O 22º Herdeiro

The Phantom was one of my favorite comics when I was a kid, so my excitement was understandable when I sat down to watch this movie. Alas, the excitement waned almost immediately. This was not a movie worthy of the comic strip, it hardly had anything to do with it whatsoever. It was overly 'modernized', apparently in order to adapt it to the 21st century... Why on earth would you want to do that? It looks more like a music video than an action flick.

Another major problem is the casting of the main character; Ryan Carnes would be much more believable impersonating a teenage MTV pop star than he is starring as the Phantom. And then there is the costume... Suffice it to say that it looks totally ridiculous, and it has nothing to do with the Phantom. The set decoration is rather tacky (I believe due to budgetary restrictions), the cinematography and sound are average, so there is really nothing that really stands out in this movie. Large TV productions have accustomed us to much better products in recent years. It's a pity really, the idea to film the Phantom was a good one, but it should have been done in a different way, a completely different way.

I never knew the old Phantom before, so I watched this with an open mind, I usually know nothing of the movies I'm about to watch not even genre. I kinda guessed that this was a comic-book adaptation and i was right.

Okay, so this is a B-flick. the characters are neither very deep nor engaging, the actresses are, while nice, not really very stunning. Everything breathes second rate.

But what is really disturbing is this trend that remakes of old 70s themed movies, comic books, TV shows turn out to be slightly racist, in it's casting and in the story lines.

The evil villain here is Singh. Singh is probably the most common of names in India, like Smith or Lopez or Popov. And in the cast, to replace Guran, an African with an Asian woman??? I like pretty girls as much as anyone, but this is part of a worrying trend that started with Battle Star Galactica, when they replaced colonel Thigh with a white guy.

I guess we have to be thankful that B.A. Barracus isn't some Bubba from Alabama in the new A-Team movie.

The Melancholic Alcoholic.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable show. So often both the television directors and the television critics feel that television must deliver some kind of message or have some type of grand esoteric meaning, but most television programs are simply just for entertainment. Thankfully, this particular program does exactly what it is supposed to do--entertain. Additionally, I really like the characters, Guran (played by Sandrine Holt) and Renny (played by Cameron Goodman), so this show works for me on more than one level. This is only television, it is not theater class at an expensive university. Others seem to have unrealistic expectations of just what television can and does deliver to the masses.

Perhaps it's because I know nothing of the Phantom, but I enjoyed this quite a lot. I don't usually pay much attention to CGI if the concept and characters are compelling, and I found they were here. I did notice (after reading the reviews here) that the jet was not very realistic, but that took little away from the overall storyline.

I was particularly satisfied with the involved plot line that didn't telegraph the ending. Yes, it was basically good against evil, but the characters were well done, the pace was quick and the leads were charismatic. I'd like to see the romantic angle developed and an heir for the Phantom. I loved the lair and the locations, but the Indians I could've done without.

I look forward to seeing SyFy pick this up.

I didn't know when I rented this DVD that it was an unrated made for cable TV movie. So when I popped the disc into the player and there were previews for SYFY shows, and then I saw "Play part 1" and "Play part 2", I thought, Oh boy this is going to be a wasted 3 hours. I was pleasantly surprised. This TV movie was actually done very well. The acting was good, the effects were good and the story was pretty easy to follow, but also had some nice twists to it that kept it interesting all the way through. I never got into the Phantom comics, so I don't know how true it stayed to the history of them, and so I didn't care about that aspect of it. It was just an enjoyable few hours spent with the family, watching a pretty darn good TV movie. There were a few scenes of graphic violence that would rate this a PG-13, so if you have little ones, it may be too violent for them. I hope it gets turned into a SYFY series. I will watch it if it does.