Director Report Card: Sam Raimi (1999)

8. For Love of the Game

When I first started putting together the Director Report Card project, well over a decade ago, I went over the lists of films made by the various filmmakers I hoped to cover. A few times while doing this, I had surprising moments when I saw some middling, forgotten footnote of a motion picture happened to be made by a director I respect. Up there with the revelation that Wes Craven directed “Music of the Heart” or David Cronenberg made a generic race car movie, was me discovering Sam Raimi directed “For Love of the Game.” (The title is not “For the Love of the Game,” because that would've made this baffling enterprise make more sense.) The guy behind the “Evil Dead” trilogy made that?

Honestly, speculating about what possibly could have attracted Sam Raimi to this project is far more interesting than actually watching “For Love of the Game.” Though it has never come up in any of his other films or television series, I suppose it's certainly possible the guy just really likes baseball. Lots of otherwise cool people love that terrible, tedious sport. Another possibility strikes me as more likely, however. “For Love of the Game” was always Kevin Costner's project, as he pushed it through development. The previous two baseball movies Costner starred in, “Field of Dreams” and “Bull Durham,” both received Oscar nominations. Raimi was handpicked by Costner to make “For Love of the Game.” My totally unfounded suspicious is that, after getting a taste of Oscar love with “A Simple Plan,” Raimi decided to really chase the gold by making a glossy inspirational sports movie with the leading man most associated with the genre at the time.

If this was indeed the plan, it backfired horribly. “For Love of the Game” was a commercial flop, grossing only 46 million against his 80 million dollar budget. The reviews were not much better, as most critics derided the film as sappy, self-serious, and painfully slow. The Academy, naturally, did not even glance in the movie's direction. Following walking punchlines “Waterworld” and “The Postman,” the film's dismal performance was another sign that the weird era in history where Kevin Costner was a huge box office star was over. (A factoid some people were all too eager to embrace.) That Raimi's career survived at all is frankly a miracle.

So, aside from America's supposed pastime, what the hell is “For Love of the Game” even about? I'll give the movie this much. It does have a sort of interesting narrative structure. Billy Chapel is a 40 year old pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. He's about to play the last game of the season, against the New York Yankees. Billy is disillusioned with the team owner's decision to sell and hindered by an old arm injury. His longtime girlfriend, Jane, is about to leave him. It seems baseball is all he has left. Once he gets on the pitcher's mound, Chapel starts to throw a no-hitter. But he hardly notices, as he's lost in thought. The film is largely composed of his memories of past events while he plays through the perfect game. See, that's kind of interesting.

One of the reasons I fucking hate baseball, and a big reason it's impossible for me to take most baseball movies seriously, is how utterly self-absorbed the sport is with its own mythical importance. Self-aggrandizing in football and basketball – also largely terrible sports – at least usually focus on the achievements of the players and the couches. Baseball is so high on its own fart, on its status as America's pastime, America's game. “For Love of the Game” is awash in this obnoxiously egotistical belief. At one point, Jane screams to a hospital room about how shameful they are treating the legacy of this great game. (The film is so enamored of her line here that it later repeats it.) As the title indicates, Billy is driven by his fetishistic love of the sport, abandoning those he cares about and harming himself to keep playing it. Give me a fucking break.

“For Love of the Game” thinks baseball is so momentously important, that absolutely everything that happens in the movie revolves around the lead character's profession. Jane can not go anywhere in the country without running into someone watching Chapel's no-hitter. His amazing ball-throwing ability seems to bring the entire country to its knees, as every television or radio in the film is showing the game. The spectators in the stadium personally call out to Chapel by name, because everyone in this movie is that invested in his career. The worst part is how the game's announcers – apparently actual baseball commentators – go on and on about how this amazing feat is going to secure Billy Chapel's legacy. Once again I say: Give me a fucking break.

Yet "For Love of the Game" is not just about a man's passionate love affair with his ability to toss a ball. It wants to be a traditional love story between Billy and Jane too. Considering how mushy the film's treatment of its main sport is, it should come as no surprise that the romantic subplot is 100% pure sap. The two have a meet-cute when he rescues her from the side of the road, fixing her broken down car by magically tapping her engine. From there, they soon fall into each other's arms, leading to several weird and long scenes of Jane professing that she's not the kind of woman who normally does that. (Which reveals a strange gender bias in the film, as Billy happily sleeps around with his masseuse.) Most of the actual growth the two experience in their love life happens over the course of a vaguely Raimi-esque montage, Jane asking him a series of not-so-probing questions. Despite the two supposedly having this deep bond, which only fucking baseball can tear asunder, you never get a sense of them being close. Their relationship exists totally as a plot contrivance. When Chapel delivers a dramatic speech to her at the end, showing his love and restoring their relationship, it feels utterly unearned.

The film is not just an ungainly monument to the greatness of baseball, it is also an act of total hubris on Kevin Costner's behalf. Only someone as notoriously self-loving as Costner would cast himself as a beloved sports icon that has his greatest night without even realizing it, despite age and circumstances being against him, the film around him heaping praise on the character at every turn. Despite so clearly being a product of Costner's ego, he seems rather detached from the material. The moments of him muttering to himself on the pitcher's mound, reflecting on his life, show a little bit of that all-American, midwestern farm boy charm that briefly made Kevin a huge star. Otherwise, he swaggers through some scenes with an unearned cocksure smile and others with a dopey frown of defeat on his face. The film represents Costner's acting ability at its most maudlin, reaching for grasping, weeping emotion without deciding if the character is even likable in the first place. (By the way, Costner was vocally bent with the studio that they cut his full frontal nude scene, because his ego was such at the time that he assumed all of America wanted to see his cock. I can't imagine that sight adding much to the narrative.)

Co-starring alongside Costner is Kelly Preston as Jane. In some scenes, Preston does fairly well. She is funny and manages to generate a sly smile with some of the cute dialogue she's given. She even manages to make that ridiculous line about “Is baseball not America's greatest game?!” feel impassioned, even if it's still totally unbelievable. At the same time, Preston has zero chemistry with Costner. She seems visibly uncomfortable in their romantic scenes and all too realistic in the scenes where she's fed up with his bullshit. We really didn't do right by Preston. This film was sandwiched between “Jack Frost” and “Battlefield Earth,” so it's amazing she still has a career at all.

If nothing else, Raimi does assemble a decent supporting cast. John C. Reilly appears as Costner's baseball BFF. He brings that same easy-going charm and folksy best buddy quality that Reily excels at to the part, being one of the more humane elements of the film. Before casting him as J. Jonah Jameson, Raimi cast J.K. Simmons here as a couch who is less hard-assed than you'd expect, even if Simmons makes delivering route dialogue seem fun. The role of the team owner probably could've been played as a feckless villain but Brian Cox brings an impressive amount of humanity. The sole element of the film that seemed to receive some praise was Jena Malone's performance as Jane's teenage daughter, who slowly warms up to Costner. She received a few minor award nominations for her acting here. Malone is shockingly funny and likable, especially in a bizarre scene where she walks in on Kevin eating bread and milk.

So are there any signs at all that Sam Raimi directed this movie and that it didn't, in fact, emerged fully-formed from Kevin Costner's id? A few. The scenes of baseballs being tossed into gloves do have a small amount of that energy and motion that you associate with Raimi. The moments when Costner “turns off the machine” and centers himself on the mound, the noise of the stadium vanishing and the crowds of people disappearing, have a slightly stylized edge to them. Though the film has its share of montages, none of them feel especially Raimi-esque. There's all of one P.O.V. shot of a baseball being tossed into a mitt. I honestly expected the movie to mostly composed of that, so it's a little disappointing. That seems like a real missed opportunity.

There's one other way “For Love of the Game” is an obvious, maudlin motion picture. Its use of music is surprisingly awful. Basil Poledouris, one of the greatest film composers to ever live, hits a career low with an unimaginative score full of generic, “sweeping” and “inspiring” themes. More over, the film's musical cues were chosen with sledge hammer obviousness. Uninspired covers of “Paint It Black,” “Something So Right” and “Baby Love” blast over the soundtrack. Standards from Steely Dan, Bob Dylan, and Roy Orbison crop up in all the moments you'd expect. The film's romantic ballads, of which there are three or four, are as overdone and bathetic as the movie they were made to spruce up.

”For Love of the Game” is also insanely slow. It's almost as glacially paced and overly long as an actual baseball game. The film runs at two hours and seventeen minutes and feels closer to four. I can't tell you how hard I was fighting sleep through this watch. It's undoubtedly Sam Raimi's weakest film, obviously because it feels the least like something he would actually make. But I kind of get it. If you started your career pouring fake blood all over Bruce Campbell's face in a rickety old cabin, you would probably wonder what making a prestige sports movie with a once-massive movie star would be like too. [Grade: D]

Director Report Card: Sam Raimi (1998)

7. A Simple Plan

Sam Raimi's first six features were all examples of the director putting his particular stamp on specific genres. His films were the stuff of comic books and pulp fiction. Horror, zombies, demonic possession, swashbucklers, superheroes and the Universal Monsters, film noir, slapstick, and spaghetti westerns were the narrative materials he was utilizing. One could make the argument that these are examples of juvenile, childish obsessions. If that's the point of view you take, then 1996's “A Simple Plan” begins a new phase in Raimi's career.  It represents his completed evolution into a mature filmmaker, someone who makes “serious” movies. This shift was rewarded with “A Simple Plan” becoming the first of Raimi's films to receive Academy Award nominations, for Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Hank Mitchell lives a simple life in a small town in Minnesota. His wife, Sarah, is very pregnant. He works a low-paying but reliable job at a grain dispensary. He remains close with his brother, Jacob, who has never really recovered from the sudden death of their father. While out driving with Jacob and their mutual friend, Lou Chambers, the trio chases a fox into the woods. They come across a downed airplane, buried in the New Year's snow, a dead pilot behind the controls. A bag full of money is discovered inside, totaling out to four million dollars. Jacob and Lou, both unemployed, want to take the money but Hank is worried about it. He's eventually talked into it. And that is when his life descends into betrayal, paranoia, and bloodshed.

“A Simple Plan” begins with an irresistible premise. What would you do if four million dollars suddenly dropped into your lap? Even when split between three people, that's enough money to completely change someone's life. Of course, even before the criminals who want the money back show up, Hank and his friend's lives begin to fall apart. It's easy to say “A Simple Plan” is about that age-old adage of how “money is the root of all evil.” Not long after coming across the cash, the trio are committing murder to protect their secret. Lou demands his share and is threatening to blackmail Hank. The desire for the money, for the perceived changes in their lives it makes them imagine, is enough to make three pretty ordinary guys do horrible things.

But saying the money is the root of the evil is the easy way out. The cash does not insert these desires into the characters' lives. The opening scene paints the Minnesota small town as an idyllic place. The town sheriff stops to help people with dead car batteries, strictly out of the kindness of his heart. It's just after Christmas, the decorations still up across the town and in everyone's homes, seemingly pointing at the innocence of the location. Yet a darkness hides under the pure white snow that covers the town. Jacob tells Hank that their father killed himself, which the younger brother refuses to believe. Soon, the seemingly wholesome Hank is committing cold-blooded murder and thinking up schemes to cover his tracks in a calculated way. The capacity for these acts exist in every man, in any place, and “A Simple Plan” is about how it doesn't take much for this stuff to rise to the surface.

In many ways, “A Simple Plan” feels a lot like Sam taking some cues from his old buddy, Joel Coen. Raimi's film resembles “Fargo,” with its tale of murders playing out in a snowy, Midwestern setting. What really connects “A Simple Plan” to the Coen's movies, and Raimi's general aesthetic, is its interest in small town imbeciles. It's pretty obvious Jacob has some severe learning disabilities. He's socially awkward. He repeatedly undermines the titular simple plan with very foolish decisions. Lou, meanwhile, is a belligerent drunk who is destined to screw up the minute the money is discovered. Hank is obviously the most intelligent of the three, a college educated man who actually thinks about the ramifications of finding the cache of money... And even he concocts ridiculous plans, makes foolish agreements, and fails to deescalate tense situations. It makes a clear point about the banality of evil, how stupidity is often the real reason horrible decisions are made.

As often as the film points out the lack of intelligence in its protagonists, it is not mocking them. “A Simple Plan” feels a great deal of sympathy for its none-too-bright antiheroes. Something that drives many of the bad decisions Jacob makes is the ever-present tension that exist between him and Hank. Their father went into debt so that Hank could be given a college education. Jacob, meanwhile, was never promised anything, not even the dilapidated family farm. During an early scene, the two visit their dad's grave, Hank noticing Jacob left flowers there at an earlier point... Which seems like an odd way for the older brother to rebel against his more successful, younger sibling. Jacob, sometimes, makes his resentment of Hank more obvious. Anybody with a sibling can relate to this, that creeping sensation that one sibling was more loved than the other. The sense of disappointment that their familial bond isn't as strong as it seems it should be. This ultimate inability to connect drives much of the drama inherent in “A Simple Plan.”

Though “A Simple Plan” is not a horror movie, it sometimes feels like one. Raimi establishes a sense of quiet foreboding early on. The film features some perhaps on-the-nose symbolism. The very first scene in the movie features a fox sneaking into the hen house, making off with a chicken. This same fox causes the trio to swerve off the road, inadvertently leading them to the plane. Later on, a sense of danger is established again when a stuffed fox appears in the back of a room. This is not the only animal symbolism here. Crows often hang overhead, their black feathers standing out against the snow covered fields, an ever-present reminder of how badly things are going to go. This stuff is a bit obvious, maybe even cheesy. However, it also works,, creating an unsettling atmosphere that never truly lets up.

Up until this point, all of Sam Raimi's movies have been characterized by a visual dynamism, of rushing P.O.V. shots and crazy action sequences. In comparison, “A Simple Plan” is an unusually still movie. Raimi often frames his actors in wide shows, small figures moving across the snowy fields. Recalling the interiors of the “Evil Dead” cabin, Raimi makes every building in “A Simple Plan” feel cramped and hard to escape. Soon, you realize the camera is often placed outside wherever the cast is... As if a pair of eyes is watching everything they do. This mirrors the paranoia the characters feel, constantly afraid someone come and claim the money they have stolen. When Raimi's camera does move, such as when Hank and Sarah look over their shoulders at a drawling curtain while whispering about their scheme, the film is similarly replicating their paranoia. Raimi isn't just showing off but actually reflecting the film's themes in his visual construction.

“A Simple Plan' is a rare leading man part for the late, great Bill Paxton. Paxton is perfectly cast in the part of someone who seems to be a pleasant everyman. Hank loves his wife, is looking forward to becoming a father, and is friendly with everyone in town. Compared to the often foolish thoughts of his brother and friend, Hank tries to consider the consequences of his action. Paxton is excellent are project this honest and likable streak... Of course, there's also a darkness to the character, Hank showing an ability to perform ghastly acts with a cold determination. Paxton plays these moments as sudden compromises of his morality, which seem to horrify Hank himself.

Paxton is fantastic and exactly the kind of leading man this story needed. But another performance ends up dominating “A Simple Plan.” Billy Bob Thornton plays Jacob as just about the saddest moron you'll ever see in a movie. He's been rejected over and over again by life. His dreams, of rebuilding the farm his father built, are so humble. That's because he can't imagine a good life more complex than that. When driven to horrible actions, he breaks down in tears. By far, the most touching moment in the film comes when Jacob relates a story from his high school days, when a girl went out with him for a month on a bet. Thornton is so good at embodying that level of pathetic sympathy, of playing someone so achingly human in their failures.

While the three men and their obsession with the cash is what drives the story, there is a fourth voice here. Bridget Fonda plays Sarah, Hank's wife who iniatly seems even more reluctant to get involved with this than him. However, once those dollar signs and the ease they promise flash before her, she changes her tune. Suddenly, Fonda is a conviving Lady MacBeth type, pushing her husband into morally questionable schemes. Yet even her actions are driven by a quiet desperation. Another fantastic moment has Fonda explaining the hardships of her life and how this money is their chance to avoid them. Earlier in the film, Paxton has a passing line about how your suppose to “work for the American dream.” Fonda's moment here makes it clear what a piece of shit lie that is. Because honest labor has brought her family nothing but hardship while a bag of mysterious money falling out of the sky seems like a ticket out of this dead-end life.

After composing the March of the Dead for “Army of Darkness” and scoring “Darkman,” Danny Elfman would lend his talents to a Sam Raimi film without the word “dark” in its title. Elfman's music helps power the film's sense of unease. An effectively atonal piece of music, it begins with slightly out-of-cord piano nuts. Shrill flute cries that invoke both crow caws, as well as a shocking yell in the distance, subtly unsettle the audience. Acoustic guitars and fiddles recall the Midwestern setting while the mournful main melody suggests the tragedy that will unfold there soon enough. It moves Elfman out of his comfort zone – not a single jaunty tuba is heard – while perfectly supporting the film and being listenable as a piece of music, albeit a disturbing one.

A project that was nearly by directed by a diverse group of names including Mike Nichols, Ben Stiller, and John Boorman, Sam Raimi would prove to be an inspired choice to finally make “A Simple Plan.” His direction lends a sense of quiet unease to the proceedings while the story fits in with his subtle themes of criticizing American institutions. While I am a lover of Raimi's crazy cult movies, if he was going to make the transition to more “grown-up” genres, “A Simple Plan” is the best-case-scenario. It's a disquieting thriller that leaves the viewer on edge, easily standing among the director's best films. [Grade: A]

Director Report Card: Sam Raimi (1995)

6. The Quick and the Dead

“Army of Darkness” didn't exactly set the box office on fire but Sam Raimi remained a filmmaker many people wanted to work with. In the aftermath of “Basic Instinct,” Sharon Stone was suddenly a huge star. Sony would purchased Simon Moore's spec script, “The Quick and the Dead,” specifically to develop it as a project for Stone. Signing on to both star and produce, Stone would handpick Raimi as the director. (Apparently she was a fan of “Army of Darkness” and his other films, an unexpected revelation.) Considering his love of various retro genres, it's unsurprising to learn that Sam Raimi was a fan of westerns. Though essentially working as a hired gun – pun fully intended – Raimi would manage to make “The Quick and the Dead” his own.

The Western frontier town of Redemption is ruled with an iron fist by Sheriff Herod, a former outlaw. The town is currently holding a quick-draw competition, attracting gunslingers from all around the country. Among them is a mysterious Lady, wandering into town seemingly to fulfill a personal vendetta against Herod. She meets other shooters, like the the Kid, who is young and eager to prove his skill, and Cort, a pacifistic priest slowly drawn back into the violence. As the competition goes on, Herod becomes more ruthless, insisting the matches become battles to the death.

“The Quick and the Dead's” influences could not be more obvious. The film is an extended love letter to the spaghetti western and Sergio Leone's films in particular. That general premise, of a nameless gunfighter wandering into a frontier town and resolving the problems there, is maintained. The way Lady's grudge against Herod is slowly explained through flashbacks, which involve an extended lynching, brings “Once Upon a Time in the West” to mind. With its morally ambiguous characters and story of vengeance, it's obvious the Italian westerns of the sixties inspired the film, more so than the traditional American westerns. This act of homage is completed with Alan Silvestri's score, a fantastic Ennio Morricone riff full of calling trumpets and strumming guitars.

The spaghetti western brings with it a certain visual language, that “The Quick and the Dead” is happy to communicate with. Dante Spinotti's cinematography is full of warm Old West colors, with many wide and immersive shots of the flat, rolling desert. The director certainly employs some of the close-ups, zooms, whip pans, and expressive wide shots that Leone was famous for. Yet Raimi brings his own frenetic style to the table. A simple scene of someone being thrown a glass of water is electrified by Raimi's use of point-of-view shots. A number of gun fights are summarized through a thrilling montage, bullets and pistols falling across the scene as we see the fights play out. The camera is rarely still for long in “The Quick and the Dead,” Raimi determined to stay true to the first part of the film's title.

Unsurprisingly, the gun fights are vividly brought to life. As you'd expect, the director of “Evil Dead” certainly adds a little more flair and gore to the shoot-outs. The squibs are a little juicier in this flick than you'd expect from a typical western. Bloody gashes are blown in hands. A disproportionately large hole is blasted through someone's head. Some of the most memorable moments are saved for the big finale, where a bullet hole in seen in someone's shadow. Or a gunshot to the eyes tosses an opponent head-over-heels. The film even manages to toss in some massive explosions, by setting up a barrel of TNT early on in a rather amusingly ham-fisted way. In-between Raimi's stylistic approach and the bloody special effects, “The Quick and the Dead” certainly proves an exciting action film.

Made during Sharon Stone's brief stay atop the A-list, “The Quick and the Dead” was an attempt to show the actress was more than a seductive sexpot. At the time, some reviewers were quite harsh towards her performance. In retrospect, it's quite obvious what Stone is doing. Though the character's name is eventually revealed as Ellen, she's just called Lady throughout most of the film. She doesn't speak as much and instead glares at her opponents, gruffly and bluntly barking answers to them. This is, of course, not dissimilar to Clint Eastwood's performances as the Man with No Name. Stone does a surprisingly good job of filling the role of a stoic western gunslinger, being convincingly tough, conveying the mystery of the character, but hinting at the anger she feels underneath those tense stares.

Casting a woman as the lead in an action-packed western, a genre traditionally dominated by men, was a bold move and ahead of the curve in some ways. In other ways, “The Quick and the Dead” is painfully of its time. Despite spending most of the movie as a bad-ass in a cowboy hat and chaps, there's still a gratuitous sequence where Stone is dressed in a glamorous gown. (Raimi and his team at least had the sense to cut a steamy sex scene between Stone and Crowe, which added nothing to the story.) Among the gun fighters is a lecherous, ugly man who repeatedly hits on a young girl, eventually doing something awful to her off-screen. This results in a sudden shoot-out, Stone quickly shooting the pervert to death. It's a ham-fisted moment in questionable taste. Does child molestation really have a place in a colorful, comic book-y western? It feels a lot like the kind of faux-empowered “girl power” that was commonplace in the nineties and has aged poorly.

Starring opposite Stone is Gene Hackman as Herod. It's the second western villain role Hackman would play in the nineties, after a similar role in 1992's “Unforgiven.” As in that film, Hackman plays a rotten man who will do anything to hold onto the power he already has. The big difference is that “Unforgiven” was a gritty, grounded deconstruction while “The Quick and the Dead” is a colorful exaggerated homage. Hackman adjusts his performance accordingly.  He plays Herod as a villain who enjoys his own villainy, grinning with evil intent and enjoying tormenting those that earn his scorn. Watching Hackman ham it up is great fun.

Hackman's character also displays another homage to the western's past. A number of spaghetti westerns are notable for injecting politics into the western genre. “The Quick and the Dead” continues this trend. Herod rules over the town of Redemption with an iron fist. His whims and violent impulses directs the lives of the innocent people living there. He lives in an opulent home, wearing fine clothes and eating nice meals. The other citizens are so poor that, any time a gunfighter is shot dead, they strip any valuables they can find off the still warm corpses. This idea is further developed in a subplot where a professional shootist is hired by the townsfolk to kill Herod. This goes poorly, resulting in a monologue where Herod chastises the people who live under him. It's a clear depiction of class divides and add some much appreciated layers tot he film.

Supporting Stone and Hackman are a pair of up-and-coming leading men. Russell Crowe was early in his film career, cast at Stone's insistence. While we associate Crowe with blustery, full-throated performances, his role here as Cort is more mellow and introspective. As a former outlaw-turned-priest who then turns back into a gunfighter by the end, Crowe does a nice job displaying the challenges the character faces. Leo DiCaprio, also pretty early into his film career and a few years from becoming the definitive teen hot throb of his day, plays the Kid. DiCaprio is enthusiastic, nicely balancing the performative cockiness the character uses to cover the insecurity he feels over not being accepted by his father.

The supporting cast, meanwhile, is filled with beloved character actors who are allowed to do their thing. Lance Henriksen is at his most bombastic as a trick shooter who loves to brag and show off, before his act is bluntly dismissed by the villain. Lance is really allowed to cut loose, clearly enjoying the operatic opportunity. Tobin Bell, long before his “Saw” days, appears early as one of the sleazier jerks to vex Stone. Roberts Blossom plays nicely to type as the kindly old doctor who holds the secret to Lady's past. Keith David has a brief but entertaining role as the hired gun, bringing the proper Keith David amounts of grace and style to a small part. Pat Hingle appears as the lonesome barkeeper, forced to do awful things at Herod's insistence, while Kevin Conway is amusingly hammy as a henchman. (That's a Commissioner Gordon and a Batman in the cast together, for those keeping track.) Gary Sinise even shows up for a brief cameo. It's a loaded cast, which is probably why Bruce Campbell's part ended up getting cut though he's still listed in the credits.

Aside from Raimi's always-inventive visual design, what I might admire the most about “The Quick and the Dead” is its speedy pace and straight-ahead story construction. It's a movie about a gun fighting tournament that wastes little time getting to the gun fights. Since most of the characters are archetypes, they are quickly set-up, leaving more room for the action. Just like in many a classic western, once the bad guy has been disposed and the hero marches back out of town, the movie ends. Calling “The Quick and the Dead” a series of gun fights would not be inaccurate. Nor is it a complaint, as there's something to be said for a movie giving the audience what they want and then getting the hell out.

Like most of Sharon Stone's post-”Basic Instinct” vehicles – or most of the westerns released after “Dances with Wolves” and “Unforgiven,” for that matter – “The Quick and the Dead” attracted little attention in theaters. The reviews were extremely mixed at the time, the film being more-or-less dismissed as a failure. In the years since, some have reassessed the movie, realizing Raimi brought a great deal of energy to the script, that the cast is full of entertaining performances, and that the movie succeeds at most of its goals. Perhaps a trifle, “The Quick and the Dead” is nevertheless an amusingly over-the-top riff on western ideas. [Grade: B]

RECENT WATCHES: Darkman III: Die Darkman Die (1996)

One presumes that Universal gave the green light to two direct-to-video “Darkman” sequels because the original was a popular rental in video stores. Yet, if that was the case, I do wonder why they waited so long. The “Darkman” sequels were filmed back-to-back in 1993. For whatever reason, the sequels weren’t released for several more years. “Darkman III: Die Darkman Die” — which is, admittedly, an utterly brilliant subtitle — wouldn’t come out until 1996, a full six years after the original movie was in theaters. I would imagine any hype must’ve died down by that point. Though made by the same crew, “Darkman III” is something of an improvement over the second one.

Darkman continues his quest from the shadows, to perfect his synthetic skin formula and occasionally fight crime. He crosses paths with Peter Rooker, a drug kingpin obsessed with making himself stronger. After seeing Darkman wipe the floor with his goons, he concocts a scheme to capture the hero and create a powerful steroid from his blood. He teams up with one of the doctors who initially performed surgery on Dr. Peyton Westlake’s nerves and she turns out to be a psychopath totally willing to go along with things. He’ll then use his superpowered henchman to murder the city’s new mayor, who promises to crack down on crime. Darkman’s research is stolen and, using his face-swiping technology, goes undercover in the villain’s life and begins to grow attached to the man’s wife and daughter.

As I pointed out last time, director Bradford May has largely worked on television, aside from these films or the odd cage-fighting movie. Narratively, “Die Darkman Die” feels like a couple of hour-long scripts cobbled together into a feature film. Darkman having his ability to feel pain restored by a baddie, falling in love with a crime boss’ wife, and preventing superpowered enemies from assassinating a mayoral candidate all easily could’ve been episodes of a show. The film even begins with Voosloo summarizing his origin story, via narration, that feels a lot like the opening of a TV show. (A pilot for a “Darkman” show was produced in 1992 but never picked up, making me wonder if I’m onto something here...) Despite its episodic elements, “Die Darkman Die” feels far more cinematic than its predecessor. May attempts some Raimi-like P.O.V. shots and some moments of Darkman swooping dramatically out of the darkness. There’s even an inspired moment during one of Darkman’s psychedelic freak-outs, were the gangster’s wife is dressed as a saint and attacked by a human-headed snake.

More importantly, the second sequel doesn’t just emulate the original’s plot with a bunch of lazy retcons. It actually delves into Darkman’s personality somewhat. First off, taking away Darkman’s inability to feel pain – his primary superpower – is an interesting challenge to the character, even if it ends up only occupying a short period of the film. Secondly, I like the subplot of him developing feelings for Rooker’s wife. The movie puts too fine a point on it by having Westlake, in disguise as Rooker, watch his daughter’s school production of “Beauty and the Beast.” Yet it’s an interesting idea, leaning into Darkman’s outsider/monster status and his desire for belonging and love. The film’s conclusion, were he makes a selfless sacrifice that seemingly completes his character arc by having him accept his own monsterdom, is about as good as you can expect from a direct-to-video sequel.

“Die Darkman Die” also earns points for giving its superhero a proper supervillain to fight, even if the film takes it time building up to that. Rooker is a ruthless leader of his criminal empire, nearly as impressive as Larry Drake was in the first film. Jeff Fehey brings a surprising amount of wit and style to the part, memorably nefarious. After Rooker inevitably injects himself with the steroid, Fehey’s performance goes delightfully over-the-top, the actor cackling like a madman. Though the action scenes in the film are overall a bit on the bland side, this fight is certainly one of the sequel’s better moments. Rooker also gets dispatched in an amusingly grisly fashion, a satisfying end to such a nasty guy. (I also couldn’t help but notice Nigel Bennet, “Forever Knight’s” LaCroix, as Rooker’s sidekick.)

Don’t get the wrong impression. “Die Darkman Die” is certainly not on the level of Raimi’s original. May’s direction still isn’t great. A sequence involving a rocket launcher is pretty bad. The pacing is surprisingly slow for an 87 minute movie, seemingly taking forever to set up and then pay off the various plot points. Voosloo is still only a simply adequate replacement for Liam Neeson. But this is at least a lot better than the first attempt at a sequel. Considering how superhero crazy our world currently is, I’m surprised there’s never been talks of rebooting or remaking “Darkman.” (Raimi owning the character, and having some say in how he’s used, is probably a big factor in that.) It would be a second chance for the great original to spawn a worthy franchise. Anyway, the point of this review is: If you're going to see one shitty “Darkman” sequel, see “Darkman III: Die Darkman Die.”  [6/10] 

RECENT WATCHES: Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995)

Being a superhero movie, even one original to cinema, “Darkman” was obviously meant to launch a franchise. The film would be followed by the expected media tie-ins, such as a video game, novels, and, fittingly enough, comic books. Considering all of this, and the original's box office success, a sequel would eventually roll into production around 1993. While Sam Raimi initially envisioned a follow-up starring Bruce Campbell, the finished product would take a very different form. With Arnold Voosloo slipping on Liam Neeson's fedora and bandages, “Darkman II: The Return of Durant” would become the first live action Universal Studios film made exclusively for the direct-to-video market. If that doesn't inspire much in the way of confidence, you're right on the money.

Three years have passed since Dr. Peyton Westlake was transformed into Darkman. In that time, he has continued to hide in the shadows, still working on perfecting his artificial skin formula and fighting crime whenever it crosses his path. However, he's not the only one that has lingered on... Despite his helicopter slamming face-first into a bridge, gangster Robert G. Durant is still alive. Awakening from a coma, he immediately goes about re-establishing his criminal empire. Busting a mad scientist friend out of prison, Durant decides to build high-tech laser weapons and sell them to the highest bidder. He wants to use a factory currently occupied by another scientist working on synthetic skin. Westlake befriends the man and his sister just before Durant has him killed, sending the Darkman on another collision course with the criminal underworld.

As the subtitle indicates, “Darkman II” recognizes that Robert G. Durant was too good a villain to toss out after one adventure. I don't object to Durant returning to life. “Darkman” is a superhero series, after all, and people come back from the dead in comics all the time. Yet the sequel goes about resurrecting the gangster in the laziest way possible. Durant's helicopter exploded in a massive, mid-air fireball in the last movie. Yet the sequel expects us to believe that such an incident merely caused him to slip into a coma, the slightest of scars on his face being the only indicator that he was previously caught in a giant explosion. Think of how cool it would've been to bring Larry Drake back as a similarly deformed evil adversary for Darkman to tango with. That would've represented more creativity than the filmmakers behind “Darkman II' was willing to put into things.

This senseless story idea was definitely the laziest decision that was made during “Darkman II's” production but it's far from the most baffling. Obviously, Liam Neeson was never going to return for a direct-to-video sequel to a movie he made three years prior. Luckily, Darkman presented an easy solution for re-casting. With the hero being hideously deformed, the star would be covered in make-up for most of the runtime. Further more, Darkman's tendency to create false faces means he can look like anyone. Maybe Dr. Westlake was so despondent over the first film's events, that he fashioned a new face for himself to wear, totally different from the one he was born with. Instead, “Darkman II” inserts Arnold Voosloo into the flashbacks from the original, retconning things so he always looked like this new guy. Voosloo can only summon a fraction of the manic energy Neeson brought to the role but he's otherwise fine. The lack of thought put into the screenplay is much harder to forgive.

If Voosloo had some difficult filling Neeson's trench coat, the man behind the camera was lost in an even larger shadow. Stepping into Sam Raimi's place is someone named Bradford May. You've probably never heard of him. The guy largely directed television movies before and after “Darkman II's” production. May makes some token attempts to replicate Raimi's frenetic visual style. When Darkman is driven into one of his trademark rages – which doesn't happen nearly often enough – the film does launch into fiery montages of cascading, strobbing imagery. It's a decent aping of Raimi's style and the only time the sequel tries at all. Otherwise, “Darkman II” is shot in dimly lit rooms and warehouses. A whip-pan or crash-zoom here or there doesn't make up for how flat most of the sequel looks.

Truthfully, “The Return of Durant” barely feels like a “Darkman” movie for most of its run time. Darkman spends a lot of time wearing Voosloo's face. He talks to various allies, including the other scientist and a muckraking journalist played by Kim Delaney. There are far too many scenes of people standing around and just talking about stuff. While Durant does far more killing and torturing, he too spends a lot of the movie negotiating civilly with people. The sequel opens with a car chase between two deranged drug addicts, ending in multiple fiery crashes. It's a decent moment and feels manic enough to pass as a sequel to a Sam Raimi movie... And “Darkman II” never attempts this level of energy again. The action scenes that follow are totally bland and forgettable. Durant doesn't even get a cool death scene, Darkman being weirdly hands-off about it.

Direct-to-video is a perfectly acceptable release strategy for many different types of films. However, productions like “Darkman II: The Return of Durant” is why the release route has a bad name. The production values are unimpressive. The story is derivative of the original. Mostly, it's clear very little thought or heart was put into this sequel. Universal just wanted to capitalize on the name recognition and rental popularity of the first one. “Darkman” is too distinctive of a film to have spawned such an uninspired follow-up. [4/10]

Director Report Card: Sam Raimi (1992)

5. Army of Darkness

The first idea Sam Raimi and his band of merry madmen had for an “Evil Dead” sequel was to toss Ash back in time to the 1300s. Yet when “Evil Dead II” was coming together, the budget wasn’t quite high enough for such an ambitious premise, causing Raimi and co. to make the expanded version of the original we got instead. Following the box office success of “Darkman,” Universal and Dino De Laurentiis agreed to put up the money for this time travelling third “Evil Dead” adventure. Known “The Medieval Dead” during pre-production, the film would be released as “Army of Darkness,” probably under the logic that mainstream audiences weren’t that familiar with the “Evil Dead” brand. Disagreements with the studio resulted in a delayed release, likely contributing to the film’s underwhelming box office. Since then, “Army of Darkness” has become one of the definitive cult movies.

“Army of Darkness” doesn’t quite pick up where “Evil Dead II” left off, rewriting the previous ending slightly. Ash has still been flung backwards into a medieval England threatened by demonic evil. He is kept as a prisoner in-between two warring kingdoms, until proving himself against the Deadites and impressing the medieval populace with his abilities. Eager to return home, Ash is sent on a quest to retrieve the Necronomicon. Upon finding the book, he accidentally unleashes an army of undead evil, led by a monstrous double of himself. Now, Ash must defend the kingdom from this army of darkness if he ever hopes to make it home.

In many ways, “Army of Darkness” represents Sam Raimi and his team attempting to soften the “Evil Dead” franchise for mainstream audience. The movie was even shot with a PG-13 rating in mind, which is quite a change from the notorious gorefests the previous films were. (The film was still given an NC-17 by the MPAA. Extensive recuts were only able to get it down to an R, probably thanks to a giant blood geyser.) The sequel largely retreats from the horror movie atmosphere that characterized the series up to this point. Though zombies and demons are present, this is a highly comedic fantasy/adventure film through-and-through. A swashbuckling adventure largely set among ancient castles is a pretty far leap from the standard “spam in a cabin” set-up of the first “Evil Dead.”

But don’t think Raimi was fleeing from the history of his trademark franchise too much. “Army of Darkness” is very different and toned down from the first two films, but this is still an “Evil Dead” movie. Many of the series’ trademarks are accounted for. After entering a dark forest, Ash is pursued by an unseen force, which splits tree stumps in its effort to get to him. He hides in a creaky windmill, a period version of the first two’s cabin setting. A mirror ends up fucking with his mind, the climax to the mirror gags present through the other two. There’s a stylistically cut montage involving a chainsaw, as well as a reprise of Ash suiting up for action and saying “Groovy.” Raimi even includes an obviously fake shot of the moon in the sky. Most important of all, “Army of Darkness” is still a movie largely devoted to tormenting Ash and by extension Bruce Campbell. And isn’t that what “Evil Dead” is really all about?

“Army of Darkness” is, in fact, more extreme than “Evil Dead II” in one way. The Three Stooges-style slapstick is pushed even further than before. After all, not long after it begins, the film features a Deadite somersaulting through the air and doing karate. Totally divorced from any sense of realism, “Army of Darkness” is allowed to become a live-action cartoon. Bruce gets sucked into a black hole-like book, his face stretched out to Looney Tunes proportions. A lengthy and utterly brilliant scene involves Ash fighting a collection of tiny versions of himself, resulting in fork stabbing, sing-alongs, head bopping, and floor siding. Probably the funniest scene in the movie has Ash unsuccessfully fighting off a collection of mischievous skeleton arms. It’s completely insane and utterly hilarious, the kind of thing I can’t believe a major studio put out in 1993.

Yet perhaps one man most deserves thanks for “Army of Darkness’” transformation into a cult classic. Ash Williams began as a dorky survivor, almost a deconstruction of a heroic protagonist. He then became a mentally unhinged but deeply resourceful bad-ass, able to absorb limitless abuse. With “Army of Darkness,” Ash’s transformation into an action hero is completed. Ash is, beautifully, an asshole. He spends the entire movie mocking and talking down to everyone around him. Despite that, he’s also kind of an idiot. He repeatedly makes mistakes that could have been easily avoided by one more second of reasonable listening. That includes unleashing the titular evil force. He manipulates a vulnerable young woman into sleeping with him. He’s motivated entirely by the selfish desire to return home. As an oft quoted line goes, Ash is neither good nor bad but simply “the guy with the gun.”

And yet, Ash remains a beloved film character. While he’s a hilarious subversion of the traditional fantasy hero, that’s not why people love him. Mostly, it’s because Bruce Campbell is so amazingly good at playing this character. His perpetually sarcastic voice is well utilized as a smart-ass out of time who greatly overestimates his own worth. Campbell is clearly having such a good time on-screen, playing a total buffoon whose stubbornness turns him into a hero. This is most evident in the litany of hilarious one-loners he cracks throughout the film. The entire “This is my Boom-stick!” monologue is my favorite, though “It’s a trap, get an axe” deserves special mention. When you get right down to it, Ash is simply awesome. He goes back in time, cleaves monsters in half with a chainsaw, uses a belt as a grappling hook, and builds a robot hand in a 12th century blacksmith shop. And Campbell deserves a lot of thanks for that.

It’s tempting to refer to Raimi’s direction here as “restrained.” But that’s only when compared to the theatrics of the other “Evil Dead” films. “Army of Darkness” is still way more energetic than most of the American action movies of its time. Raimi affixes his camera to Ash’s chainsaw as it whirls through the air. He does the same with an arrow fired from a crossbow. As a deadite is shot into a pit, the film whirls head-over-heels with it. During a fight with a witch, the camera goes completely nuts, slingshotting around the room in a way that is never incoherent but utterly exhilarating. His montage are high-energy and the sound design is impressively odd. It’s not quite as nuts as “Darkman” but is still pretty fucking crazy.

If you’re looking for a horror movie, “Army of Darkness” might be disappointing. Raimi does include some funky horror atmosphere among the story’s spooky graveyards, night battle scenes, or abandoned forest. But it’s mostly action and comedy that drive this one. Yet one thing keeps the darkness in this army and that’s the crazy monsters. Not long after being tossed into a pit, Ash is fighting a bloated, slimy bog hag. There’s a grotesque flying demoness with pendulous breasts. A delirious sequence, that includes a hilarious injection of stop motion animation, has Ash sprouting an evil copy from his own body. This soon results in the bloody-faced Evil Ash, with his monstrous overbite and chewed up skin. And do you like skeletons? Brother, you’re gonna get some skeletons. Almost the entire last third of “Army of Darkness” is devoted to bony goofballs performing visual gags and getting smashed to pieces. Among the many homages to Ray Harryhausen and “Jason and the Argonauts,” this is by far the wackiest. Utterly delightful.

In its last third, “Army of Darkness” has Ash’s small force facing off against the titular march of the dead. This is when the film’s worlds of goofy comedy, fantasy adventure, and monster kid horror collide. You have visual gags, like skeletons blowing steam out their ears or playing femurs like flutes. You have demonic undead soldiers attack battlements and stabbing knights. Mostly, you have the film’s most joyfully ridiculous action theatrics. Super elaborate effects — Campbell having pin-point choreographed sword fights with stop-motion skeletons — co-exist with the film’s most low tech gags, like someone just off-screen tossing a prop skeleton at Bruce’s head. The movie’s world has become so exaggerated by this point that it can get away with Ash riding into battle with his Oldsmobile, now converted into a steampunk war wagon. It’s hilariously goofy stuff that is united by a wonderfully child-like sense of creativity.

Bruce Campbell is so definitively the star of “Army of Darkness,” that he even plays the movie’s bad guy. (It must be said that Evil Ash is hilariously hammy in an altogether different way from regular Ash.) Which leaves everyone else in the movie to act as the collective straight-man to Campbell’s antics. Performers were smartly cast with this in mind. Embeth Davidtz is the very ideal of a fair medieval maiden, utterly unprepared for Ash’s modern charms. Ian Abercrombie, as the castle wise man, remains a serious image, acting unaware of the silliness around him. Marcus Gilbert and Richard Grove, as the dueling kings, are similarly straight laced. It’s an underrated supporting cast, because nobody much notices the people acting seriously around Campbell, but the film wouldn’t work without their commitment to their roles.

Unsurprisingly, Raimi and Universal would feud about what direction the film should go in. This resulted in multiple edits of the movie, such as Raimi’s approved director’s cut and the slightly shorter wide release version. With a few exceptions, the two cuts are not that radically different. There’s more physical comedy with the little Ashes, the skeletons, and the birth of Evil Ash that I miss in the theatrical cut. And without their love scene, only seen in the director’s cut, Ash and Princess Sheila’s arc feels slightly incomplete. There’s really only two moments exclusive to the general release version that I prefer to Raimi’s choices. The “I’m the guy with the gun” one-liner is much funnier than the joke in the director’s cut.

And then there’s the matter of the endings, the biggest difference between the two versions. The original conclusion, of Ash sleeping too long and awakening in a post-apocalyptic world, certainly fits the series tradition of Ash always escaping a bad situation only to end up someplace much worst. It also would’ve set up an even more ambitious fourth “Evil Dead” adventure, unleashing Ash into a Deadite-filled Mad Maxian wasteland. Yet there’s something more satisfying about the theatrical cut’s “S-Mart” ending. It’s one more ludicrous action sequence to take us out on, with blazing guns, acrobatic enemies, and moody lighting. And maybe, by this point, Ash has earned something like a happy ending, where he gets to be a braggart hero-in-his-own-mind who does occasionally get to actually kick some butt. Where he wins a girl that won’t end up possessed by demons.  Either way, I sort of like that both endings are available now, giving “Evil Dead” fans an option and giving Bruce Campbell’s Hero a multiple choice future.

The unrated gore of the first two “Evil Dead” films largely kept them off television, even most of the premium channels. This limited their cult following largely to the horror section of video stores and monster conventions. “Army of Darkness,” designed as the more accessible entry, reached a much wider audience. Not necessarily in theaters, as delays stuck it in a limp winter release date which resulted in underwhelming box office. Countless cable showings caused “Army of Darkness’” cult to swell, making it essential horror nerd viewing for dorks my age. While so very different from its predecessors, I love this as much now as I did then. An absolute joy of relentless energy and fun, “Army of Darkness” still makes me want to hail to the king, baby. [Grade: A]

Director Report Card: Sam Raimi (1990)

4. Darkman

It was the late eighties and Sam Raimi wanted to make a superhero movie. He initially had his eyes set on “Batman” but Warner Brothers long-gestating big budget version of that hero was finally moving forward with Tim Burton. Next, Raimi tried to make a film version of “The Shadow” but he was refused the rights. Around the same time, he was even developing a “Thor” movie with Stan Lee, that also failed to find studio support. At that point, Raimi made the strategic move of deciding to just create his own damn superhero. Raimi wrote a treatment based off his own short story, which soon attracted the attention of Universal Studio. Working with a major studio for the first time, “Darkman” would prove a vital film in its director's career.

Dr. Peyton Westlake is working on a new type of hyper-realistic synthetic skin. However, the skin melts after an hour in direct sunlight, lasting slightly longer in the dark. His girlfriend, Julie, is an attorney investigating local land developer Louis Strack, who is making illegal deals with vicious gangster Robert Durant. Durant, believing Westlake is involved, destroys the doctor's lab and brutally attacks him. After blowing the building up, Westlake is left hideously burned, the nerves controlling his emotions removed to control the pain. Building a make-shift lab, he continues working on his synthetic skin with two goals in mind: Reuniting with Julie and taking his revenge on those that destroyed his life. To do so, he must become the Darkman.

The superhero movie really wasn't a genre in 1990. “Darkman” might have been Raimi's conscious attempt to create a superhero but the movie ends up being a far weirder and wilder combination of multiple pulp genres. Darkman is as much horror movie creation as he is costumed crime fighter, ostensibly a good guy that is brutally deformed and driven by truly out-of-control emotions. The film's villains, and many of its subplots, draw on classic gangster movies. The action sequences, meanwhile, feel inspired by Hong Kong heroic bloodshed action movies. The result is an electrifying blend that must've felt truly unexpected at the time of release.

What truly propels “Darkman” is its manic sense of energy, which naturally flows from the director's frenetic visual sense. Raimi does not relax his visual style any for his mainstream Hollywood debut. If anything, “Darkman” is even wackier looking than his earlier movies. This is most apparent in the insane montages. Whenever Darkman is driven into a rage, which isn't hard to do, the film explodes into a series of wild montages. This results in the screen breaking apart with flames, beakers or test tubes flying towards us. Or frenzied close-ups on Westlake's faces and eyes, his memories coming alive in a wild swirl of images. There's a trumpeting pink elephant at one point. It's a truly wild visual feast, that tickles the viewer's brain in fantastically unexpected ways.

As frenetic as Raimi's direction and editing remains, “Darkman” also represents the director getting his first chance at making a big budget action movie. The film features the kind of giant explosions and elaborate shoot-outs that were previously out of the director's budgetary ranges. The opening gun battle, involving a weaponized wooden leg, is especially energetic, lots of intercutting between the firing gun and the chaos it reaps. The big finale involves the hero dangling from a helicopter as he's swung through the city, also climaxing in a massive explosion, another inspired action beat. Basically, Sam doesn't let the bigger budget go to waste. He hits the expected elements of a studio action film while also throwing in insane shit, like a frenziedly cut sequence of a guy screaming in panic as he's held up in traffic.

If there's any place where “Darkman” fails as a superhero movie, it's in creating an easily explained origin for its hero. No matter how convoluted and contrived comic book history can get – and few things are more convoluted and contrived – the greatest superheroes can always have their origins boiled down to a single sentence. The film has to jump through a lot of hoops to justify Darkman's condition. He's a scientist working on radical new synthetic skin... Which comes in handy when his face is burned off and he has to seek vengeance on the gangsters who did it, allowing him to impersonates his enemies... But only in the dark, due to the touchiness of the new technology. A make-shift surgery also grants Darkman his unbridled emotions and adrenaline, further making his transformation into a superpowered crime fighter complete. That the movie gets away with all this bullshit, just to justify the hero's power set, is a real testament to how entertaining the overall product is.

You can tell, once he was working for Universal Studios, Sam Raimi the Horror Fan couldn't resist including some homages to the studios' classic monsters. Darkman is a monster of sorts. Aside from his graphically scarred visage, his out-of-control emotions makes him monstrous in a different way. He may look normal in his synthetic skin but his beastly side always comes out, surely as Jekyll becomes Hyde. He's especially sensitive about being called a “freak,” resulting in an epic – pun incoming – freak-out inside his lair. Which doubles as a Frankensteinian laboratory, full of bubbling tubes and sparking equipment. More than anything else, Raimi recalls tragic gothic tales like “Phantom of the Opera” or “Hunchback of Notre Dame,” with this story of an ugly outsider forced to pine for his love from the shadows, crudely covering his own hideousness.

That love story, ultimately, is not as compelling as it could've been. The movie sort of succeeds in what it's going for. Peyton and Julie have a special love. When he 'dies,” she's heart-broken. His return should be a great reunion for them both, but there's something wrong with him. Eventually, he gives her up to protect her. Frances McDormand is fine in the part, if a little underserved as a mere romantic interest. She and Liam Neeson have strong chemistry. Yet the romance isn't as poignant as it should be. That Peyton and Julie are still able to function as a romantic couple for a while, even after his transformation into Darkman, is a weakness, I think.

Truthfully, Darkman's ability to replicate the faces of his enemies, at least for a short time, ends up being a bit of an afterthought in the movie. He uses it to get the upper hand on his gangster enemies a few time. There's naturally, a scene where he is disguised as Durant only to come face-to-face with the real deal. It's used to maintain the Peyton Wesklake secret identity, which is doomed to failure. Yet the identity switching premise isn't as ingrained in the film's emotional DNA as its themes of otherness and failed romance are. The movie never comments on how Darkman would probably relish the ability to assume another identity, given what he's seen. His sudden transformation into a pitch perfect vocal mimic is never explained, the movie just rolling with it. It's ultimately nothing more than a story device and a (highly amusing) gimmick.

At the end of last decade, Liam Neeson would re-invent himself as an action star with “Taken” and other Dadsploitation flicks. Film fans with a longer memory would have already known that Neeson had long ago proved his ass-kicking credentials. Neeson is fantastically unhinged in the title role. Whenever Peyton has his temper tantrums, Neeson delights in shouting, leaping around, growling, swearing, and acting like a maniac. His extended dance sequence, where he elaborates on his new freakdom, is especially notable. Or when he screams in victory over a fallen foe. Honestly, there's a perverse thrill in watching “Darkman” in 2019, seeing that respected paragon of dignified masculinity Liam Neeson go so gloriously over-the-top. Similarly, Neeson has no trouble acting under the extensive make-up, his immediately recognizable voice going a long ways.

The best superhero is frequently only as good as his villain. While Darkman's adversary doesn't quite ranks as a supervillain per say, Larry Drake as Robert Durant is certainly a memorably twisted villain. Drake slithers with sinister intent as the gangster. His moods always vary between intimidating, angry, or egomanatical, Durant remaining in a villainous mode regardless of the time of day. He also gets an unforgettable gimmick, in his tendency to chop off his victim's fingers and keep them as trophy. Larry Drake is perfectly cast in the part. Those pointed predator eyes, sharp facial features, and harping voice are certainly well utilized.

In fact, Durant is such a memorable villain the audience easily misses that he's technically only the second-in-command. Colin Friels as corrupt businessman Louis Strack is the movie's actual mastermind and its final boss. Yet, compared to the helicopter chase and massive explosion that proceeds, Darkman tango-ing with some guy in a suit atop an unfinished skyscraper isn't quite as much fun. Don't get me wrong: It's a dynamic setting and one that's well utilized. Friels is perfectly sleazy, slimy, and smarmy as Friels. Yet “Darkman” undeniably peaks early and never quite recovers.

Featuring an extremely on-point Danny Elfman score – the main theme is almost identical to the “Batman” theme – “Darkman” shows Raimi as very adapt at handling a comic book-like tone, freely mixing genres to create a wild and hugely entertaining ride. Raimi had some struggles with the studio, facing repeated rewrites and some issues during editing. However, it all worked out okay. A catchy marketing campaign, asking the public “Who is Darkman?,” pulled in audiences and made the film a hit. Taking us out with a perfectly placed Bruce Campbell cameo, “Darkman” is sure to leave any sensible genre fan with a big smile on his face. [Grade: A-]