Super Movies! The one by the guy who made Evil Dead

 

Title: Darkman

What Year?: 1990

Classification: Runnerup/ Improbable Experiment/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

In the course of this feature, I’ve already commented on the counterintuitive volume of superhero/ comic book parodies, and the surprising degree of creativity they often allowed compared to direct adaptations of comic books. To continue the feature, I’ve been putting extra thought into another, much rarer phenomenon: Movies with original characters that were clearly influenced by comic books but still played the material straight. That very quickly brought up at least a couple movies I have had in mind for a very long time. The first up will stand out further as one of the most successful and well-regarded I have covered, enough that I debated if it really fit in. Here is Dark Man, the movie that brought Sam Raimi from Evil Dead toward Spider Man.

Our story begins with a shootout between two rival gangs, won by a newcomer named Durant. We promptly meet a scientist named Peyton, his live-in girlfriend Julie, and her boss. It turns out that the scientist is working on a synthetic skin that would be perfect if not for a tendency to combust when exposed to light, while his lady love has discovered evidence that her boss has been bribing officials on behalf of Durant. That leads the gangster and his goons to Peyton’s lab, which they destroy after finding what they want with no particular effort. In the aftermath, he is left burned beyond recognition in a hospital, while Julie and various authorities presume him dead. Naturally, Peyton recovers and escapes, after a carefully explained surgery that leaves him insensitive to pain and prone to bursts of rage that give him a measure of adrenaline-fueled super strength. With the aid of his synthetic skin, he sets out to take down the mobsters from within by taking their identities, and makes an even more difficult attempt to reconnect with Julie. But when the boss sends Durant after Darkman and Julie, will the hero survive to save her?

Darkman was arguably the first “mainstream” film by Sam Raimi under Dino DeLaurentiis’s Renaissance Pictures, which previously produced Evil Dead 2. (Sequel, remake, chicken, egg…) Raimi reportedly created the character after failing to obtain rights for The Shadow. The movie starred Liam Neeson (see… Krull?) as Peyton and Frances McDormand as Julie, with the late Larry Drake as Durant. Other cast included Jenny Agutter of Logan’s Run and An American Werewolf In London as Peyton’s doctor, Ted Raimi as one of the gangsters, and Bruce Campbell in a cameo as Darkman. The movie had troubled postproduction and test viewings, leading to contemporary and later speculation that it was abandoned by its distributor, Universal. In fact, the film did receive enough backing for a merchandising campaign, including an NES game and an actual comic from Marvel. It ultimately at least broke even, earning over $33 million against a $14M budget. Raimi moved on to television, including Xena and Hercules, before returning to cinema with Spider Man in 2002. Neither Raimi nor Neeson were involved in two direct-to-video sequels.

For my experiences, my main recollection about this movie is hearing about the video game. I actually saw it when it turned up on TV, and wasn’t particularly impressed. I was most interested in it for what I found to be obvious ties to The Shadow, which I was fortunately exposed to long before it got its own incomprehensible movie. My opinion didn’t improve when I encountered it on VHS, at one point returning a tape I had bought. I finally gave it another shot when I found it on Blu Ray, which is when I finally started to feel like I at least understood the appeal. In further hindsight, there were definitely things I didn’t appreciate until the “modern” era of superhero movies. On the other hand, there were also flaws I noticed very early that have stood out more over time, which is why my feelings remain mixed.

Diving in, what I concluded from the beginning was that this is a movie that feels like it second-guessed its own premise. Darkman is still one of the few “superhero” characters who is supposed to be smarter than his adversaries, and there’s a good setup of his technology and analytical mind against the sadism and low cunning of Durant and the goons. It’s used well enough for more good moments as our hero leaves the gang confused enough to start turning on each other. The problem, both in plotting and tactics, is that he steps up to impersonating their leader by the middle act. That leads to a very fine action/ chase sequence, but once Durant has clear proof of an impostor, we’re back to a conventional scenario of a hero running from the bad guys. Which, again, is by all means well-done, but outside of a surreal (and rather contrived) showdown in the lab, there’s nothing here that isn’t standard daring-do, albeit ahead of many of the movies that now make the madcap antics feel vaguely routine.

All of this, however, is just the binding for the romance between Peyton and Julie, and this is where things start to feel just weird and awkward. Peyton/ Darkman is set up as sympathetic, but gets less so starting very early on. There’s a further effort to represent his volatile emotions and unstable mind, complete with hallucinogenic visuals that feel more “comic book” than a lot of the comics.  At several points, however, he engages in uncomfortable brutality virtually in cold blood, starting with the very first kill against the gangsters. Julie is also problematic to sympathize with, clearly torn by Peyton’s death and return to life but too weak-willed not to get involved with her boss. The implied love triangle makes for an even more uncomfortable third wheel in the power-mad developer. Up to a point, he succeeds in representing the greater powers of the mundane world, but his monologues try the viewer’s patience more than a Bond villain, and his restatements of the movie’s already unsubtle themes don’t help matters. All the problems come together when Darkman has the arch villain at his mercy. Like many things, it’s done well enough, except that the whole implied moral element is completely belied by the preceding events. The bad guy certainly has nothing to lose by talking about the consequences of taking a life, but we’ve already seen our nominal “hero” do worse with less provocation.

That leaves us with the “one scene”, and I have had an outright favorite from the very beginning. After Darkman’s first major impersonation of a gangster named Pauly, Durant and the goons are left searching for a missing cash delivery. They finally find the real Pauly passed out in a hotel room. As they enter, Durant remarks, “We’ve been very concerned about you.” The gangsters quickly follow the clues laid out for them to find, while Pauly, played by veteran character actor Nicholas Worth (d. 2007), ineffectually protests. Meanwhile, Darkman sits on a bench, still disguised as Pauly. Inevitably, Pauly goes out the window, and in the uncensored cut we actually see him land. As a bystander screams, the camera follows her gaze to Darkman, still sitting virtually undisturbed. The doppelganger turns to look at her, and finally becomes concerned when the witness screams louder still. That’s when the mask starts to bubble, so he departs quickly. It’s a great scene framed and shot even better, but it’s always been the one that gives me the strongest sense of unfulfilled potential. The remainder of the movie is full of action and suspense, but the premise of turning the bad guys on each other is never used nearly as effectively, and much of the noir atmosphere and dark humor so far drains away with it.

In closing, the best thing I can say is that this is a movie that was practically predestined to be a “cult” movie. In hindsight, the foremost reason is that it was so far ahead of its own time, enough that there was simply no frame of reference to recognize how innovative and unique it was until later. Even more paradoxically, the most distinctive elements were really throwbacks to much earlier sources, from a time when “dark” was neither frowned upon nor automatically praised. For audiences at the time, it was an entertaining adventure. For an era when superheroes have grown as sleekly polished and commercialized as they ever were in the “dark ages” of censorship, it is a literally stunning accomplishment. It’s tempting to wonder, as with Mystery Men, if it would have been more successful and constructive made earlier or later. In my assessment, however, this is one time when a film simply couldn’t have been made in any other time or setting than it was. For that, above all, it remains worth watching.

Image credit Moby Games.