Simon Wincer
1996
Grade: D-
The plot a mess, the characters flat, the music generic, and the fight choreography uninspired…and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. Adventure was on the mind the moment pen struck paper for this one and it follows through with every breath until the last of the final credits fade from screen. There’s something so refreshing about a movie that is not going out of its way to preach or highlight the moral righteousness of its authors. In fact, beyond “have fun” this movie does little more than invite its viewers to set aside the troubles they walked in with and smile despite themselves as they spend ninety minutes in a world where the evil is easy to recognize and the good guys always win.
I’m going to organize my thoughts in a bad news: good news fashion because I don't want anyone to walk away from this review feeling as though I didn’t have a good time with this movie. One of the glaring issues that the movie has is its timid relationship with the supernatural. Though my interactions with Lee Falk’s original comic are limited to one hardcover anthology chronicling the earliest years of the strip, my impression was The Phantom, although a flamboyant and remarkable figure, lived in a world grounded, essentially, in realism. When the film wishes to respect these origins the realism holds: the Phantom is not immortal nor does he have any superhuman abilities beyond his wits, courage, and athleticism. However, where the film chooses to embellish, it chooses to do so supernaturally: namely the Skulls of Touganda and his own magical ring. These elements are poorly established, only vaguely threatening, and, in the case of the ring, appear so suddenly in the narrative that they feel like nothing more than a plot contrivance.
I do admire the attempt on the part of the costume designer to bring a page accurate costume to the screen, and I appreciate all of the detailed work that went into break up the uniform purple with skull motifs, but I’m not sure the Phantom of the comic strip was ever going to successfully translate to film in this arena. That may make my criticism seem unfair as you certainly can’t alter the costume since, as with all two dimensional characters, if you remove the iconography of their apparel they will be unrecognizable. Can you imagine an Indiana Jones movie where he didn’t wear the hat, jacket, and whip? However, this admission made, the Phantom still feels out of place in every scene he’s in. In his original comic setting his iconic purple fits well in the context of the other vibrant colors of the page. In the film, his purple is set against a backdrop of realism and it can be very jarring at times. I would compare it to the Dick Tracy movie from 1990, which was comparably budgeted, deciding to have Warren Beaty wear the iconic bright yellow hat and trench coat while the rest of the characters wore realistic 1940s suits.
Those nitpicks aside, I’d like to turn to something that the film does not just well but with remarkable flare, the stunts. The stunt performances in this movie are among my favorite in memory. While the truck fight suffers in comparison to its iconic twin in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the other set pieces are thrilling, well planned, and expertly executed. I might go as far to say that watching the Phantom and Diana Prince leap onto a running horse from the pontoon of a low flying sea plane is one of my favorite on screen stunts of all time. The editor deserves no small praise in crafting this intense moment as the shot continually shifts back and forth between the composite shot of the principle actors and the practical effect performers. It was the highlight moment of the film for me when I was thirteen and it is just as true today.
There’s no lack of loving homage to the comic strip, and I’m glad to see that some of Lee Falk’s original storylines are still clearly visible in the narrative. Sala(Zeta-Jones) and her sky pirates may have been a little short-changed, I expect in consideration of cost, but their inclusion, along with the plot line of the Phantom confronting the killer of his father, all contribute to what I would consider a largely faithful effort to bring the world's longest running comic to a whole new audience.
Turning to the actors is a little more difficult. The script was clearly designed to recreate the pulp world of the late 1930’s. With that context in mind it would be unfair to criticize many of the staid or naive line deliveries as they are perfectly in line with the film’s intent. I will say that Billy Zane is as dashing a hero as one could want, and he clearly went through the effort to shape himself into the heroic mold. Kristy Swanson’s Diana Prince gets a bit of a 90’s definitely-not-distressed damsel update, but without going overboard to let her upstage the hero. Treat Williams’ turn as Xander Drax is cartoonishly over the top as so many early villains were. The film even tries to fit in a small redemptive arc for Sala which is charming if not fully realized.
The movie is fun for its own sake and wonderfully unpretentious. Worth a moment if only for the history of heroes.
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