The Phantom (1996) Dir. Simon Wincer
“For those who came in late…” reads the text on
screen during the opening narration that relates the secret mythology of The
Phantom (1996). Created by Lee Falk for the newspaper comic strips in 1936,
The Phantom a.k.a. The Ghost Who Walks, is a purple clad hero who is the latest in
a long line of men raised to fight crime from his jungle base in the fictional African
country of Bangalla. Created after The Shadow and before Batman, the Phantom
was the bridge between the early reality-based pulp heroes and the fantasy comic
book heroes which were to dominate fandom in the ensuing decades. Directed with
a breezy panache by Australian Simon Wincer (Free Willy) and starring a
hunky tongue-in-cheek Billy Zane (Titanic), this Indiana Jones homage
delivers all the required action-adventure elements including a spunky heroine,
exotic locales, death defying stunts, the search for magical artifacts, and a show
stopping femme fatale that introduced Catherine Zeta Jones to the big screen. Slightly
let down by some lumpy plotting and a forgettable film score, this was the last
major attempt to poach on Spielberg and Lucas’ ground before they came back
with another sequel themselves. This year we will see Harrison Ford retire his
hat and whip under the direction of James Mangold (Logan) with a finale
that I hope lives up to the earlier films and their imitators.
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