troops asks Colonel Manning (Glenn Langan of “The Snake Pit”) what will happen. He warns them that the bomb could explode at any minute, but he allows them to smoke cigarettes to calm their nerves. About this time, they hear the sound of an engine and Manning spots a light civilian propeller-driven aircraft descend through the clouds. The command post orders the unseen pilot to alter his course, but the plane crashes. The plutonium bomb has still not detonated so a heroic Colonel Manning sheds his helmet and goggles and charges out into the open towards the plane to rescue the pilot. The command post orders him to stop. The plutonium bomb detonates and it catches Manning in a torrential blast that shreds the clothes off his body. Later, the Army doctors have little hope for him since third degree burns cover most of his body.

Manning’s fiancee, Carol Forrest (Cathy Downs of “My Darling Clementine”), visits him at the hospital. Later, the Army spirits Manning away to a secret military facility and forbids to give Carol any information. Obstinately, Carol refuses to be kept away from Manning. The doctors relent and allow Carol to spend time with him. During this interval, Gordon gives us a glimpse of their life together before he participated in the Desert Rock maneuver. Miraculously, despite the third degree burns, Manning survives the ordeal, and a new layer of skin grows to replaces the charred dermis. One tragic side effect is that the Army colonel grows eight to ten feet a day and eventually has to be housed in a circus tent. He has to drink out of a barrel and he eats an entire turkey. Dr. Paul Linstrom (William Hudson of “Mister Roberts”) and Major Eric Coulter, MD (Larry Thor of “Machine Gun Kelly”) both struggle without success to find a cure for his condition. Nevertheless, Manning continues to grow until he towers 60 feet tall. Carol spends time with Manning, but he grows even more depressed about his acute condition and sees no hope for a bright future.

Some forty-five minutes into the action, Manning decides to leave the army base and vanishes into the desert. How does a 60 foot gent avoid detection from the military in the desert? Before long the Army receives reports about slaughtered cattle and two guys in a car with a bottle of liquor encounter Manning at night on the highway. “I’ll never drink again,” the passenger (Hank Patterson of “Green Acres”) assures his companion. Colonel Halleck (James Seay of “Vera Cruz”) warns Linstrom and Coulter that he is prepared to take action against Manning if Manning becomes dangerous. When they finally locate Manning, Manning has wandered into Las Vegas wearing only a sarong. He uproots a palm tree and hurls it at the Las Vegas police after they take rifle shots at it. Manning tromps off to Hoover Dam. Before he gets there, Linstrom and Coulter fly in a huge syringe in a helicopter and administer an injection of a drug which they had succeeded in reducing the size of circus animals. The injection fails and and Manning grabs Carol like King Kong did Fay Wray and walks off with her. Only after he sets Carol down does the military cut loose with a barrage of fire, and Manning topples into the spillway waters and vanishes into the Colorado River.

The only genuinely violent moment occurs near the end when the enraged Manning skewers Coulter with the giant needle and kills him. The scene when he thumbs through the Holy Bible is about as heavy as this fish-out-of-water yarn gets. The ultimate irony that set the first half apart is the idea that Manning sacrificed him in an act of good citizenship to help the pilot who crashed. Gordon, who doubled as the special effects coordinator, does a credible job of developing the unfortunate plight that Manning suffers. While he is under the supervision of the military, Manning emerges as a sympathetic character, but later “The Amazing Colossal Man” turns into a shallow side show freak, as the film apes "King Kong." Gordon's inferior sequel "War of the Colossal Beast" (1958) recycles "Mr. Cyclops. The Disney movie "Honey I Blew Up the Kid" (1992) and "Monsters vs Aliens" (2009) pay tribute to "The Amazing Colossal Man." Gordon revisited the theme of giant humans in "Village of the Giants" (1965).

FILM REVIEW OF "HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN":

Freshman director Jason Eisener’s contemporary vigilante thriller “Hobo With a Shotgun” (**** out of ****) epitomizes the essence of grindhouse movies from the 1970s and the 1980s. Grindhouse movies are typically low-brow, low-budget, politically-incorrect R-rated, epics that exploit shocking, often sensational subject matter for either high drama or comedy. Moreover, these films feature gratuitous amounts of blood, gore, profanity, sex, nudity, violence as well as sub-standard special effects. The most infamous grindhouse/exploitation movies appeared in the 1930s, including “The Road to Ruin” (1934), “Reefer Madness” (1936), “Marihuana” (1936), “Cocaine Fiends” (1935), “Child Bride” (1938), “Gambling with Souls” (1936) and “Sex Madness” (1938). A s you can imagine, the tawdry material that these movies tangled with didn't constitute polite supper table conversation. Mind you, back during the Great Depression, these movies were classified as sleazy. They are tame by today’s standards. Primarily, these movies were produced as warnings to parents and juveniles about sticking to the straight and narrow. The most controversial examples of grindhouse cinema illuminated screens during the 1970s and 1980s. These movies acquired the designation as ‘grindhouse’ because they were shown in antiquated, dilapidated theaters on the fringe. For example in Columbus, Mississippi, during the 1970s, Malco operated the Princess Theater as a grindhouse. I know because I've seen my share there. Minor Hollywood studios and foreign producers churned out these films by the hundreds. European sword & sandal sagas, Continental crime thrillers, historical hell-raisers, Spaghetti westerns, Hong Kong chop-socky epics, German & Italian cannibal adventures, American International biker flicks & teenage horror chillers, Blaxploitation movies were popular, especially with drive-in movie audiences. Many are finally being released on DVD and Blu-ray. Generally, these movies ran no longer than 90 minutes but some achieved fame, notably “Fistful of Dollars” (1964), “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), “Satan's Sadists” (1969), “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974), and “Cannibal Holocaust” (1980). If you thrive on trash cinema of the 1970s and the 1980s, then “Hobo With a Shotgun” is right up your alley. Alley is being used in a highly metaphorical sense. Rutger Hauer and Gregory Smith co-star in this overblown orgy of blood, gore, and profanity. Naked babes appear in a one scene. Indeed, nudity is largely subdued in this 86-minute, Technicolor release. Nevertheless, squeamish souls should shun this sadistic, shoot’em up that celebrates a homeless man as a hero.

An anonymous hobo (an unshaven Rutger Hauer of “Blade Runner”) arrives in Hope Town. Actually, vandals have crossed out Hope and replaced it with Scum. Beneath the town sign appears the slogan “Where the railway ends and life begins.” Those same vandals have replaced the word “life” with "Hell.” The hobo hasn'tbeen in town long before he encounters the local crime boss, The Drake (Brian Downey of the sci-fi TV show “Lexx”), and watches Drake dispense justice. “Mercy ain’t my style,” the Drake screams, decked out in an ice-cream white suit and tie with an automatic pistol wedged in his waistband. Drake and his two juvenile delinquent sons, Slick (Gregory Smith of “Small Soldiers”) and Ivan (Tom Cruise lookalike Nick Bateman), show up with pistols drawn. They surround their Uncle Logan (Robb Wells of “Trailer Park Boys, The Movie”) who pleads desperately for mercy as a crowd gathers on the scene. He begs the Hobo to cut the rope on his wrists. Drake makes Logan an example of his power to strike fear into the hearts of citizens. Logan wears a man-hole cover wrapped around his neck so he looks like his head is on a platter. Slick and Ivan deposit Logan in a man-hole, and Drake loops a barbed wire noose around his neck. Slick puts his truck in reverse and off comes Logan’s head. Afterward, Drake sticks it on the hood as a head ornament. Of course, the special effects are marginal. The blood is blatantly bogus! Meanwhile, no sooner has Logan’s head been torn from his neck than a bikini-clad babe in a white mink coat dances in the geyser of blood that erupts. If you can stomach this kind of ghoulish violence, you will love what Eisner and scenarists John Davies and Rob Cotterill have concocted.

Basically, “Hobo With a Shotgun” combines vintage town tamer westerns, such as “Fistful of Dollars,” with vigilante epics, like the Charles Bronson “Death Wish” franchise. All the poor Hobo wants is buy a $49.99 lawn mower so he can cut grass and earn money. Ironically, not a single blade of grass is in-sight in this urban sprawl. He collects aluminum cans and other assorted garbage in a grocery shopping cart, but he doesn’t get very far along in reaching his goal. Predictably, few folks ante up dimes, and the degenerate ruffians who run around leather jackets with Mohawk hair-cuts spit on him. Eventually, the public-spirited citizen hibernating within the Hobo emerges when Slick treats a defenseless hooker, Abby (newcomer Molly Dunsworth), with utter contempt and tries to assault her. Wielding his walking stick along with a sock filled with coins, the Hobo clobbers Slick and hauls him off to jail. Surprisingly, after a sympathetic police chief (Jeremy Ackerman of “K-19: The Widowmaker”) applauds the Hobo’s efforts, he turns on him and lets Slick carve the word SCUM into the Hobo’s chest. Once they finish with him, Slick and the Police Chief pitch the Hobo into the trash.

You cannot keep a good man down long. The Hobo staggers out of the trash, and Abby takes pity on him and lets him spend the night in her apartment. She gives him a sweatshirt with a bear on it and the Hobo turns into a bear of a vigilante. During a pawn shop hold-up, three hoods grab a mother and her baby in a carriage and threaten to kill them if the owner doesn’t empty his cash register. The Hobo happens to be in the pawn shop admiring the $49.99 lawn mower when this takes place. Abruptly, Hobo seizes a pump-action shotgun and splatters the three robbers with blasts to the belly. Things get so bad that Drake that tells Slick that he must establish fear in the hearts of the town. Consequently, Slick finds himself a flame-thrower and torches a school bus filled with kids. During a televised news report of his sadistic shenanigans, Slick and Ivan invade the studio and sling a skate boot so that its' blade embeds itself in the newscaster’s chest. Later, the Drake dispatches the police to exterminate all homeless people with extreme prejudice.

According to the Dread Central website, Canadian filmmaker Jason Eisner made a bogus trailer of “Hobo With a Shotgun” and entered it in director Robert Rodriguez's South by Southwest “Grindhouse” trailers competition back in 2007. The trailer won first place, and Eisner set about making the film. The Internet Movie Database has reported that this $3-million movie has made slightly more than a half-million dollars during its brief May release and has since gone onto DVD and Blu-ray. Indeed, Eisner upholds the standards of “Fistful of Dollars” and the “Death Wish” movies in terms of blood, gore and more. The Hobo cleans up the town and inspires citizens to gun down their corrupt police and reclaim the streets from them. Nevertheless, Eisner doesn’t drag out the inevitable in this formulaic actioneer. The villains are utterly despicable and deserve the worst that they receive. Eisner leaves little to the imagination, and some of the action is so ramped up that you want to laugh rather than cringe. Despite its entirely depraved subject matter, “Hobo With a Shotgun” delivers more enthusiasm and action than most big-screen fare. Eisner and his scenarist never the largely straightforward action bog down in a surfeit of exposition. They have pared down the plot to its extreme essentials and served it up like a shotgun blast to the belly.

FILM REVIEW OF "BIG JAKE" (1971)

Several things about director George Sherman’s last western shoot’em-up “Big Jake” (** out of ****)are significant. First, this represented the last time John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara co-starred in a film. Earlier, Wayne and O’Hara made “Rio Grande” (1950), “The Quiet Man” (1952), “The Wings of Eagles” (1957), and “McLintock!” (1963). O’Hara has two scenes in “Big Jake,” but she appears in only one with the Duke. They neither kiss nor do they embrace such is the animosity that keeps them apart. Second, this was the tenth and last time Wayne and Sherman worked together. Sherman had called the shots on several strictly average "Three Mesquiteers" B-movie westerns with Wayne for Republic Studios back in the late 1930s. Reportedly, Wayne stepped in to helm some scene when the ailing Sherman could not. Third, this violent turn-of-the-century oater also re-teams Wayne with a poncho-clad Richard Boone as a slimy main villain. Previously, they appeared together in “The Alamo” (1960) and later confronted each other again in a bar room shoot-out in Wayne’s final western “The Shootist” (1976).

Scenarists Harry Julian Fink and Rita M. Fink penned the formulaic screenplay about the kidnapping of a wealthy but aging cattleman’s grandson. The Finks were responsible for Don Siegel’s controversial police thriller “Dirty Harry” with Clint Eastwood and later “Cahill U.S. Marshal.” Unfortunately, despite some serviceable dialogue, “Big Jake” amounts to a sloppy, unsavory western with no sense of closure. The villains are a dastardly bunch, but they never truly challenge the heroes. The set-piece in an abandoned collection of buildings generates nothing in the way of suspense and tension. Further, “Big Jake” lacks the characteristic scene where Wayne one-ups an opponent. The closest thing to this scene is a shower scene, but it doesn’t cut the muster compared to scenes like in “McLintock!,” “Chism,” “The Train Robbers,” and “The Undefeated.” Some scenes that are clearly horseplay are embarrassingly bad, such as the automatic pistol scene at the river. Not only should O’Hara have returned for a final scene, but some sympathy should have been made to the hero’s dog and his Native American friend. As “Big Jake,” John Wayne spends most of his time riding around Mexico trying to keep himself and his two half-witted sons alive. One of his sons recoils at the thought of killing an animal to provide meal for supper and gets angry when he learns that he has killed somebody over a chest filled with paper clippings. Although this is largely a traditional Wayne western, “Big Jake” pits the weapons and transportation of an old-fashioned western (horses, revolvers, and shotguns) against the new-fangled western where people ride in cars or on motorcycles and wield automatic weapons. Predictably, ‘Big’ Jake wins the day with his old-fashioned approach. Sherman does a solid job of establishing the setting of this sagebrusher and the time period with a lengthy prologue.

John Fain (Richard Boone of “The Alamo”) leads a gang of murderous cutthroat outlaws who raid the McCandles ranch. This opening shoot-out qualifies as the bloodiest gunfight in a Wayne western. When bullets hit bodies, huge smears of red paint appear. Remember, the Duke objected to those exploding blood squibs in Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch” and felt that it was obscene. Wayne’s second oldest son Patrick co-stars with him and Wayne’s youngest son Ethan Wayne plays the abducted child. A gallery of seasoned western character actors fleshes out this rugged western with Bruce Cabot, John Doucette, John Agar, Roy Jenson, Jim Davis, Hank Worden, and Harry Carey, Jr.

“Big Jake” unfolds with a historical prologue that contains narration accompanied by a slide show of ancient photographs. “1909, The Edwardian golden days. Genteel civilization had come to England, the continent, and the eastern United States. New York rivaled London and Paris as one of the great metropolises of the world. Albert Einstein had expounded his theory of relativity back in 1905 and science had brought us the wonders of the modern world. Culture and refinement had arrived on the east coast of America. Caruso was singing Pagliacci in the Met. Arturo Toscanini was conducting. The Barrymores were performing and the Ziegfeld Girl was the rage. 1909 in the western part of the 46 United States was not so refined. The surviving Indian warriors were now being rounded up by the U.S. Army. In Washington, William Howard Taft, 300 pounds of pure Republican, was president and life was comfortable. In other parts of the country men were fighting each other and the elements. In New York department stores, a lady could buy maxis and boots and live in style. Out west, they didn’t think about style, just living. Eastern empire builders had secured their fortunes, the Morgans, Vanderbilts, and Carnegies. There were empires in the west, too, such as the great McCandles Ranch. But these huge ranches were held together only by having enough men and guns.

Notre Dame teams were playing football with end Knute Rockne catching the forward pass. In the Arizona Territory, another team, the Arizona Rangers, were busy just trying to keep the peace. Anna Pavlova, the prima ballerina of the Russian Ballet was dancing “Swan Lake.” The dance-hall girl in the Klondike gold rush saloons was somewhat different. By 1909, still photographs had come to life. Motion pictures had been born with The Great Train Robbery. While that make-believe was on the movie screens, nine men crossed the Rio Bravo into Texas. The turbulent years between the Civil War and the turn of the century brought out the best in some people, but in others it brought out the worst. Example: O’ Brien, a half-breed Apache, born of a Chiricahua mother and Irish father. A professional gunfighter, one of the last of his kind. Pop Dawson, rode with the James boys in Kansas and Missouri. Said to have murdered more than a dozen men, one for as little as seven dollars. Trooper, name unknown. A back-shooter. Considered a coward. Reputed to have been a cavalry soldier sometime in the past, but not to the personal knowledge of his confederates. William Fain, youngest of the Fain brothers, favors a shotgun, a Greener, for its bloody killing effect at short range. James William Duffy. At age 14, killed his first man, who was an admirer of his prostitute mother. Dead shot with a rifle. William Devries, young Billy, not quite 21. This raid was thought to have been his first outlaw act. Walt Devries, his older brother by twenty years. He looks more like a farmer than a professional killer. John Goodfellow maybe the worst of them. An indiscriminate killer. Women, children, no consequence at all. Prefers to work close. Favors a razor-edged machete.”

Since most of the ranch hands are away on a round-up, Fain and his trigger-happy marauders have little trouble when they start blasting away after some friendly conversation with the foreman. Without a qualm, they wound and/or kill ten men, women and children few qualms. They wound McCandles' eldest son Jeff (Bobby Vinton of “Surf Party”) and kidnap the youngest McCandles son, eight-year old (Ethan Wayne) and post a a ransom of $1 million. ‘Big’ Jake McCandles’ wife, Martha (Maureen O'Hara of “The Quiet Man”) summons her estranged husband through some messengers. They meet at a railway station, and she hands him the ransom note. Jake fishes out his spectacles to peruse it. Jake and Martha have been estranged for almost a decade, but they both love little Jake and ‘Big Jake’ vows to bring him back. Waiting for their father at the depot are his sons James McCandles (real-life son Patrick Wayne of “The Alamo”) and Michael (Christopher Mitchum of “Rio Lobo”) and their reception is soured by James’ sarcasm toward his father. James calls him “Daddy” in a snide voice and Jake pulls him off his horse and hurls him into a mud puddle. Jake informs James with any subtlety: "You can call Dad, you can call me Father, you can call me Jacob and you can call me Jake. You can call me a dirty old son-of-a-bitch, but if you EVER call me Daddy again, I'll finish this fight." Jake takes custody of a huge red strongbox with a million dollars in it and rides off with his old friend Sam Sharpnose (Bruce Cabot) while James and Michael follow Buck and the Texas Rangers.

A conventional and often predictable oater, “Big Jake” springs no real surprises. The revelation that the strong box that our heroes have been guarding contains nothing but paper clippings comes as no surprise. No sooner have Buck and the Texas Rangers entered Mexico than Fain’s men ambush them, kill three of them, and shoot up their cars. Meanwhile, it appears that Michael has been shot because he crashes his motorcycle and lays sprawled in the dust. Jake is more surprised than we are when his son gets up. Naturally, this calls for Wayne to punch his lights out. Jake leaves the Texas Rangers to fend for themselves while he rides out to the rendezvous with Fain. At about a hour into the plot, Jake and Fain meet in Jake’s camp. Fain instructs them to go to the nearby Mexican town of Escondero and await their orders. Later that evening, gunmen try to storm room number eight where our heroes are lying in wait for them. Jake, James, and Sam leave Michael alone in the room. Jake stages a distraction so Sam can slip back into the room, while James guns down to bullies in the saloon with his automatic pistol. Not long afterward, a suspicious Pop Dawson fetches Jake and company and they ride out to meet Fain and ransom the youngster. It is a classic stand-off again when Fain and Jake confront each other with Little Jake in plain sight. Michael has ascended to the top of water tower and uses his high-powered rifle to knock out a sniper in an adjacent belfry. What started as an interesting scene degenerates into a free-for-all shoot-out without a shred of suspense. The brute with a machete manages to slash poor old Sam to death and later kills the dog. Jake throws a lantern at Fain and lights him up before he perforates him with a bullet. No sooner has Little Jake been reunited with his family than the film freeze-frames them and comes to an end.

“Big Jake” is a mediocre Wayne effort with more blood than usual, but it is nothing memorable. Elmer Bernstein provides an okay orchestral score.

FILM REVIEW OF "GREEN LANTERN" (2011)

My favorite cinematic adaptations of costume-clad, comic-book, crime-fighters vary. The Christopher Reeve “Superman” (1978) tops my list followed by its sequel “Superman II” (1980), then “Iron Man” (2008), “Spider-man” (2002), “Batman Begins” (2005), “The Dark Knight” (2008), “X-Men” (2000), “X2” (2003), “Fantastic Four” (2005), and “X-Men: First Class” (2011). Interestingly, Marvel Comics has enjoyed greater success with their cinematic adaptations than their DC rivals. Since I grew up perusing DC Comics, I have a soft spot for DC heroes and their classic simplicity compared with more sophisticated but fascinating origins of the Marvel Comics mutants. Each of these films exhibits ambitious artistry and sets the gold standard for heroes, villains, and stories. Sure, the Michael Keaton “Batman” movies were entertaining, but “Batman” didn’t reach the gold standard until Christopher Nolan took over the helm from quirky Tim Burton and middle-of-the-road Joel Schumacher. Typically, a great costume-clad, comic-book, crime-fighter flick boasts the illusion of realism despite its outlandish, larger-than-life quality. The hero should be vulnerable without being weak. Meaning, he, she, or it should have an Achilles’ heel. Indeed, there should be a reasonable chance that they could die if all the planets and/or circumstances could align for such a contingency. Furthermore, the villains should not only threaten the hero and the heroine but also they should threaten people’s lives. Again, a reasonable chance should exist that the villains could destroy Earth, the universe, etc. Spectacular production values, suspenseful and surprising scripting, sympathetic heroes, menacing villains, and an impressive arena for them to display their powers contribute to making great costume-clad, comic-book, crime-fighting films.

“GoldenEye” director Martin Campbell’s “Green Lantern” (*** out of ****) qualifies as a good costume-clad, comic-book, crime-fighter flick. No, it doesn’t surpass any of those aforementioned epics. Nonetheless, “Green Lantern” is worth-watching, at least once, even in 3-D. Twice wouldn’t be intolerable for the 2-D version. Thrice might be pushing it. Happily, this lavish, $200-million, FX-fueled, DC entry in the summer crime-fighter sweepstakes neither takes itself too seriously nor wears out its welcome at 114 minutes. This super hero spectacle about a guy-in-a-green suit who can hurl himself through air and space is entertaining but lightweight fare. Scenarists Greg Berlanti of “Dawson’s Creek,” Michael Green of “Smallville,” and “Harry Potter and the Order of the Golden Phoenix” scribes Marc Guggenheim and Michael Goldenberg pour their considerable creativity into the plot. They keep the action and characters lively enough while delivering a solid origins story. Prepare yourself for a glut of exposition that bristles with more than enough details to keep you attentive. The sympathetic Ryan Reynolds hero shows strong potential, but neither Blake Lively nor he get a chance to generate much romantic sizzle in this PG-13 outing. The aliens and the other worlds make the grade in terms of visual splendor. Watching the scenes featuring aliens reminded me of the original “Star Wars.” Despite the presence of oddball aliens with radically different color scheme complexions, “Green Lantern” never slips into parody. Campbell maintains a fine balance between the dramatic and comedic elements when his writers and he aren’t immersing us with expository background information about Green Lantern mythology.

For the record, this DC Comics hero debuted July 1940 in “All-American Comics.” Long before the Earth was created, the immortal Guardians of the Universe supervised an intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps. These Guardians resemble those squat, bubble-headed football dolls because they are so diminutive, but they sit up high on lofty towers on the planet Oa. These Guardians have divided the galaxy into 3,600 sectors, with one Green Lantern per sector. The Green Lanterns are like Texas Rangers. Anyway, a Green Lantern wears an emerald green ring. This jaded jewelry provides them with powers limited only by their imagination. If there is one quality above all that a first-class Green Lantern must possess, he, she or it must lack fear. The first incarnation of the "Green Lantern" character lasted until 1949. In those days, before DC turn over the comic in a merger, the “Green Lantern” was railroad engineer Alan Scott. When DC rebooted “Green Lantern” in 1949, he became daredevil test-pilot Hal Jordan. Although the Alan Scott/Green Lantern character sounds more interesting, Campbell and his scribes have appropriated the Hal Jordan hero. Essentially, they have replicated Hal’s origins as the guy-in-green. Our hero receives his status and power as a Green Lantern when a dying alien, purple-faced Abin Sur of Sector 2814 (Temuera Morrison of “Vertical Limit”), crashes on Earth after battling Parallax. Abin Sur’s Green Lantern ring seeks out Hal. Apparently, this ring is drawn only to the individual that it deems worthy of wearing it. When “Green Lantern” opens, a former Guardian who has turned into a super villain called Parallax has escaped, fatally wounded Abin Sur, and sets out to ultimately destroy Earth and later the Guardians using fear as its chief weapon.

Naturally, Ferris Aircraft test pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds of "Buried") is flabbergasted when the ring chooses him. As it turns out, Hal is the first human to be a Green Lantern, and his pointy-eared mentor Thaal Sinestro (Mark Strong of “Stardust”) lacks confidence in him. Moreover, Hal has little confidence in himself, but he proves himself an excellent if not unorthodox test pilot. During an early scene, Hal out-flies two unmanned aircraft by flying above their altitude. This recklessness nearly killed him, but he beat the two jets. In this respect, "Green Lantern" recalls a similar scene from "Iron Man." Meanwhile, milquetoast biology professor Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard of “Boys Don’t Cry”), is called in to conduct an autopsy on Abin Sur's remains. During the autopsy, Hammond is infected by some of the DNA that Parallax left in Sur’s corpse. Parallax is the villain in "Green Lantern." Suffice to say, Parallax was a Guardian of the Universe who was lured away from the green force of will-power to the yellow force of fear. Parallax killed Abin Sur, and the soul-sucking Parallax wants to wipe out the ancient Guardians and Earth. Consequently, Hector acquires both Parallax's telepathic as well as telekinetic powers, but it costs him his sanity. Eventually, Hal and Hector battle over childhood sweetheart Carol Ferris (Blake Lively of “The Town”) who recognizes Hal even when he wears green. The confrontation at the Ferris Aircraft party when nerdy Hector tries to kill his smug father, U.S. Senator Robert Hammond (Tim Robbins), is both amusing and suspenseful.

The “Green Lantern” villains flaw the movie. Mind you, the villains do present a clear and present danger to Hal Jordan. Nevertheless, they appeared to have been hatched from the same galaxy that yielded Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks.” Indeed, the villains are either hideously deformed mutants or a monstrous supernatural extraterrestrial force that resembles a creature with the human skull and the vaporous body of a shape-shifting octopus. In other words, Parallax amounts to nothing more than CGI hokum. The skull-faced octopus might as well have been a Japanese monster puppet for all the evil that it conjures up. Having great villains makes the difference between a great costume-clad, comic-book, crime-fighter flick and a good costume-clad, comic-book, crime-fighter flick. “Green Lantern” comes up short on villainy. The villains emerge as either blow-hards or half-wits. As one of the villains, Sarsgaard is more fun to watch before his head swells up and he looks like a pigmy with skin disease. Nevertheless, the way that Hal defeats Parallax is not only foreshadowed but also fun. If you wait around patiently during the end credits, you can see who emerges as the next villain for Hal Jordan to fight in the inevitable "Green Lantern" sequel.

FILM REVIEW OF "ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK" (1981)

Director John Carpenter didn’t make “Escape from New York” into the iconic cult hit that he did with “Halloween.” Although this futuristic tough-guy thriller inspired only one sequel and several knock-offs, it didn’t forge the numerous sequels and remakes that “Halloween” spawned. According to Box Office.Mojo, the low-budgeted “Escape from New York” (**1/2 out of ****) coined $50 million worldwide on a mere seven-million dollar budget so it qualifies as a solid hit. Carpenter manages to put every cent on film. When you consider that most of the film was lensed in St. Louis rather than Gotham, this is impressive. Carpenter was limited to what he could show so he conceals well enough. The only time that Manhattan in totality appears as a prison is in the map scenes. The scenes in New York City appear realistic enough in what constituted a prison hellhole lighted with fires that cast ominous shadows. Interestingly, nobody but Carpenter saw Kurt Russell as integral to the lead role as Snake Plissken. The studio preferred Charles Bronson, but Carpenter thought Bronson was too old. Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Isaac Hayes, Donald Pleasance, Adrienne Barbeau, and Harry Dean Stanton co-star.

“Escape from New York” opens with some expository narrative that Carpenter said they decided to incorporate to give audiences a leg up on the setting and background of the story. Graphics accompany the following narration: “In 1988, the crime rate in the United States rises four hundred percent. The once great city of New York becomes the one maximum security prison for the entire country. A fifty-foot containment wall is erected along the New Jersey shoreline, across the Harlem River, and down along the Brooklyn shoreline. It completely surrounds Manhattan Island. All bridges and waterways are mined. The United States Police Force, like an army, is encamped around the island. There are no guards inside the prison, only prisoners and the worlds they have made. The rules are simple: once you go in, you don't come out.” Basically, World War III is drawing to a close, and the anonymous President (Donald Pleasance of “Halloween”) is flying in Air Force One when a terrorist masquerading as a stewardess hijacks it. She broadcasts a defiant proclamation: “Tell this to the workers when they ask where their leader went. We, the soldiers of The National Liberation Front of America, in the name of the workers and all the oppressed of this imperialist country, have struck a fatal blow to the fascist police state. What better revolutionary example than to let their president perish in the inhuman dungeon of his own imperialist prison.” Before Air Force One crashes, the President climbs into a pod and the pod is expelled from the aircraft.

Police Commissioner Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef of “For Few Dollars More”) discusses a plan with the Vice President to send in a hardened criminal facing a life sentence in Manhattan to rescue the chief executive. He chooses a former war hero, Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), because Snake has flown an ultra-quiet glider called the Gullfire during the war in Leningrad. When Hauk went in earlier to save the President, the thugs in the street warned him that they would kill the President unless Hauk and his men took off in 30 seconds. Hauk offers the reluctant Plissken amnesty for all his crimes if he will bring the President out in less than twenty-four hours. You see, Snake had been arrested for trying to rob a Federal Bank. Snake doesn’t exactly leap at the offer and Hauk explains that time is of the essence. The President was scheduled to appear at the critical Hartford Summit to deliver an audio cassette that had a message on it about nuclear fusion. It is essential that the President appears with that message.

Plissken agrees to fly the Gullfire and bring out the President. Nevertheless, the suspicious Hauk takes special precautions to ensure Snake’s loyalty. He explains how he will keep Snake from flying the other way once Snake is airborne. “ Two microscopic capsules lodged in your arteries. They're already starting to dissolve. In 22 hours, the cores will completely dissolve. Inside the cores are a heat-sensing charge. Not a large explosion, about the size of a pinhead, just big enough to open up both of your arteries. I'd say you'd be dead in 10-15 seconds...” Predictably, Snake is not thrilled at this revelation, but he manages to take it in stride. Our rugged hero flies the Gullfire into Manhattan. Although he lands atop the World Trade Center, he almost plunges over the side. Snake locates the wreckage of Air Force One and finds no survivors. He consults the tracking device that receives signals from the President’s electronic wrist bracelet. Eventually, Snake tracks down the signal, only to discover that a drunk (George ‘Buck’ Flower) is wearing it instead of the Chief Executive. Snake is taken on a tour of the city by the loquacious Cabbie (Ernest Borgnine), who has been cruising the city streets in his yellow cab for 30 years. Snake learns from the ‘Brain’ (Harry Dean Stanton) that the Duke of New York (Isaac Hayes) has captured the President. Snake tries to rescue the President, but neither are free for long. Snake takes an arrow in the leg and is forced to fight a giant (Ox Baker) in an arena with clubs. Snake defeats the giant and gathers ‘Brain,’ the President, and Maggie and they make a break for the 69th Street Bridge. Earlier, the Duke had planned to lead his army of convicts and storm the bridge. The Duke needed the ‘Brain’ because he had a diagram of where all the land mines where placed.

The formulaic action is dark, hard and gritty, and Carpenter stages the violence with reasonable aplomb. However, Carpenter’s work as music composer, along with Alan Howarth, overshadows his work as director. The opening “Escape from New York” theme is classic stuff! The music invests the film with a palpable sense of atmosphere. Clocking in at 99 minutes, this “Dirty Dozen” type genre film never wears out its welcome. The best parts are the opening twenty minutes and the concluding twenty minutes. Knowing that gigantic wrestler Ox Baker wasn’t trying to throw his punches, but connect them with Russell makes their memorable in the arena as they clobber each other with clubs more realistic. The snake tattoo that Snake wears and his eye-patch look thoroughly believable and Snake’s refrain “Call me Snake” bolsters Russell’s performance. Van Cleef contributes an intimidating mongoose performance. Kurt Russell looks suitably tough as Plissken with a raspy voice, a black eye-patch, and a beard.

“Escape from New York” emerges an above-average but threadbare thriller.

FILM REVIEW OF ''NIGHT NURSE'' (1931)

"The Public Enemy" director William Wellman tackles the issue of medical ethics in this blue-collar melodrama from Warner Brothers, "Night Nurse," (*** out of ****) about an unsavory quack trying to starve two vulnerable pre-school children to death to get his grimy hands on their trust fund. A young Barbara Stanwyck stars as the crusading nurse heroine who sets out to save the kids from the despicable likes of Clark Gable--in a loan-out role--as a slimy small time hood who has no qualms about slugging women. This snappy, Depression-era, 72-minute, black & white expose about hospitals and nurses qualifies as gripping but often sordid tale. Wellman doesn't foreground the usual romantic conventions by focusing primarily on the relationship between the heroine and the hero. The romantic scenes between Barbara Stanwyck and Ben Lyon as they flirt take a backseat to the subversive plot about children-in-jeopardy. Barbara Stanwyck's performance as a young nurse seems callow and uncertain at times, nothing as fierce some as she was later in "Baby Face," but Joan Blondell is her usual jaunty self. It is exciting to catch Clark Gable at this point in his illustrious career before he made good at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He delivers an electrifying performance as a thoroughly loathsome hood who stands out above everybody else. Interestingly, James Cagney was the first choice to play the thug that Gable would incarnate, but Cagney had ascended the stairs of stardom and the studio sought somebody else.

"Night Nurse" emerged as a departure from the typical Hollywood production in the wake of the silent picture era. When you watch "Night Nurse," pay attention to all those tracking shots as well as other where Wellman moves the camera. Early Hollywood sound pictures were primarily static because producers and directors were fearful of generating sound when they moved their cameras. Indeed, in some early sound pictures, the camera operator was sealed in a soundproof box with the camera and had to hold his breath since there was on air in the sealed up camera. Moreover, Wellman recorded live audio when he moved his cameras which was something of an innovation, too. He was one of the first filmmakers to dangle a microphone from a boom above his actors and actresses as they delivered their dialogue. If you have any doubts about the use of boom mikes, look at all those tell-tale shadows of the boom mikes on the walls. The opening shots lensed through the windshield of an ambulance careening down one street and then another to a hospital emergency room is invigorating, enough so that Wellman repeated the same sequence at the end.

Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck) wants to be a nurse. She nearly misses the opportunity because she lacks a high school diploma. Wellman and his scribes make her heroine sympathetic from the start because her mother's death forced her to drop out of high school. Since she doesn't have the diploma, a stern-minded nurse refuses to accept her as a probationary nurse. Fortunately for Lora, the man hurriedly entering the revolving door at the hospital's front entrance catches her on the way out and knocks her handball to the floor. This callous fellow turns out to be Dr. Arthur Bell (Charles Winninger of "Nothing Sacred") and he persuades the Superintendent of Nurses, Miss Dillon (Vera Lewis of "Intolerance") to give Lora a chance. "Rules are important," Dillon dictates from the get-go, and "Night Nurse" is about about breaking rules, not only in the medical field but also the movies. Dillon assigns another nurse, Maloney (Joan Blondell of "Three on a Match"), to show Lora the ropes, and those ropes are tightropes.

First, Maloney warns Lora not to fall in love with either doctors or interns. Cynically, Maloney recommends patients with dough. Second,the nurses must follow strict rules to keep their respective jobs. For example, she has one hour to herself and must work until 7 pm. As long as she is in bed with lights out by 10 pm, she has nothing to fear. Moreover, if they are caught out of bed after 10 pm, they face the prospect of additional night shifts. Later, Lora learns that she earns a paltry $56 per week. A cocksure intern, Eagan (Edward J. Nugent of "Prison Shadows"), pulls a practical joke on Lora. Eagan stashes a human skeleton in her bed. Lora screams and he pokes his head in to laugh at them. Meanwhile, the scream has awakened Miss Dillon who storms into their room. Maloney mistakes Dillon for Eagan and flings a slipper at her. Dillon makes Lora take two weeks on the night shift at the emergency clinic. One evening, Lora patches up a wounded bootlegger, Mortie (Ben Lyon of "Indiscreet"), who persuades her not to report his bullet wound. They become friends, and Mortie saves Lora later when she finds herself in a tight spot.

Eventually, Lora graduates from the nursing program and gets a night nurse job with an unscrupulous Dr. Milton A. Ranger (Ralf Harolde of "Killer Shark") who explains that the best nurses is keep her mouth shut. Maloney handles the day shift, while Lora works the night shift, attending to two children, Nanny (Marcia Mae Jones of "The Champ") and Desney (Betty Jane Graham of "Alias the Doctor"), suffering from malnutrition. One evening, when she tries to help the drunken Mrs. Ritchey (Charlotte Merriam of "Alimony Madness"), Lora is assaulted by the drunken boyfriend and Nick, the Chauffeur (Clark Gable of "Gone with the Wind") intervenes. Lora is about to call the police, but Nick clobbers her on the chin. When Mrs. Maxwell, the Housekeeper (Blanche Friderici of "Thirteen Women") lets slip that Dr. Ranger and Nick, the Chauffeur are in cahoots to kill them for their trust fund money, Lora goes to Dr. Bell. Bell warns her that nobody will believe her hysterical accusations about Ranger. When Lora wants to quit, Bell convinces her to continue to work so she can gather evidence to be used against Ranger and Nick. Lora and Mrs. Maxwell are trying to save Nanny with a milk bath when Nick intervenes. There is a wonderful close-up of the bath tub being emptied out into the silk with the doll that Nanny had that sums up the old saying do not throw the baby out with the bath water. Anyhow, things are touch and go until Mortie shows up with a pistol in his pocket and sends Nick packing.

"Night Nurse" is an interesting and entertaining Pre-Code film.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THOR'' (2011)

Although the newest addition to the Marvel Comics’ cinematic super hero pantheon boasts superlative production values and a serviceable cast, “Hamlet” director Kenneth Branagh’s “Thor” (** OUT OF ****) qualifies as nothing special. This preposterous, larger-than-life, 115-minute, PG-rated drivel shifts scenes between contemporary New Mexico and the legendary realm of Asgard where Norse royalty reside in Wagnerian grandeur. “Agent Cody Banks” scenarists Ashley Edward Miller & Zack Stentz along with “Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer” scribe Don Payne gave “Thor” their best shot based on a story by “Ninja Assasin” scenarist J. Michael Straczynski and “Poseidon” writer Mark Protosevich. Despite those best efforts, “Thor” amounts to an undistinguished ‘origins’ epic about Odin’s arrogant offspring. No surprises lurk in this predictable, cookie-cutter opus about the famous hammer wielding Norse champion.

Basically, “Thor” boils down to a boy-gets-hammer, boy-loses-hammer, and boy-gets-hammer back. During this tedious process, our hero has to acquaint himself with the meaning of humility and compassion. Handsome Aussie stud Chris Hemsworth, who played Captain Kirk’s father in “Star Trek” reboot, provides the appropriate brawn and blond hair as the eponymous hero who wrestles with anger management issues. Incidentally, the real Thor of lore possessed red hair and a red beard. Meantime, Academy Award winning actress Natalie Portman, Kat Dennings, and Stellan Skarsgård co-star in the Earth scenes, while Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins lords it over the Asgard scenes as the one-eyed Odin. Of course, Thor and leading lady Jane become an item, but the film dwells on family woes more than romantic wooing.

“Thor” opens in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico. Astrophysicist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman of “Black Swan”), her mentor Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård of “Good Will Hunting”), and their wisecracking assistant Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings of “Defendor”) are in the middle of nowhere searching for an atmospheric anomaly at night. All hell breaks loose and Jane collides with somebody when they plunge their vehicle into a storm-like phenomenon. Before we learn who they’ve struck, the plot propels us back in time to Norway in 965 A.D. Odin has triumphed over the imperialistic Frost Giants, led by King Laufey (Colm Feore of “Chicago“), and thwarts them from conquering Earth. Odin loses an eye and exiles these icy blue dastards to their frozen world of Jotunheim. Furthermore, Odin confiscates the Casket of Ancient Winters that serves as their source of power. Later, when Odin is about to crown Thor, some Frost Giants infiltrate Asgard to recover the casket. Although Odin dismisses the attempt as a botched effort, Thor wants to wage war on the Frost Giants. Odin and he call each other names. Afterward, Thor slips away with his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston of “Midnight in Paris”) and a quartet of his warrior comrades to storm Jotunheim. When Odin learns about Thor’s insubordination, he banishes him to Earth. Thor is sucked into a wormhole and hits planet Earth about the same time that Jane bumps into him with her vehicle.

Meanwhile, the devious Loki learns a disturbing secret about his past from Odin. The truth is that Loki was born a Frost Giant, but Odin adopted him in hopes that someday Loki might bring peace to the warring adversaries. They quarrel about it, and Loki causes Odin to fall into a deadly sleep. None of this deep sleep nonsense is clarified, but the implication seems to be that Odin is hovering near death. Back on Earth, Thor finds out ‘Mjolnir' has crashed to Earth and embedded itself in bedrock. Everybody tries without success to wrench the hammer from the rock, shades of "The Sword in the Stone." This scene qualifies as one of the funniest, featuring Marvel Comics guru Stan Lee in an amusing cameo as he struggles to extract the hammer. Eventually, the Norse god scrambles to the site for his treasured hammer. Thor has no luck with ‘Mjolnir’ and fears the worst. As Odin lies in a coma-like rest, Loki takes over his father’s duties. Now, he dispatches an enormous robot called Destroyer to complicate matters. Destroyer virtually wipes out the entire town where Jane and company live.

As superhero movies go, nobody in “Thor” is in immediate jeopardy, and you know the hero will survive no matter how intimidating Destroyer looks. The combat scenes never generate any excitement. Sure, several characters experience some close scrapes with mortality, but nobody dies. Worse, some characters get away with more than others because Branagh and his quintet of writers don’t make us privy to their special powers. Watch Loki and you’ll see. As villains rate, Loki is more deceitful than menacing, and Thor never performs anything picturesque, like the heroes in “Iron Man,” “The Incredible Hulk,” and “The Fantastic Four” franchise. Surprisingly, neither Jane nor her friends are kidnapped by the villains. Ironically, none of those eponymous protagonists share Thor’s supernatural powers.