Darkman 1990

What I really appreciate about movies like this and The Crow is how they capture the B-movie feel of comics (yeah, this isn’t technically based on a comic, but conceptually and aesthetically it’s exactly the same feel). Don’t get met wrong, movies like The Dark Knight are an incredible achievement, but that’s not how the source material was ever intended in the first place. This is a very stripped down story, and with Raimi at the film, the cheese and camp are embraced to the fullest extent (flashy directing; OTT performances). It’s essentially your usual Spider-man villain origin story (science experiment gone wrong), the hook being that this guy is actually our anti-hero protagonist. The story and characters are pretty unambitious and predictable, it mostly serves as a framework for Raimi to come up with interesting and weird scenes. I think he does that really well, it’s filled with hilarious dark comedy and entertaining moments. Visually it’s a lot bolder than his subsequent Spider-man movies, which is understandable because he probably had more creative freedom with this one. Not to mention that Liam Neeson and Frances McDormand are way better actors than Maguire and Dunst, of course. However, as per usual with Raimi, some of the visuals have aged like milk (it’s a shame that during the awesome helicopter sequence it occasionally cuts to some really wonky close-ups) and the score is too overbearing. The romance could’ve used a little more development, and like already mentioned the writing takes little to no risk. It’s quite entertaining, but not a great film.

5.5/10

You ever seen a book where the pages got stuck together? If you try to force them apart, sometimes they rip and mix paragraphs, or the print bleeds from one page to another. That's how I felt of the script while watching this film. Everyone would rightfully compare this to Batman, for reasons I'll elaborate on soon, but I would go further: the Batman similarities are inextricably woven into the fabric of this film, and in a probably unintentional subversion, the protagonist seems to have confused himself for the Joker rather than the Batman.

(Quick note: I watched this free on Channel 4 on demand with ads. Viewers can expect to find it again in future on rotation.)

I am quite surprised to see the majority positive reviews here, and so I'm going to tread lightly, but I don't think I can hold it in and ignore how my feeling after this film was circling how bad it was. The film starts with a baby-faced Liam Neeson, absent of his now trademark gruff and commanding voice, finding himself on the wrong side of local organised crime with white collar connections. This gang is run by a tall and imposing mob boss, which through various simple scenes, proves himself an antagonist of the calibre 'someone you don't mess with'. Some memorable quirks from his group include a surprise hidden assault rifle, a pyromaniac who plays with a lighter, and a personal penchant for topping fingers with a cigar cutter. Oh and if you didn't see the pattern, they're all sadists, because why would you do crime for the money?

Of course, a very dramatic explosion isn't enough to kill our hero(?), and he conveniently finds an abandoned factory which despite being an absolute shambles is quickly turned into version 2.0 of the apartment-based laboratory he had before. Mind you, the transformation of this cavernous and lonely space into a productive base for his counteroffensive is the second time the film goes directly on the nose for its Batman inspirations. The first being mere moments before when he finds the pictured huge black coat/cloak/cape (and fedora??) in a dumpster in the rain.

A brief aside here. 1990 predates a lot of the superhero films we know today, coming a couple of years before Tobey Maguire's spider-man trilogy, and fifteen years before batman begins showed the first signs of real hope for the ol' bats. Now while Sam Raimi may have needed Darkman to be given the opportunity on Spider-Man (though he had made The Evil Dead before), Danny Elfman making the music had (by release order at least) just come off 1989's Batman. While I can't assume Tim Burton's film influenced Sam Raimi in any way, Elfman's music is undoubtedly reminiscent, bringing (quite enjoyably) that atmosphere into a film with much less superhero heft.

Back to the plot now. So our hero(!?), the mummy, has managed to pick himself up out of the obituaries, build himself a batcave with no money or help, and sets about instructing his Jarvis prototype to reconstructing a 3D model of his face using "polygons" and other jargon of the era, so that it could be 3D printed into a perfect Mission Impossible 2 style mask. Do you start to see what I was saying about the pages being stuck together? Of course many of my pop culture references come after the fact but you can stretch your imagination to all of these tropes existing beforehand, even if not on the silver screen.

This conveniently brings me on to what I would actually say was the second major inspiration for this film, deliberate or not. And for the record I doubt anyone has read my ramblings this far but if I don't put these thoughts down I won't remember them tomorrow. The Invisible Man. H.G. Wells (War of the Worlds, The Time Machine) wrote a novel about a scientist who had irrerversibly become invisible. While the power of invisibility is often thought of as desirable, even fanciful, Wells writes the story from the perspective of a man suffering from desperate isolation, wrapped head to toe in bandages, afraid to speak to anyone in the self awareness of how he has become a freak. He devotes his waking hours to trying to cure his predicament and regain what he once had, but the story is not a superhero origin story, it's a horror, and the man slowly unravels into madness. My hope is that those that have seen Darkman will see the similarities with The Invisible Man are, somehow, even stronger than those (near constant) with Batman. And this, if anything, is what I would like to add to the discourse. Oh, and I didn't mention, but H.G. Wells' book was published in 1897 - there's reason he's called "the father of science fiction". I certainly didn't expect his influence to come up so closely a hundred years later.

That being said I think it's time to wind down this community comment that will never be considered a review (I admit, I haven't even attempted to show discipline or restraint!) I found Neeson's physical acting faultless, though his voice acting left something to be desired in my view - I was particularly bothered by the flailing waver or wobble that often came out in action scenes, stripping his hero (?!?) of any presence. I found the supporting cast commendable, with no significant complaints about the two villains or the love interest. The "high steel" climax was novel, though suspension (ha, suspension) of disbelief was needed in full force. On that note I won't hold them to account for the special effects, whether it be the overblown explosions typical of the era, or the now undeniably obvious false backgrounds (which in some cases could surely have had better practical solutions, but I suppose budget held them back). I will however flag the (unintentionally) almost comical highway chase scene with the helicopter, particularly the moment where he runs on the roof of a truck in first person, which very well could have had a looney tunes style running sound for comic effect. Our hero (!?!?) even tries to go all Schwarzenegger on us and use a quip to go with his kill, but unfortunately for us he can't decide between two and neither are good: "Kiss your ass goodbye! - Burn in hell!"

On that lovely note, a couple more passing thoughts. The use of masks to one-up the gang was a definite plus. The poster is fantastic. The surrealist special effects when he has a rage-out were not so good (giving me flash gordon vibes). The 'who framed roger rabbit' skin melting, not good. Our hero (?!?!?) being clearly a selfish, wrathful and psychotic villain; not good. He's definitely more Joker than Batman (I've give the edge to Nicholson's Joker on account of the vocal frivolities). Darkman literally perching on a rooftop next to gargoyles, not good. Jumping from the rafters, using the shadows to attack the thugs; come on man!

Oh, speaking of batman, I'll leave you with a bit of food for thought for superhero film fans: The very end of the film has a dialogue culiminating in a narrated one-liner which finally gives him his titular name, this scene from the moment I heard it was 100% giving me 'The Dark Knight' (2008) vibes. The more I contrast and compare them the more uncannily similar the final dialogue/narration to Darkman is to the iconic closing of The Dark Night. Were the Nolan brothers inspired by Darkman before creating their masterpiece, widely considered to be among the greatest films of all time, let alone the genre? Do we have Darkman to thank not only for Spider-Man's revival, but the entire modern superhero era? Who can say!! ...Well, I think we can all say, but benefit of the doubt I guess?

I watched this years ago when it was first released and I remember loving it…so I thought I'd give it a recent viewing to see how it stood up to the test of time. Overall, I still think it's a great "fun" movie: it's too cheesy to be a "superhero" movie, but too dark to be a comedy. It falls somewhere into that great chasm in-between the two but in spite of that, comes across as a fun story. Being a fan of the Liam Neeson since his "rebirth" with the Taken series, I was completely stunned to see his name as the lead in this but he pulled it off beautifully. As others have mentioned, the musical score was also beautifully done, the lighting was superb throughout (especially for a movie that is centered around the dark) and the supporting cast were all outstanding. Sure, there were plenty of cheesy moments, and holes big enough to drive a truck through, but let's face it: this is a movie that's 32 years old...and it's still very watchable. The lack of CGI was woefully apparent here; at times the backdrops were actually laughable and some of the effects were too, but again, as a 30+-year old movie, this was great. In some ways, I wonder what a reboot of this one would be like, but I'm afraid it would lose some of its cheesy charm. Watch this with the understanding that it's quite dated by today's standards, but I think you can still have a good time with it.

The concept of this movie is incredible, so incredible that you imagine it’s derived from a comic like every other superhero or anti-hero out there, and it’s not. This all came out from that magical mind of Sam Raimi, and you can feel Raimi’s presence. If you’ve ever seen his Spider-Man movies or the Tim Burton Batman films, you’ve got a good sense of what you’re watching. Danny Elfman scores this movie in a similar tone to Batman, which was a good choice, given how absolutely dark this movie is – and a lot of the physical elements and things that happen are borrowed years later when Raimi does Spider-Man, including swinging on a wire through a city and through steal beams, but the rest is super original, and such a great idea.

It’s such a great concept and premise that I’m actually shocked that there hasn’t been any remakes yet. There is a trilogy of the film, but it stars different people in the movies. When it comes to Liam’s role, that makes sense, but anyone else but Neeson as even just the voice isn’t worth it. He does a brilliant job as Peyton. That being said, the film does suffer when it comes to visuals, it’s 1990, and the graphics just don’t work anymore. You understand what they are getting at, but there’s a lot of badly designed things happening in the background – even with just a backdrop…they could use the benefits of modern technology. Also, the writing is sometimes cheesy, but that’s also Sam Raimi, so what do I know?

Darkman was one of the best superhero movies of its time, had a smart concept, a really great make-up team, and great sense of darkness when it comes to tone and feel – which other than Batman was completely unheard of for heroes back then. It could use some help with visuals and maybe writing, but overall, this is a fun movie that shouldn’t be missed. Check it out!