JFL

The most expensive camp movie of all time. In contrast to the straightforwardly tasteless Spaceballs, the conclusion of the prequel trilogy offers the properly attuned audience a multi-layered farce with a magnificently overwrought script that abounds with cartoonish characters, absurd sequences and absolutely zero logic. The film’s greatest enigma is Hayden Christensen; even more so than in the second episode, it is impossible to tell if he is a terrible actor or, conversely, very good at playing a horrible asshole (Ian McDiarmid, on the other hand, portrays the nascent emperor with positively swaggering self-indulgence). Episode III similarly also culminates the other drawbacks of the previous instalment. Apart from the ridiculous emo gloominess, the film’s main fault lies in the fact that the narrative doesn’t develop its own story, but serves merely to establish the motifs of the original trilogy. Generally speaking, the audience’s familiarity with the denouement doesn't automatically mean that a film can’t be engaging – one of the best examples of which is Singer’s Valkyrie. This can be achieved by building tension, developing supporting sub-motifs or parallel storylines, or by simply building a fictional world. But Lucas does not do any of these things, relying instead on superficial fanservice and bluntly and literally filling in the gaps in a story that previously at least offered the promise of ambiguity (though the film also introduces a number of gaps in logic into the saga). And what is the moral and denouement of Episode III and with it the completed saga? The Force reaches equilibrium through several decades of the destructive, capricious behaviour of a childishly unhinged egocentric asshole who first subverts the religiously degenerate Jedi and then literally topples the brilliant manipulator and master of chance, the emperor. On the one hand, we can understand this as a stimulating impetus in relation to prophecy, the interpretation of history and the importance of the individual in history, but it’s not exactly exciting for viewers. So, it's actually nice of Lucas to wrap up this denouement in such a wildly bad movie that invites amused commentary at every moment.

Following the childishly naive Episode I, along comes the adolescently boorish, emo and theatrically unbalanced and ridiculously “dark and gritty” second episode. If Episode I betrayed the original trilogy by denigrating and distorting the canon, with midi-chlorians at the fore, but at least stood up as an autonomous narrative and a boisterous children’s movie, then Episode II conversely renounces not only self-containment but also internal logic in the interest of meticulously paving the way for the original trilogy. All of the characters become inanimate puppets, circling around a vain, egocentric brat. This is most frighteningly apparent in Anakin and Amidala’s relationship, which takes on not only a distinctly perverse but also repulsive form. As if by a wave of a Jedi hand, the princess loses any will of her own; her resolve and active nature seen in the first episode are replaced by unconditional submissiveness and lobotomization. At the same time, however, the slapdash screenplay gives the vain, blandly brooding asocial prick, who loudly declares his own supposed exceptionalism, every possible trophy, including the princess, and then presents an unprecedentedly repulsive projection screen for equally vain and supposedly chosen nerds.

Episode I is paradoxically Lucas’s only perfect Star Wars. Only with this one was Lucas not constrained by budget and the technological level of the tricks as in the first film; he was the main creative force behind the project unlike in Episode V and was not as limited by the unfolding story as in the other two parts of the prequel trilogy and Episode VI. Thus, he was able to fully let go of childishness and naïveté, build the narrative around spectacular adventures and expand the fairy-tale concept into an opulent mise-en-scene. Unlike the following two instalments, Episode I has a narrative that is entirely its own, with only sub-motifs establishing continuity with the series as a whole.

The conclusion of the saga brings the return not only of the titular Jedi, but also of Lucas’s lack of seriousness, as well as his playfulness and naïveté. Though fans don’t want to admit it, the frolicking with the Ewoks was not a misguided diversion or a departure from the intended development of the style. On the contrary, The Empire Strikes Back is the anomaly in Lucas’s fairy-tale space opera due to director Irvin Kershner’s fanfiction approach. If the fifth (originally second) episode, constructed the pillars of Star Wars fandom, then the sixth (third) inevitably arouses the resentment of fans, as the style reverts back to the naïveté of the first film, as it literally states that it is targeted at children and inadvertently undermines everything that is sacred to the fans – an example illustrating all of this is Boba Fett, who is transformed from a cool badass into a ridiculous fool who suffers a belittling and undramatic demise. The greatest hatred has been borne by the cute Ewoks, who have been bumped out of first place on the fans’ hitlist only by Jar Jar Binks. The Ewoks became the personification of the series’ childishness and thus the embodiment of Lucas’s supposed betrayal of his supposedly adult fans. But as frightful as it sounds, if anyone deserves to admonished, it’s Irvin Kershner, who did the worst thing possible – he showed the potential that the Star Wars saga would have had if it hadn’t been in the hands of George Lucas, who always conceived it as a spectacular sci-fi fairy tale for the whole family.

To some extent, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg shared the ambition to revive old genres for the audiences of a new era. Whereas Spielberg turned those genres on their head (fascination with aliens instead of fear of them), however, Lucas strived to create new variations that would fill contemporary audiences with the same or even more intense wonder and fascination as the old works did for him when he was a boy. Lucas’s updating of old, naïve sci-fi adventure movies like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers resulted in a pure-blooded space opera in which extensive political wrangling is merely a backdrop for a fantastically heroic story set in space. The naïve tale of a young hero who ventures out into the world to rescue a princess stands primarily on the engagingly colourful world of a galaxy far, far away and adventurous escapades – in other words, the same elements with which Lucas’s influences fascinated their audiences. Compared to those earlier films’ naïve special effects, however, Star Wars prides itself on eliciting amazement with revolutionary tricks. That may be one of the reasons that, with the advent of CGI, Lucas painstakingly and repeatedly refined the original trilogy, which, however, nullified the image of Star Wars as a milestone in the historical development of special effects and cinematography. Much gratitude and appreciation thus go to Harmy’s Despecialized Edition, which allows us to again marvel at the original form of all three episodes and appreciate the tremendous leaps in development between the individual instalments.

An original film about penises, which refers not only to the dicks on display, but also the main protagonist and the director.

Everybody laments how bad the fourth Superman is, but in that regard, it is absolutely excellent. As a product of both its time and the hellish circumstances of its creation, it is one of the most entertaining comic-book movies of all time, though to a large extent unintentionally. The bosses at Cannon Films were the first to sense the commercial potential of comic-book movies and planned an entire series of adaptations in which the reboot of the Superman franchise would be followed by Captain America and Spider-Man. Unfortunately, the company had already fallen into financial difficulties at that time, so their resuscitation of Superman ended up being the final nail in the coffin instead of the desired financial boost. The film required proper funding for special effects, but Cannon was forced to cut the budget from the planned 36 million dollars to 17 million, which is obvious in the final result. Add to that the very heavy-handed cutting of more than half an hour of scenes after an unfavourable test screening, due to which the film contains a number of obvious plot holes and motifs that are introduced but never revisited and brought to a conclusion. On the other hand, the blame doesn’t fall solely on the management of Cannon Films. A significant share of the blame can also be laid at the feet of Christopher Reeve, who used the film as a means of venting his attitude toward nuclear weapons, and the screenwriters, who certainly didn’t bother with such things as logic, physics or basic facts, such as that there is no air in space. Conversely, these and many other manifestations of naïveté correspond to the now-neglected idea that superhero comics and comic-book movies were originally intended for children. Today, after the flood of overly clever comic-book movies that flatter fans and pass off Wikipedia histories of their protagonists and pubescent gloom and angst as being mature, it is conversely wonderfully refreshing to see an old-school comic-book flick with an ultra-helpful hero, a cartoonishly evil villain, superficially humorous scenes, surreal superhero deeds and literal declamation and bombastic patriotism in the style of 1950s ideological agitprop. In its spectacular comic-book excess, rollicking lack of seriousness and all-encompassing campiness, Superman IV is not only more entertaining, but also more honest and memorable than most of today’s uniformly overdone comic-book blockbusters, none of which can compare to grandiosely goofy scenes like plugging up an erupting volcano with the peak of a mountain.

This sequel is a case of stepping into the same river for the second time, but it’s even more laddish and comic-bookish than the original. The second American Ninja is about a kidnapped scientist who creates an army of genetically enhanced ninjas for a drug baron. The admittedly insipid premise is combined with general exaggeration and spiced up with humorous brief scenes, thus bringing Cannon Films’ ninja movies to their ideal form. Unfortunately, the key names of the creative team – Michael Dudikoff and Sam Firstenberg – comprise the obstacle that prevents the film from achieving the perfect form of an action comedy. All of the humorous sequences are handled by the great Steve James, a trained actor, martial-arts practitioner and former stuntman who, due to the colour of his skin, never got the opportunity to play a lead role and was relegated to the sidekick category. As in his other acting jobs, here he outshines Dudikoff in every scene because he doesn’t take his role seriously and is able to dig into a scene with verve. Like Robert Clouse, director Sam Firstenberg proves himself to be a bumbling journeyman who gained fame as an action director, but did so only because of the work of choreographers and capable actors. After collaborating with ambitious filmmakers like Sho Kosugi and dance geniuses on the Breakin’ series, the futility of his staging is made obvious by the films on he did not collaborate with a similar class of creators. American Ninja 2 characteristically exhibits relative skill in the shooting of the scenes, but all of the action is either hopelessly unimaginative and routine or, in the best case, hackneyed borrowings from somewhere else (e.g. a Spencer Hill-esque bar brawl and a scene involving a car that is strikingly reminiscent of Kosugi’s work in both Revenge of the Ninja and Mad Max 2).

Assassination stars Charles Bronson, the 1980s’ primary defender of the United State of America and its values on home soil, in another of his roles for Cannon Films. This time, however, the radical conservatism of his iconic roles is significantly suppressed thanks to the female element. Assassination is the seventeenth film in which Bronson appeared alongside his wife, Jill Ireland, though sadly it was also the last. By the time the film was made, the actress had long been battling cancer and exceptionally allowed herself to be persuaded to return to the silver screen. At the same time, the film fits into the numerous categories of Cannon Films projects with which producer Menahem Golan filled his scrapbook and expanded his filmography through collaborations with famous old stars. The picture’s narrative paraphrases buddy movies, as it pairs a veteran presidential bodyguard with the First Lady, which leads to a number of expected scenes on the theme of stubborn characters bickering with each other. Despite the laid-back scenes, however, Assassination fits in among the movies that Bronson made with Cannon Films by reinforcing the myth that traditional heroes simply do not age. Regardless of the fact that he was 64 at the time of filming, Bronson comes off as the prototype of virility – not only is he the toughest, hardest-working guy in the president’s security detail, who is adored by his young colleagues, but he is also the object of desire of his female colleagues who are a few decades younger than him.

The second movie with Allan Quatermain from Cannon Films is unfortunately also the first to be visibly impacted by the company’s incipient financial problems. The sequel to the relatively successful King Solomon’s Mines was supposed to be an opulent adventure with elements of fantasy, but in the end it is a hopelessly empty shell of a movie with obviously missing special-effects shots and action money shots that should have been filmed by the second crew or created by an effects studio – this is most obviously apparent in the lion-attack sequence, where the shooting of the lion is left out, and the passage involving an underground river, in which the characters look in wonder at something that viewers cannot see. The few shots with effects, without which the narrative wouldn’t work, are hopelessly cheap and sloppy, the culmination of which is futile animatronic creatures. The budget cuts are also manifested in other areas, e.g. the music being limited to essentially a single motif, which plays even in scenes where it doesn’t suit the atmosphere at all. In addition to the unfortunate consequences of financial restrictions, the film is also adversely affected by a fundamental change in style compared to the first Quatermain film. Though King Solomon’s Mines was made in response to Indiana Jones and Romancing the Stone, thanks to its burlesque styling it was not merely a parasite, but rather the start of a distinctive franchise. Unfortunately, in the pursuit of profit and perhaps faced with grumbling viewers who didn’t accept Quatermain’s slapstick because they doltishly expected another Indy, the filmmakers tried to approximate the competition with the follow-up. However, the desired epic and only slightly exaggerated adventure simply didn’t happen because of the aforementioned budget cuts and the result is a futile dud that foreshadows the unfortunate fate of Cannon Films.