The Phantom (1996) - Comic to Movie #8

Many of us have killed him over the years. But he keeps coming back.

Director

Simon Wincer

Cast

Billy Zane - Kit Walker/ The Phantom

Kristy Swanson - Diana Palmer

Treat Williams - Xander Drax

Catherine Zeta-Jones - Sala

James Remar - Quill

A couple friends recommended 1996's The Phantom to me. Though I've heard of it, I have never seen it before now. 

In my mind, it fell into a jumbled mix of 90s hero movies such as Steel, The Shadow, Darkman, Mystery Men, The Meteor Man, and even that God-awful thing with Eddie Murphy from 2002.

The film style is rather film-noir. Given that Tim Burton's Batman and Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy, both very stylized movies, came out shortly before The Phantom, I see a bit of both in this movie - the dark and grittiness of Batman and the colorful comic strip style of Dick Tracy. On top of all that, there's a little Indiana Jones mixed in as far as the adventurous story goes.

The movie starts with the briefest introduction for the sake of those who missed whatever hyped once surrounded the phantom as told in the comic strip by artist Lee Falk. Falk, by the way, is also known for his comic Mandrake the Magician. 

Just like Falk's comic strip, which debuted in 1936, the story begins in the fictional African island nation of Bengalla.

It's the 16th Century, and a small boy witnesses his father's death after pirates calling themselves the Sengh Brotherhood attack the ship the boy and his father are aboard on. 

The kid jumps overboard and finds his way to Bengalla where a tribe rescue him and take him back to their village.

They bestow a skull ring on him. And the boy vows to dedicate his life towards the destruction of piracy and injustice. He grows up and takes the identity of "the Phantom" - a masked avenger carrying out his promise from before. 

The movie then shifts to the 1930s were a man named Kit Walker (Billy Zane) has become the 21st person to take on the heroship of the Phantom. 

As a mercenary named Quill (James Remar) is leading a small band of ruffians, and one kidnapped native boy, through the jungle of Bengalla in order to steal the Skull of Touganda which contains a powerful magic of some kind, the Phantom is on to the scheme and attempts to stop them.

He captures one of these villains, saves the boy, but fails to save the skull. 

It turns out Quill is part of the Sengh Brotherhood, and was also previously responsible for killing Walker's dad. 

Incidentally, his dad occasionally appears to Walker as a ghost or as a mental delusion, I don't know which, in order to give his son advice. 

So, Walker researchers the skulls and finds there are three other skulls that have been separated from each other. He then follows Quill to New York City. 

Meanwhile, in New York, Walker's old college girlfriend, Diana Palmer (Kristy Swanson) - the niece of the World Tribune newspaper owner, Dave Palmer - is kidnapped by female air pirates working for wealthy businessman and villian, Xander Drax (Treat Williams). 

It turns out the World Tribune is investigating Xander who has a suspicious history of dealing with other less-than-savory businessmen. Among these female air pirates is femme fatale, Sala (Catherine Zeta-Jones). 

Diana is taken to an island where she's questioned by Sala as well as by Quill himself.

The Phantom hears about this after visiting with Dave, and rescues her. 

Billy Zane as the Phantom

Back in New York, Kit meets with Dave and Diana, who isn't so sure about Kit as he disappeared from her life years before. Her current boyfriend tells Kit that one of the skulls is located inside the Museum of World History.

When they go to retrieve it, Xander shows up right after, takes the second skull from them, and joins it with the one stolen from Bengalla. 

The skulls merge and, through a show of magical skull magic, reveals the location of the third skull on an unchartered island in the Andaman Sea. 

Xander's race is on to obtain that third skull to obtain some serious powers. The Phantom and his old fling need to stop him before it's too late.

Billy Zane reminds me of a classic style Bruce Wayne if Bruce Wayne/ Batman started off in a fictional African country. 

Anyways, unlike movies such as Batman and Dick Tracy mentioned above, The Phantom lacks emotion all around. Not too many actors emote in this movie. They just do what they do. The Phantom saves people, and "phantoms," and everyone else does whatever it is their characters need to do. 

We do see some turnaround in Sala, but all Catherine Zeta-Jones has to do is look at the camera. Then we know she must be having a change of heart. Spoiler, by the way. 

We really don't know our hero, Kit Walker/ The Phantom. The audience has a very quick back story introduced as an "in case you missed it the first time." And that's really about it. It's not even his back story, to be honest. It belongs to the first Phantom back in the 16th century. 

We know Kit lost his father and sees his ghost, or his mental projection of his father. But there's no emotion in that. He doesn't seem upset by it. There's nothing here to connect the audience with the hero. 

Since I mentioned Batman earlier, in Tim Burton's film we see the damaged side of Bruce Wayne - his traumatic experience as a child witnessing the murder of his own parents. We know what drives him. There's a profound sadness and scarring that audiences can relate to in someway or another. The audience understands Bruce in a rather intimate way.

With Kit Walker, well...he just inherited his role. That's fine. But what has this inheritance done to him? What is he struggling with internally? Why does he "phantom?" Does he want to be the Phantom? All we get is a "super" hero. He saves people because that's what audiences expect heroes to do. And then the world is safe again...for now. Why should I care about this particular hero? Even Superman struggles with his role in our world. And Dick Tracy (in the 1990 movie) struggles with what should take precedence in his own life - his duties as a police detective, or his personal relationship with his girlfriend whom he wants to marry. I think the audience needs more than just a quick "in case you missed it the first time" snippet in the beginning. The audience needs to know their hero. Give them a reason to watch and become invested. 

For an epic adventure, the movie certainly delivers even with a mix of both real and computer animated explosions. The animated ones are easy to tell when compared to the real explosions. I mean, both kinds are in the same damn movie. 

The Phantom has that classic 1930s-1940s serial feel to it in its story, its delivery and pace, and its atmosphere. The characters are taken right out of those classic on-screen comic cliffhangers. This is especially true in the Xander Drax. He's the quintessential power-hungry, greedy businessman with awesome hair, a perfect smile, a tailored suit, and a rogues gallery of goons.

The character Diana Palmer brought some down-to-earth mannerisms into the story. One scene in particular depicts Palmer being taken to the island with Sala to retrieve the third skull. Sala, in the front passenger seat, turns around and says something menacing as villains often do. Palmer unexpectedly replies "What's wrong with you? Don't you care about anything?" 

"Like what?" Sala says.

"I don't know? You figure it out."

It made me laugh. 

Overall, the movie is lackluster despite its adventurous and close-call storyline. I was interested enough to wait for the resolve at the end. Still, I anticipate myself forgetting what happens in this movie as time goes by.