The Phantom – the purple one.

Title: The Phantom

US release: 6/7/1996

Directed by Simon Wincer

Written by Jeffrey Boam

Distributed by Paramount Pictures

Cast:

Billy Zane – The Phantom/Kit Walker

Treat Williams – Xander Drax

Kristy Swanson – Diana Palmer

James Remar – Quill

Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa – The Great Kabai Sengh

Katherine Zeta-Jones – Sala

Patrick McGoohan – The Ghost of Kit’s father.

Bill Smitrovich – Dave Palmer

The Skinny:

                A young boy is traveling by sea when his ship is attacked by the notorious pirates of the Sengh Brotherhood.  The boy’s father, even though he puts up a valiant defense, is cut down by the pirate leader, which he witnesses to his horror.  The boy jumps overboard and finds himself washed up on the shores of Bengalla, and is discovered by the native tribe of the jungle.  The tribe takes him to their camp and ritualistically makes him “The Phantom” and charges him to fight greed, piracy and cruelty in all their forms, and gift him with a magical skull ring.

                Centuries later, in the era of the 1930’s, Quill (Remar) leads a small group of smugglers, hired by the power-hungry businessman Xander Drax (Williams), through the Bengalla Jungle.  He manages to traverse the jungle terrain with the help of a small native boy they kidnapped to act as their guide, even using him to drive the truck all by himself across a decaying rope bridge.  Once they cross a certain point, the boy becomes scarred and will go no further.  He speaks of the jungle being guarded by a “ghost who walks”.  Quill dismisses the boy, even when it’s revealed he has a skull imprint on his jaw matching the Phantoms ring.  The group goes on without the boy and raid a small cave they find.  Quill is only interested in one artifact, a skull made out of silver.   The group hears drums start to beat in the distance and flee back to the truck, only to meet the Phantom himself. 

The group flees, but The Phantom chases them down until Quill is left.  He manages to fight off The Phantom and ditch the truck as it careens back across the rope bridge and gets stuck.  The Phantom discovers the kidnapped boy in the back, frees him from his ropes and makes a daring escape as the bridge turns over from the weight of the truck and eventually breaks loose of its supports and falls down into the canyon.

The Phantom, revealed to be Kit Walker (Zane) recovers in his hideout, a cave with an entrance under a rock face that resembles a skull.  Researching his archives, he’s tended to by his native servant Guran.  He discovers the silver skull Quill stole is part of a set of the 3.  The other two skulls being made of jade and gold.  If all 3 are put together, they are said to create a powerful force, with no known defense against them.  As Guran retires to another room, Kit is met by the ghost of his dead father (McGoohan) who implores him to retrieve them at any cost.  The situation is made graver when Kit reveals he saw a tattoo on Quill’s arm matching the emblem of the Sengh Brotherhood.

The scene shifts to New York, where Diana Palmer (Swanson) returns from a trip to the Yukon.  She arrives just as her uncle Dave (Smitrovich), a rich newspaper mogul, is throwing a charity party.   Its revealed that uncle Dave has been investigating Drax for his known associations with the mob.  Dave has discovered that Drax has been looking into to foreign artifacts, and even finds an artist rendering of the tattoo of the Sengh Brotherhood.  Intending to go to the Benghalla jungle to investigate, he’s afraid to leave as it would give Drax the opportunity seize control of his newspaper.  Diana offers to go in his place.  Drax finds out about uncle Dave’s plan, when it is revealed he not only owns the New York Mob, but the Police commissioner as well.

Diana’s plane is forced to land by pirates, all of whom are women, flying bi-planes.  Their leader, Sala (Zeta-Jones), takes Diana back to the Benghalla jungle to Quill.  The Phantom hears of the kidnapping from the captain of the jungle patrol, who acts as his contact while he feigns ignorance, and sneaks aboard the boat where Diana is being held captive.  He frees her and they make their escape back into the jungle, evading pursuit by the pirates. 

The Phantom takes Diana back to the Skull cave where she meets with Guran and the Captain of the Jungle patrol.  Having swiped the drawing of the Sengh tattoo before being kidnapped, she shows it to The Phantom.  His reaction revealing how serious the situation is, she tells him of Drax and his research into the skulls back in New York.  He sends her away abruptly, to her surprise.

Back in New York, Quill delivers the silver skull to Drax.  Drax is pleased but more upset that Diana is still alive.  Sala, having tried to seduce The Phantom during his rescue attempt only to be rebuffed, believes he’s in love with Diana.  Drax doesn’t believe in The Phantom, until Quill shows him a gun belt identical to the one Kit wears when in persona.  Quill admits he killed The Phantom by stabbing him in the back, even showing the cut in the back of the belt where he stabbed him.  Drax, impressed with Quill’s villainy, still dismisses The Phantom as a threat believing him to be still in the Beghalla jungle. 

Kit, unknown to Drax arrives in New York to track down the jade skull, getting information about it while reminiscing with uncle Dave.  Diana interrupts their reunion, and is surprised to see Kit, since he left suddenly years ago, ending their long college romance.

Heading to a local museum to obtain the Jade skull, Kit and Diana are intercepted by Drax and his hired muscle, including Quill.  With the silver and jade skulls now within close proximity, they cause a massive disturbance within the museum, and burn a hole in nearby wall map to mark the location of the 3^rd skull.

Back at Drax’s executive office, he tries to interrogate Kit by having Quill punch him in the stomach with brass knuckles.  Kit notices the gun belt Quill is wearing, and soon comes to realize he murdered his father.  En route to the roof to get Kit to talk, he breaks free of his captors and flees into a nearby utility room.  Quill and company pursue but are met by The Phantom. 

Drax, along with Sala, Quill and Diana as a hostage, head to the uncharted island revealed on the map, with The Phantom in close pursuit.  Not only must he save Diana (whom he still loves) he must ultimately stop Drax from obtaining the 3^rd skull, and unleashing their rumored power, becoming invincible.

On the Surface:

                An adventure movie based on a comic book character, this film feels corny while watching it, that is if adventure movies are not to your liking.  A buff guy in a purple suit feels corny enough, but double fisting AMT Hardballers (anachronistic, as that handgun was not manufactured until the 1970’s) seemed over the top.   Add some classic adventure elements, like the rope bridge sequence, and the film feels like a 3-part miniseries of a Saturday morning cartoon, just given a bigger budget and released in theaters.  Still, since adventure movies are a rare breed to begin with, this film will be welcomed by action junkies and fans who have wanted more action movies since Indiana Jones set the bar.  During the mid-1990’s, comic book and super-hero movies (The Phantom doesn’t have super-powers) were considered a waste of time by production houses, and with the Batman films starting to turn into an updated version of the camp TV series (with anatomically correct foam rubber suits), this film seemed to be released at the worst time and into a very unforgiving viewership. 

                In more recent years, this film has garnered a cult following, from adventure movie junkies to the niche market that has followed The Phantom character, even collecting the original 1930’s comic strips from draw by creator Lee Falk.

Production wise:

                This film was in development for many years, even the great Sergio Leone was interested in developing the character for the big screen.  Eventually, the late great screenwriter Jeffrey Boam (who had contributed to the Adventure film genre when he wrote the successful Indiana Jones and the last crusade), penned a script, and Australian director Simon Wincer, were pegged to helm the project.  Billy Zane, coming off an acclaimed performance as the psychopathic villain in “Dead Calm” had actually been introduced to The Phantom comic strip while on set for that film, and lobbied hard for the role.  He did win the role, beating out Bruce Campbell, and would go on to train hard for the next year to gain the cut physique required for his character. 

                Studio filming was done in Wincer’s home country of Australia, with remaining sequences shot on location in Thailand and some California locations. 

Why I like the film:

                I had read some Phantom strips in collected volumes I would check out from the local library, so seeing the trailer for The Phantom piqued my interest.  The folks let my brother and I see it by ourselves at the mall theater (the only mall in our town) and we both loved it.  I’m surprised that no movies since have used a rope bridge sequence, or even tried to reboot the film per the current trend.

                I think Billy Zane could’ve grown into an action star had the film not received such bad reviews.  His presence on the screen, even in the purple costume left now doubt that he was the hero, taking away all distracting thoughts about his movements on screen and allowing all the audience’s focus to be on the action as it played out.  The romance between Kristy Swanson and Zane was trimmed down to allow for faster pacing, customary for an action film, still it served as a necessary subplot and left the door open for a sequel, which sadly never came.

                Though always type cast as the Asian villain, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa still played his role as pirate king beautifully.  I loved the scene where he insults Drax and company.   Treat Williams played the role of villain posing as a businessman well, so well its hard for me to see him in any other role without comparing it to this one.  James Remar was solid as Quill, and the angle of him being a back stabber who killed Kits father gave him that little extra degree of bad guy-ness to make his death at the end of the film justified and anticipated. Remar, already known for playing villains and villainous henchmen, would pretty much make a career out of playing that type of character, but knew how to make each role unique, instead of one villain fits all.

                This was the first time I had seen Catherine Zeta-Jones on film, and for awhile was hard for me to see her as anything else but the villainess in her later films.   

                As I said before, the basic adventure element of the rope bridge sequence may have been over expected by the audience, but I think it was done right.  The bridge was wide enough for vehicles to pass over, and the bridge turning upside down was original for the sequence as a whole.  The bi-plane sequence where The Phantom and Diana drop down onto his horse before the plane crashes was reminiscent of what would most likely be drawn in one of the original 1930’s strips.  It felt very fitting, and I don’t think it was meant to blow the audience away, just be familiar in a “ah, there’s good ol’ stuff” kind of way. 

                This film may have been based on a comic book character, but I see it as an adventure movie.  Straight adventure films haven’t been done a lot in Hollywood over the years, and sadly seem to have been overused in the B-movie industry, leading to a bad image.  So, to see classic adventure elements (rope bridge sequences, Bi-plane stunts, etc.) is very rare in big budget film history.  So even though not a straight adventure film, I still love this movie, and it’s very hard for me not rant against people who write it off as “just corny”.

The film was rated PG, I guess to appeal more to the under 10 years old crowd, and for a lot of shootout sequences.  No language, and only a short scene showing women in their 1930’s era under-garments.  Even for the 1990’s, that was pretty tame.  Stream or rent where available when you’re in the mood for an adventure film, or when you need a taste of an old school adventure story with a more modern touch.