3 Dev Adam

Priceless statues are being stolen all over Istanbuhl(?). Looks like the work of that infamous, murdering Spiderman. The police call in special outside help in Captain America from the United States and the legendary Mexican wrestler Santo.

It's anyone's guess why Spidey's turned to a life of crime, what the significance of all the stolen art is, or if those are his bangs or his eyebrows sticking out of the holes in his mask. He's also traded-in his web-shooters for a slick little switch-blade,and can quickly clone himself if he's killed (that part gets real tiresome after a while). Captain America is missing his trusty shield and Santo's wrestling skills resemble Flintstone judo.

In fact, nothing seems to make sense at all in this live-action cartoon that makes Tim Burton's 'Batman' look as tame as the 60's TV series. Dozens of people are killed needlessly, sudden jump-cuts take you to sleazy strip clubs, and there's a love scene that's interrupted by the Mr. Rogers' puppets. Even worse, it's all in Turkish. No version in English or English subtitles is available. I'm not painting a pretty pictures here, I know. But I can say it is, without a doubt , one of the BIGGEST film oddities the world over.

It's got Spider-Man as a crime lord choking women in bathtubs, Captain America karate kicking guys to kingdom come, not to mention the James Bond theme, what more could you ask for?

Turkish cinema, gotta love it. Where else in the world can you get copyright infringement films that make you smile from ear to ear? In this film Marvel Comics hero Spiderman becomes a bad guy trying to take over the world. He is battled by Captain America (in possibly the best suit every put on screen) and Santo, the Mexican wrestler and movie star. The action is great as is some of nastiness that Spidey inflicts on his victims (The opening boat propeller to the face is a nice touch). As Turkish superhero movies go its pretty good, though the print I saw was sans any English so it was hard to know what was going on and it made the dialog scenes drag.

Not the best of the Turkish cinema I've run across, and certainly not the worst. If you run across it and are curious about the madness that Turkish film makers have unleashed on their audiences give it a try. Also give it a try if you're a comic book fan who worries what Hollywood will do to your favorite creation. One Look at this film and you'll never complain they got something wrong again.

This funky Turkish interpretation of graphic novel lore has Spider-Man as an ultra mean bad guy running a gang of thugs in Istanbul on the wrong side of town. He has none of his Spider powers, which I guess is why he is so angry, but makes up for some of it via his ruthlessness and a peculiar ability to come from the dead - multiple times.

In fact Spider-Man while noticeably less agile looks as though he has let himself go a bit and is a tad flabby (What we in Canada refer to as "Molson Muscle"). His costume has some noticeable signs of wear and tear as well and his bushy eyebrows peak out of eye slits in his mask.

Could it be that the makers of this film got their accounts of Spider-Man's exploits only from the slanderous accounts provided by that yellow journalism scandal-sheet the Daily Bugle? If they read the comics they would know that Spider-Man/Peter Parker would never use his powers for evil. What would his Aunt May think of him? Worse what would the spirit of his Uncle Ben think? Clearly this baddie is just some dude who ordered an ill-fitting, cheap imitation Spider-Man costume and couldn't get his money back.

A rather improbable team up of Captain America (Akkaya) and Santo (Selekman) the wrestler/superhero track the Spider Gang to Turkey after Spider-Man's counterfeiting scheme in Mexico leaves a trail of angry people on both sides of the law. Cap's famous shield evidently didn't clear Turkish customs as we don't see it. But his girlfriend Julia came with him to help.

This film is so spectacularly wrong on so many levels as to show the value of copyright protection as preservation of artistic integrity more than proper assignment of royalties. Turkey, then under the control of a military junta in a chaotic struggle with terrorist groups and engaged in a brutal suppression of leftist elements offered no such copyright protection to products of comic book heroism or Western entertainment.

Like the Turkish version of Star Wars and Star Trek the staging of a rip-off like this utterly defies logic. Why not just dub or subtitle the Spider-Man cartoon and Santo movies into Turkish? Or better yet why just make a completely original set of characters with Turkish identities?

There is low-grade production value and then there is no-grade production value. What is shown here is beyond what Hollywood producers would deem incredibly cheap though the cast soldiers on even with the various continuity errors and other goofs.

It doesn't look like they were given a safe working environment to shoot under but really what does that even mean when the Turkish government was rounding up people - very much including artists and locking them up for even being suspected of having leftist sympathies?

In one scene where Captain America rescues Julia from the baddies at the Spider gang's safe-house we see a pretty silly action sequence. Hanging from conveniently placed acrobat rings, Cap attempts to heel-kick one of the baddies behind him but the stunt guys must have messed up the timing because he misses. The thug falls anyway and from the angle of the shot it looks as though the villainous henchman has been knocked unconscious by a devastating, explosive fart to the face from the hero.

Captain America's subsequent fight with Spider-Man betrays the fact that Cap is, for whatever reason, a lot more acrobatic than Spidey. El Santo is, by contrast to Spider-Man in considerably better shape than we have seen him and unlike the real Santo, generally goes unmasked. Santo in the Mexican movies he was hero of was never seen in public without his mask.

The comedic possibilities offered in Santo's time on screen are rife as he infiltrates a dogo serving as a front for the Spider Gang, discovers incriminating papers in a back office and stuffs them in his tights in a manner which looks as though he has done it to make his crotch bulge look bigger.

Unintentional humor throughout offers countless openings for snide one-liners and sarcasm. But no one needs to say anything as this Turkish rip-off lampoons itself so perfectly.

So here's an odd movie. Spider Man is a bad guy. And his mask is radically different. And he has these massive eyebrows--or maybe they were antenna? Anyhow, this has nothing to do with everybody's favorite webslinger. Technically, he is called Spider Man and kinda dresses like him, but instead uses the awesome powers of a switchblade to kill people and steal statues. Oh, and I think he can clone himself whenever he dies. Maybe. Didn't make much sense at the time.

Come to combat this villain are the awesome duo of Captain America and El Santo. For those of you not up on your lucha libre, El Santo is the most famous Mexican wrestler of all time, having starred in approximately 100 movies in his forty-year career. The silver-masked man revealed his identity only a month before he died and was laid to rest in his cloak and cowl. Anyhow, they're fighting Spider Man. At least Captain America (not an American by any means) is, since El Santo isn't in this too much. After a few rumbles, good is triumphant.

Worth a see? Definitely, if you like your cheese thick and incomprehensible (as detailed previously, there are no English dubbed or subtitled prints). It's no classic, but it is fun if you've got a wad of meat in each shoe (I never did understand that saying). Don't look too hard, but if you're in the back of a small, locally owned video store and this falls off a shelf onto your head, rent it.