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Swamp ThingRating:
Release Date: 17 July, 2001 Retail Price: $14.95 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (8 total) |
Swamp Thing Reviews
Swampy fun for everyone!
To see the comic books we've grown up with come to life on the silver screen - or even just the small screen - is a real thrill. Of course back when this film came out, most comic film treatments were less than thrilling or very successful. Audiences today are pretty spoiled by not only the box office success of comic book films, but the serious big budget treatments the studio gives them. Reading the Swamp Thing comic regularly certainly set me up for the film. So through the interpretation of director Wes Craven, most notable for later directing A Nightmare On Elm Street and the Scream movies, my boyhood hero came to life and I was eager to see the final product.
This is a really fun film. There's a definite sense of the origins of the material and Wes Craven paints a broad, larger than life picture, and while there's a definite camp factor afoot, it never becomes saturated in silliness or insults the audience's intelligence. Dick Durock's expressive eyes skillfully provide the emotional depth and tenderness the Swamp Thing exudes and Adriene Barbeau plays both sassy and sexy smoothly.
Many films based on comic books should only be visited by dedicated fans or at least those familiar with the characters. I don't think Swamp Thing falls into that category. It is a film that never takes itself too seriously, but never indulges in out and out camp. Wes Craven has crafted a weirdly funny, but a highly emotional adventure for anyone who enjoys a good thrill ride.
Born in the bayou...
I haven't read comics for a while, but when I did, there was basically two versions of the DC Comics character Swamp Thing...the original, created by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson, and then the follow up version created by Alan Moore. This film, titled Swamp Thing (1982), is based on the original (Moore's realization of the character came about around 1983). Written and directed by Wes Craven (The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare On Elm Street), the film stars Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog, Escape from New York, Creepshow) and her twins, along with Louis Jourdan, who many will probably recognize as the main bad guy from the 1983 James Bond feature Octopussy. Also appearing is Ray Wise (RoboCop, "Twin Peaks"), David `Krug' Hess (The Last House on the Left), Nicholas Worth (Darkman, Barb Wire), and Dick Durock (Any Which Way You Can, Raw Deal) as Swamp Thing, a role he'd reprise in the 1989 sequel, The Return of Swamp Thing.
Barbeau plays Alice Cable, a gooberment agent recently assigned to a top-secret project headed up by scientific boy wonder Doctor Alec Holland (Wise), located in the middle of some swamp. Seems Holland is trying to combing the genetic material from both plants and animals in order to create a formula, one that would give plants the survival instincts of animals, the idea being to create hardy crops that could grow in unlikely places and provide food for those who need it...a noble aspiration, for sure...anyway, it turns out a pontificating criminal mastermind named Arcane (Jourdan) is also interested in Holland's formula for personal reasons, as he sees it as a key to immortality and great power. In an effort to obtain the formula, which looks likes the same, green, glowing juice used by Dr. West in the film Re-Animator (1985), Arcane hires a group of idiot mercenaries to raid the remote facility, kill everyone, and steal all of Holland's notes. In the process, Holland is doused in the juice, runs off into the swamp and is presumed dead, while Alice manages to escape the massacre. Arcane's men recover most of the research materials, but need the last notebook, one that Alice has run off with...realizing Alice is still alive, Arcane's men begin hunting her, but a protector shows up from out of the swamp in the form of the Jolly Green Giant (if you haven't guessed it, it's Alex reborn). There are a lot of swamp antics, but eventually Arcane and his men capture both the creature and Alice, recovering that which he needs to reproduce the magical juice he so desperately desires. After testing the formula out, there are some unexpected results, all of which leads up to a clash of the titans (of sorts) as Swamp Thing battles a menacing evil that threatens to destroy all...
I feel I must warn anyone interested in seeing this film that there's only really about a half hour worth of story here, as the rest of the time is made up of Alice running around the swamp, continually getting caught by Arcane's men, only to be rescued by the Swamp Thing. I'm not sure which there were more shots of during the first hour of the feature, birds flying away, or Swamp Thing throwing mercenaries into the water...Bruno (Worth), the overweight lackey, must have gotten tossed in at least six times. About an hour in the story kicks in again, once Arcane gets his hands on the formula, along with Swamp Thing and Alice (I'd like to get my hands on her, too), and begins testing it on various individuals. I originally saw this back when I was a kid, and, at the time, I thought it was pretty entertaining, but it doesn't seem to have held up as well as the first time I saw the film. I still enjoyed it, but I wished Craven had incorporated more of an actual story rather than spending so much time padding the running time out with extraneous chase sequences in the swamp. I will say this, he did seem to have a certain amount of respect for the source material, despite various differences from the characters in the movie to those in the comic book (he even include some goofy comic book transitions between scenes). Barbeau and her cleavage were certainly captivating, but I was annoyed that with as much time as she spent flopping around in the cold, cold water, there weren't more visible wet t-shirt nubby protuberance shots...oh yeah, and her acting wasn't bad, either. I thought Jourdan was a good choice for Arcane, as he exuded a certain amount of evil charm one would expect from an egomaniac bent on world domination. His plans for the formula seemed to be all over the place, ranging from controlling the world's food supply to making himself immortal, so maybe a project plan of sorts would have been in order, especially given the lengths he went to in obtaining said formula. I was a little surprised given his obvious means that he chose to surround himself with a relatively inept bunch of camouflaged yahoos, but, like they say, good help is hard to find (the leader of this group of grabastic, quasi military types was known as Ferret, a sadistic little monkey with a bad perm). Perhaps the most memorable sequence in the film features Arcane testing out the formula on an unwitting subject (one of his more moronic mercs), creating some bizarre and unexpected results (along with a fit of uncontrollable drooling). He essentially turned a overweight doofus into a balding, miniature pig man (smooth move, Ex-Lax)...surprisingly, the man's clothes changed too (that's some formula), which was probably for the best as we didn't have to watch a nekkid, balding, miniature pig man running around on screen. The Swamp Thing costume looked decent from a distance, but close up shots revealed wrinkles and creases in the rubber suit (at one point, I could have sworn he had the dreaded camel toe). As for Ms. Barbeau's swamp bathing topless sequence, it is not included on this 2005 DVD release, as some have mentioned. It was, however, included on the initial DVD release, back in 2000, as a deleted sequence, I think, although some reviews seem to indicate the scene was actually included in the movie (what's in this latter release is a quick, almost artsy (notice the placement of the flower), side shot of Barbeau and one of her wonder twins)...regardless, if you want that earlier release, you'll probably have to shell out some bucks, or else just Google the scene on the internet for some screen shots (they're out there, I checked). All in all this is a fun, silly feature that should entertain if your expectations aren't too high, and worthy of 3 ? stars.
The picture, presented in both anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and fullscreen (1.33:1) aspect ratios, looks clean and sharp, while the Dolby Digital mono audio comes across a little soft. As far as extras, there are English, Spanish, and French subtitles and an original theatrical trailer. This film was followed up by a fairly lame sequel titled The Return of the Swamp Thing (1989), which featured Heather Locklear, which is also available on DVD.
Cookieman108
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