Superman III (1983)

You didn’t see the man come flying out of the clouds? It was him! Metropolis. The Webscoe conglomerate hires bumbling computer programmer Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor) who embezzles through salami slicing. This brings him to the attention of CEO Ross ‘Bubba’ Webster (Robert Vaughn). Megalomaniacal Webster, his sister Vera (Annie Ross) and his assistant and girlfriend Lorelei Ambrosia (Pamela Stephenson) blackmail Gus into helping him. At the Daily Planet newspaper, reporter Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) convinces editor Perry White (Jackie Cooper) to let him and photographer Jimmy Olsen (Marc McClure) visit Smallville for Clark’s high school reunion. Fellow reporter, Clark’s unrequited romantic interest Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) goes to Bermuda on holiday. En route, to Smallville, in his Superman guise, Clark extinguishes a fire in a chemical factory containing unstable beltric acid, which produces a corrosive vapour when it overheats. At the reunion, Clark reunites with childhood friend Lana Lang (Annette O’Toole) a divorcée with a young son named Ricky (Paul Kaethler). Clark is harassed by Lana’s ex, alcoholic security guard Brad Wilson (Gavan O’Herlihy) who was his former school rival and bully. While having a picnic with Lana, Superman saves an unconscious Ricky from being killed by a combine harvester. Angered by Colombia’s refusal to do business Webster orders Gus to command Vulcan, an American weather satellite, to create a tornado to destroy Colombia’s coffee crop, allowing Webster to corner the market. Gus travels to Smallville to use a Webscoe subsidiary to reprogramme the satellite. Although Vulcan creates a storm, Superman neutralizes it. Seeing Superman as a threat to his plans, Webster orders Gus to fabricate Kryptonite. Gus uses Vulcan to analyse Krypton’s debris. As one of the elements of Kryptonite is unknown, he substitutes tar. Lana convinces Superman to appear at Ricky’s birthday party but Smallville turns it into a town celebration. Gus and Vera, disguised as Army officers, give Superman the flawed Kryptonite as an award. Instead of weakening him, he becomes selfish and commits petty acts of vandalism such as straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa and blowing out the Olympic flame. Gus asks Webster to build the world’s most sophisticated supercomputer and he does so in exchange for Gus creating an energy crisis by directing all oil tankers to the middle of the Atlantic. Lorelei seduces Superman, persuading him to waylay one of the tankers and cause an oil spill. Superman suffers a nervous breakdown and splits into two – the immoral, corrupted dark Superman and the moral, mild-mannered Clark Kent. The two fight, with Clark defeating his evil self. Finally regaining his sanity, Superman repairs the damage of the oil spill … Today – coffee. Tomorrow – the oil! The perception that this series was paying decreasing returns arose when Richard Donner was replaced by Richard Lester for the second iteration. Lester is back in the director’s chair for the third which commences with a breezy Tati-esque slapstick ballet and proceeds towards a sequence of action setpieces both visually and comically pleasing. Gene Hackman’s charismatic Lex Luthor is replaced by a less colourful Robert Vaughn while Kidder’s Lois Lane is sidelined for childhood sweetheart Lana Lang, the latter for story reasons (and allegedly a punishment), the former presumably because along with Kidder, Hackman was reportedly angered over the Salkinds’ treatment of Donner and washed his hands of the whole enterprise. Superman you’re just in a slump – you’ll be great again. Husband and wife screenwriting team David & Leslie Newman are back writing the screenplay (along with uncredited contributions by Mario Puzo) adapting the characters created by Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster, which takes the trope of dual identity a step further and this could easily have been subtitled Man/Superman, Shavian style. You’re a genius – you’ve invented a machine that can find anybody’s weak spots. Pryor is both a problem and a draw – his shtick is artfully applied to his essentially comical anti-hero role but the risk to the narrative is making him a character as significant as our ostensible protagonist. The film itself struggles to maintain its narrative balance while it performs this tripwire act. Meanwhile, Superman himself not only has to deal with a bifurcate identity as Clark Kent, he has to handle being Bad Superman too. You’re going to go down in history as the man who killed Superman! Effectively operating as a genre satire as much as being a sequel, this doesn’t have the magical resonance of the first film or even the pizzazz of the second but it’s never boring. There’s some splendid costume design from Evangeline Harrison (she did TV’s Love for Lydia: respect) other than the obvious, there’s a wonderfully expressive wardrobe for ditzy peroxide galpal Stephenson who spends her time reading Kant when she thinks no one’s looking. Nowadays the effects look fairly shonky but there’s a lot to love here, from the gorgeously shot wheat fields to the relationship between Clark and Lana and the running jokes including one concerning that tower in Pisa. And of course the John Williams theme over the credits is for the ages. Thank the Lord for Superman

The Blackening (2022)

In your predicament, the black character is always the first to die. Ten years after graduating, friends Morgan (Yvonne Orji) and Shawn (Jay Pharoah) arrive at a cabin in the woods where they plan on celebrating Juneteenth on a weekend getaway with their group from college. In the game room, they find a board game called ‘The Blackening’ which features a racist Little Black Sambo caricature. The lights go out and a mysterious voice demands that the couple play. Shawn answers a question incorrectly and is promptly killed with an arrow to the neck. Morgan attempts to escape but is captured. The next day, Lisa (Antoinette Robinson), Allison (Grace Byers) and Dewayne (Dewayne Perkins) make their way to the cabin and discuss King (Melvin Gregg) bringing Lisa’s unfaithful ex-boyfriend Nnamdi (Sinqua Walls) for the weekend’s festivities. On her way to the cabin, Shanika runs into a former schoolmate named Clifton (Jermaine Fowler) while shopping at the gas station and he tells her he is also joining the party but she can’t figure out who might have invited him. Before leaving, Shanika is unnerved by the facially disfigured clerk Clive Connor (James Preston Rogers) who stands watching her menacingly. Once the group is all together at the cabin, they find Park Ranger White (Diedrich Bader) querying their right to be there and not allowing them entry until they produce evidence they’ve booked in. After settling the disagreement – the Connors usually let the property to white families – the friends prepare for a night of partying. White people scare me. After drinks, drugs, and games ensue, the group questions who specifically invited Clifton. After the lights go out again, the friends go to find a power box, only to come across The Blackening with game pieces which correlate to their personalities. The voice speaks to them, revealing that he is keeping Morgan prisoner. The voice forces the friends to play the game to save Morgan, and begins by asking trivia questions about black American culture. This game is impossible to win. Unfortunately, the friends fail to sufficiently answer a question about all the black actors that guest-starred on the TV show Friends and Morgan is attacked. They are ordered to sacrifice one of their own based on whom they deem to be the blackest – the most black person among them will be sacrificed. Each then comes up with their own defence of why it cannot be them. After Clifton admits he voted for Donald Trump in both elections everyone chooses him out of spite. Clifton goes outside and is shot in the chest with an arrow by the killer. The rules are simple – survive. When the friends are freed from the room, they attempt to go look for Morgan and find help. Despite knowing better, they agree with Allison’s idea to split up. She goes off with King and Shanika (X Mayo). Dewayne has to go with Lisa and Nnamdi who end up running into Ranger White who is willing to help them until the killer shoots him in the neck with an arrow. Then Allison, King and Shanika encounter the killer … Time to die! If Get Out and Us played with horror tropes in the realm of political allegory, this is more akin to Scary Movie and its satirical relationship to the Scream franchise – which itself was founded on a fond homage to the legendary slashers Halloween, Friday the 13th et al. Written by Tracy Oliver and DeWayne Perkins of the comedy troupe 3Peat and based on their 2018 short film of the same name, this is both resonant in terms of stereotypes and smart with its targets, the cabin in the woods being just the first trope utilised, skewered and trussed up, and a masked killer concealing a dual identity – who isn’t really the culprit at all which means there are three of him. The one game I could never get a handle on was Spades. It may be a reunion of college friends but Return of the Secaucus Seven it is not. Taking its subject as the genre itself and making it from a black perspective pushes the parameters because once the first person killed is black – who do you kill next? More black characters. What about the characters who have sex? How long will they last? I’ve never been so happy to see a white saviour! And so it proceeds, wittily batting away the tropes with a mix of finely tuned wit and a deal of slapstick. What about a final girl? Well, the girl who knows the black anthem has a white father and she’s the one who has the courage to go after the killer. Who won’t stay dead. And he suggests that the colourist scenario he proposes is a black Sophie’s Choice. Lucky they can all do that handy ‘mind talking’ thang – which is all very well until the killer can too. More funny than scary, this makes no concession to anyone who doesn’t understand the references and simply hurtles through an action-packed narrative with verve and sociopolitical swipes. Directed by Tim Story. We are all alone in a cabin in the woods!

Sumotherhood (2023)

I’m in this thing and after today everyone is going to know about us. Riko (Adam Deacon) and Kane (Jazzie Zonzolo) are two friends living in a flat in East London who dream of being taken seriously as roadmen. They are in debt of £15,000 to a local Indian crime family, the Patels. Kane failed to get the money after selling drugs to a Somali gang, but was instead beaten up. They devise a plan to get the money to pay them back. First, they attempt to sell a mobile phone to two other men, but they decline as it meant to be a gun after Kane mistook the word strap. The second attempt has them trying to rob megastar Lethal Bizzle but end up getting knocked out, stripped and embarrassed in front of everyone while a Link Up TV cameraman records their predicament. The video goes viral and makes the two a laughing stock. For a third attempt, they hold up the local bank but after an argument accidentally reveal their identities. Leo DeMarco (Danny Sapani) ignores their commands and dares Riko to shoot him. After arguing with Leo, he passes out suffering a heart attack. This gains Riko attention after apparently shooting Leo and earning him the nickname, Rambo Riko. It also sparks interest in gang leader Shotti (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith) who sends him, Kane and Dwayne (Arnold Jorge) to retrieve a bag of drugs and money from a nightclub. Riko gets distracted by a girl named Tamara (Leomie Anderson) whom he fancies. A fight breaks out between Riko, Kane and members of another gang. The two win the fight and escape. Riko explains his bipoloar to Dwayne and the two form a bond when he reveals that he himself suffers from autism. They then realise that they forgot the bag from the club but before they can go back for it, they are chased by a rogue and Ian (Vas Blackwood) a xenophobic black police officer and his partner Bill (Barry McNicholl). After crashing the car Riko and Kane are caught but Dwayne escapes. At the police station, Riko calls Tamara who happens to be the stepsister of Leo who has woken up from his heart attack. Leo thanks Riko and tells him that he has decided to quit his gang life and has become a Christian. Unfortunately, Leo’s mental brother Tyreese (Richie Campbell) vows revenge against Riko and rages after he finds out the relationship between him and Tamara. Tyreese goes on the hunt for Riko, even running a policeman over after mistaking the latter for him. Riko and Kane are released and go back to Shotti where they reveal that they forgot the bag, infuriating him. After Shotti is informed that they beat up a member from a rival gang, they reconcile. Shotti lets them tag along for a deal at a warehouse with Polish gangsters … If I was your man I’d be here, innit. And on and on it goes. The culture wars begin here, really, with this ostensibly satirical swing at London gang culture winding up in a shoot-em-up that is as toxically stupid and trope-filled as its target and to anyone outside that milieu (guilty as charged) feels like a genre from another planet, mainly due to the lingo. Comedy it may well be but there’s a shot here of a body that is straight out of a violent gangster flick that’s not remotely amusing. Click Clack! Writer, director and star Deacon is known from Noel Clarke’s ‘hood movies, his own directorial debut urban comedy Anuvahood (2011) and is playing to a knowing sympathetic audience as he sends up the kinds of films he used to star in. It probably helps that Deacon could call on several celebrities such as Jennifer Saunders and Tamzin Outhwaite – and – wait for it – Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour leader – to make cameo appearances and there are some good moments of humour but they become fewer as the narrative progresses with a descent into a tale of rivalries that belongs in Gangs of London. At 25 minutes in there’s a subplot starring Ed Sheeran as Crack Ed which is so appalling we can’t even bring ourselves to articulate what he does. He might well regret his insatiable need to please. The double act leading the fray however clearly have chemistry and make for engaging goons. They came out in droves at least at a local level for this but as for us, we’re a bit mystified, mate. Quite impenetrable and ultimately wearying, this needs simultaneous translating for those of us without a clue about grime culture and all sorts of other things from housing estates in E15, innit. Can everyone stop getting shot?

Death Becomes Her (1992)

We’ve all heard his tall tales about the living dead in Beverly Hills. 1978. Narcissistic fading actress Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) performs in a Broadway musical. She invites long-time frenemy, mousy aspiring novelist Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn), backstage along with Helen’s fiancé, famed plastic surgeon Ernest Menville (Bruce Willis). Infatuated with Madeline, Ernest breaks off his engagement with Helen to marry Madeline. Seven years later, a lonely, obese, depressed and destitute Helen is committed to a psychiatric hospital where she obsesses over taking revenge against Madeline. Another seven years later, Madeline and Ernest live an opulent life in Beverly Hills but they are miserable: Madeline is depressed about her age and withering beauty and Ernest, now an alcoholic, has been reduced to working as a reconstructive mortician. After receiving an invitation to a party celebrating Helen’s new book, Forever Young, Madeline rushes for spa beauty treatments. When she mentions she will pay any price, the spa owner gives her the business card of Lisle Von Rhuman (Isabella Rossellini) a mysterious, wealthy socialite who specialises in rejuvenation, which Madeline dismisses. Madeline and Ernest attend Helen’s party and discover that Helen is now slim, glamorous and youthful despite being 50. Jealous of Helen’s appearance, Madeline observes as Helen tells Ernest that she blames Madeline for his career decline. Madeline later visits her young lover but discovers he is with a woman of his own age. Despondent, Madeline drives to Lisle’s mansion. The youthful Lisle claims to be 71 and offers Madeline a potion that promises eternal life and youth. Madeline hesitates but then buys and drinks the potion which reverses her age, restoring her beauty before her eyes. Lisle warns Madeline that she must disappear from the public eye after ten years, to avoid suspicion of her immortality and to treat her body well. Meanwhile, Helen seduces Ernest and convinces him to kill Madeline. When Madeline returns home, she belittles Ernest who snaps and pushes her down the stairs, breaking her neck. Believing her to be dead, Ernest phones Helen for advice but drops the phone in shock when he sees Madeline approach him with her head twisted backward. Ernest takes Madeline to the hospital where the doctor’s (Sydney Pollack, uncredited) analysis shows she is clinically dead. Ernest finds Madeline in a body bag and considers her reanimation to be a miracle. He uses his skills to repair her body at home. Helen arrives and, after overhearing her and Ernest discussing their murder plot, Madeline shoots Helen with a shotgun. The blast leaves a large hole in Helen’s torso but she remains alive – she also has taken Lisle’s potion. Helen and Madeline fight before apologising and reconciling. Depressed at the situation, Ernest prepares to leave, but Helen and Madeline convince him to first repair their bodies. Realising they will need regular maintenance, they scheme to have Ernest drink the potion to ensure his permanent availability. The pair knock out Ernest and bring him to Lisle, who offers him the potion in exchange for his surgical skills … You are in violation of every natural law that I know. You’re sitting there, you’re talking to me – but you’re dead! Eternal youth, cosmetology, the living dead, remarriage screwball, Gothic horror and mad science combine fruitfully in this satirical black comedy that takes swipes at everything within range – Hollywood, vanity, fame, narcissism, beauty, immortality and of course actresses, which leads to an interesting casting conundrum with two of the town’s most amazing fortysomethings as the leads. Hawn is a gorgeous and gifted comedienne but here she is the designated ugly duckling who blooms into a fabulous romantic novelist. Streep had actually played just such a character in She-Devil and essayed her BFF Carrie Fisher’s avatar in Postcards From the Edge a role which supposedly made this frosty technical performer more loveable, as the critics of the era might have it. Here she goes full Joan Crawford in a movie which asks the audience to see her as a legendary screen beauty but her singularity mitigates this proposal somewhat. (Un)naturally there has to be a quote from Bride of Frankenstein and Hawn is gifted It’s alive! It is of course Rossellini who astonishes in her semi-nude presentation, a luscious cross between Cleopatra and Louise Brooks. Now she really has a body to die for. This fact alone crystallises the point of the movie – the business’ attitude to its female cohort. That she’s escorted by Fabio places this in its time but luckily both Elvis and James Dean turn up at one of her gatherings which lands the premise about stars living forever. It’s nice to see Ian Ogilvy at hand as the master of ceremonies. With a combination of CGI (including skin texture) produced by Industrial Light and Magic, animatronics and blue screen, this is a triumph of special effects if not entirely of story despite Martin Donovan & David Koepp having a hand in the screenplay. The characters simply aren’t developed adequately and they feel like the object of a long joke that pitches actresses against each other and then forces them to finish out their days with their worst enemy – each other. The often hysterical lively fun occasionally feels like it has a hole in the middle, like Helen. Directed by Robert Zemeckis. You gave other people your youth and wasted your own

Last Action Hero (1993)

You’re going to play chicken, aren’t you. Just like Jack Slater! New York City. Ten-year-old Danny Madigan (Austin O’Brien)lives in a crime-ridden area of the city with his widowed mother, Irene (Mercedes Ruehl). Since his father’s death, Danny takes comfort in watching action movies, especially a series featuring Los Angeles cop Jack Slater at a cinema owned by Nick (Robert Prosky), who is also the projectionist. Nick gives Danny a golden ticket once owned by Harry Houdini, to see an early screening of Jack Slater IV before its official release. During the film, the ticket stub (counterfoil) transports Danny into the fictional world, interrupting Slater during a car chase following the murder of his favourite Slater cousin (Art Carney). After escaping from their pursuers, Slater takes Danny to the LAPD headquarters, where Danny points out evidence of the fictional nature of Slater’s world, such as the presence of numerous attractive women (even working at the counter in the video store) and a cartoon cat detective named Whiskers. Danny says Slater’s friend John Practice (F. Murray Abraham) should not be trusted as he killed Mozart (as he is played by the actor who played Salieri in Amadeus). Though Slater dismisses all of this as part of Danny’s wild imagination, Slater’s shouty supervisor, Lieutenant Dekker (Frank McRae) assigns Danny as his new partner and instructs them to investigate criminal activities related to mafia boss Tony Vivaldi (Anthony Quinn). Danny guides Slater to Vivaldi’s mansion, recognising its location from the start of the movie. There, they meet Vivaldi’s henchman, Mr. Benedict (Charles Dance) albeit he claims never to have risen above the position of lackey. Vivaldi and Benedict killed Slater’s second cousin but Slater has no evidence and is forced to leave with Danny; however, Benedict is curious as to how Danny knew and he and several hired guns follow Slater and Danny back to Slater’s home. There, Slater, his daughter Whitney (Bridgette Wilson) and Danny thwart the attack, though Benedict ends up getting the ticket stub. He discovers it can transport him out of the film and into the real world. Slater deduces Vivaldi’s plan to murder the Torelli mob by releasing a lethal gas during a funeral atop a skyscraper. He and Danny go to stop it, but are waylaid by Practice, who reveals that Danny was right: he is working for Vivaldi. Whiskers kills Practice, saving Slater and Danny, who manage to prevent any deaths from the gas release. After Vivaldi’s plan fails, Benedict kills him and uses the stub to escape into the real world, pursued by Slater and Danny. I’ve never met a fictional character before. Slater becomes despondent upon learning the truth, as well as his mortality in the real world but cheers up after spending time with Irene. Meanwhile, Benedict devises a plan to kill the actor portraying Slater in the movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger (attending with his wife, TV journalist Maria Shriver), using the villain Ripper (Tom Noonan, who’s also attending the movie as himself), bring other movie villains into the real world and take over  … I’m in the movie! Holy cow, I’m in the movie! Loud, meta, self-referential, this could only be an 80s action movie. Except it’s a 90s satire of the action movie made by the duo who made the 80s action movie – star der Ahnuldt and partner in crime director John McTiernan who made him a megastar with quintessential 80s sci-fi actioner Predator. With a screenplay by Shane Black & David Arnott from a story by Zak Penn & Adam Leff, this in essence is the dream team and of course it’s set in Los Angeles at Christmas. There are problems however. Oh shit! I’m a comedy sidekick! It’s not going to work! A famous flop, this grossed $15M against a production budget of $85M a year after Arnold Schwarzenegger had his biggest ever hit, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Part of the reason this celebration of movies and of Schwarzenegger’s cultural persona and movie iconicity doesn’t entirely resonate is probably the character played by O’Brien. He’s not obnoxious exactly but he’s far too knowing and while that may have looked good on the page and plays to the postmodernist conceit at work from the first frame there is an empathy quotient that’s missing – crucially, we know everything is all going to be alright. This, despite the opening sequence when in the first film within the film Slater’s son is involved in a terrible dilemma for his father, a hostage drama which we later discover transpires to have had a fatal outcome. This gives the characters a kind of equality but because the kid knows more than the adult Slater is always a beat behind. That golden ticket suggests a Wonka-esque outcome that never quite plays out: the stakes are never raised despite the evident danger. You’re the best celebrity lookalike I’ve ever seen, says Schwarzenegger to Slater at the movie premiere which precipitates the climax and brings real and reel life together in cataclysmic fashion. With a boss who shouts all the time, a British villain, a mom who works late and a dead dad, a dead kid, a treacherous colleague and the promise of hoodlums running the world, not to mention a nod to Bergman (Ingmar, we hasten to mention) with Ian McKellen as Death, and a host of stars playing either themselves or their cinematic incarnations (Sharon Stone shows up in a walkthrough as Catherine Trammell from Basic Instinct) this muscular workout may have taken all the genre tropes and a leaf from Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo but goes somewhere different and is not at all satisfactory. It’s a messy headscratching Rorschach blot of a film. We blame the writers, who clearly struggled with the tone and structure. Is this what all cinema is leading us to? Hollywood is writing our lives