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Tights, cawrcra, antiln ! Frvm, 'The Roc,lrcteer' to Jud,ge Dredd,,' mrn'ies haae scrught to hu,mnnize
atst;umpd, crime.fighters. How dnes'Th,e s MoDERN myths of godlike powers and deeds, superhero comics don't usuali

Phnntorn' draro cm this trad,itfum? B Y t R A ll K

0Y

tc

ly adapt well to film. As spectacles, sure-the Szpernlan and Batman

movies may as well have been Cols, wil.h their iconic characters and highly stylized fantasy worlds-but not as stories that hold up on their own. Movies can't easily provide the equivalent of thought
balloons, which in comics humanize these

TOM (1996, Paramount, PG, priced for rental) and the underrated THE ROCKEIEER (1991, WaLt Disney, PG, $14.99) work better than do recent would-be spectacles JUDGE DREDD (1995, HoIIy-

wood,, R, $19.99) and CAPTAIN AMERICA (1992, CohrmAia T\iStur, PG-13, $19.95).

The Phantom himself-a costumed

white jungle protector created in 1936 by

Lee Falk-is vulnerably human. He's an athlete/

marksman, not a genetical-

superhumans. Using lesser-known characters helps, but even so, human-scale films such as the new-to-video THE PHAI{-

hasjungle fervor in The Phantom (top); the hero in his comic-book look
PURPTE REIGN: Zane

engineered one-man army like Dredd nor the re. cipient of a super-soldier serum like Captain America.

ly

146

NOVEMBER

22,

1996

Though heroes of other comics-based movies like THE PUNISHER (1991, LwE, R, $1/+.98) and IAI{K GlRl (1995, MGM/ UA, R, $19.98) aren't superhuman either, their weapons make them, like Batman, the next best Not so the low-tech Phantom (Bi]]y Zane),whobleeds all over his Skull Cave in 1938 Africa. He does foil a scheme by megalomaniac Xander Drax (a high-camp Theat Williams) to galher mystical skulls

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aclventure, Tank Girl, from a'90s British comic, proves equally unexamined, turn-

ii:

Though both characters' films went

ing the joyful anarchy of the book's

postapocalyptic Courtney Love into the whine of a punk poseur (Lori PeW). As for comics movies set in the present, the super-heroic derring-do of Mar-

thing.

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straight to video in the U.S., Th,e Punishe/s director, Terminator and TQ edltor Mark Goldblatt, shot atmospherically and cut tightly, while low-budget hack Albett P1'un made Captain Amertca sloppily,

jaw-droppingly cartoony. Which just

shows that movies based on comic books can be as diverse as movies based on, oh, books. The Phantom: C+ Th,e Rocketesr:

vel's Captain America (Matt Salinger)

plays less well than the gritty vigilantism

of the same company's the Punisher

(Dolph Lundgren). Yet that has as much to do with execution as anything themat-

A-

Judge Dredd,:

and harness their supernatural powers, but he uses liLtle more Lhan a pistol. On video-where viewers often expect just a good campfire tale-The Phantom's jungle archetJroes seem quaintly amusing. Yet the raiders-of-thelost-bones plot and period detail remind us that postIndiana Jones, a cliff-hanger needs action more blockbuster than lackluster, plus dialogue better balanced between winking kitsch and comfort-food corn.

The

Punisher: B Tank Qirl: D

G- Captain '\vrwricaF

All of which is possible even if you're

not Steven Spielberg: Witness The Rocketeer,basedon Dave Stevens"S0s comics about clean-cut young pilot Cliff Secord (Bill Campbell), who stumbles upon a jet
, ,

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i i i i i i wonder fairly trembles with a sadism i that feels serious and contemporary.

pack and ends up fighting Nazis. The Rocketeer shares wiLh The Phantom a winds-of-war milieu, a non-superhuman hero, and the kind of Meet John Doe idealism we rightly or wrongly attribute to the era. But The Rocketeels exhilarating acLion makes it timeless, and its sense of

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: ttt no coincidence that the optimistic i Secordandthe Good SamaritanPhantom

i bottr irait from the'30s, when the idea of i the superhero was new-the product of i a time when a desperate world turned to i paternal dictators and presidents. But i po*"* corrupts, and authority can bei come fascism. Alan Moore and Dave Gib: bons' mid-'80s DC Comics miniseries

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Watchmen made that point like an eloqu"nt earthquake; Moore had produced similar rumblings with his take on the gritish characterJudge Dredd.Dredda cloned member of a 2lst-century cadre

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of cop/juclge/executioners-represents Lhe superhero drawn to its logical conclusion: idealism turned to clmicism, reason to rigiaity, might to might-makes-tigttt.

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i But the dystopian action-adventure i movie Juclge Dredd stars Sylvester Stali lone, who really isn't one for deep introi spection. Another dystopian action-