In honor of the upcoming Gerard (Yum) Butler film, The Phantom of the Opera, I thought it might be sort of amusing to do an article on films with the word Phantom in the title. Until I realized that my choices were very limited, and included The Phantom Planet (which I think MST3K already covered, so how could I even think about attempting to tackle that one?) Phantom of the Megaplex (a Disney Channel original movie), Phantom of the Paradise (where Gerrit Graham plays a guy named "Beef"... nuff said), The Phantom Menace (which would be fine if I could actually get through a Star Wars film without falling asleep; I haven't tried this particular episode yet but I've heard it sucks anyway) and, of course, The Phantom Tollbooth, which I've already reviewed. So I bagged that idea and decided to simply review The Phantom, a 1996 film starring Billy Zane (before he was a first-class jerk in Titanic but after he played a thug in Back to the Future), Catherine Zeta-Jones (before anybody knew who the hell she was), Kristy Swanson (post-Buffy), Treat Williams (post-1941, pre-Everwood), Casey Siemaszko (another Back to the Future alum), and Jon Tenney (who's the reason I saw this movie in the first place). So here it is. The film was released on June 7, 1996, and bombed, despite the fact that Billy Zane was hot and despite the fact that the film tried very hard to be an Indiana Jones movie. You would think audiences would take to that, but apparently not. This second thing may or may not have had something to do with the fact that the guy who wrote The Phantom also wrote friggin' Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the best film of the abovementioned trilogy. I mean, with this guy (Jeffrey Boam) penning the script, how can you go wrong? HOW!? (If you think I've got an answer to this question, I don't. Sorry.) Actually, I really like The Phantom. I just can't help chuckling at its cheesiness and its Indiana Jones wannabe-ness. Or maybe it wasn't just trying to copy (or, in this guy's case, recycle). Maybe it was all an homage... Hello, straws, I grasp at you. Okay, so the film begins with a voiceover yapping all about how the first Phantom came to be. This little boy gets shipwrecked on an island that's inhabited by a tribe of what appear to be cannibals... but instead of being boiled in a big pot, he's taken in and sheltered and revered and all that fun stuff. Many moons later, he's da-dum THE PHANTOM. Like, yeah... weird backstory, there. Cut to Billy Zane in purple spandex, looking far too adorable. He's The Phantom. He wears a belt with a skull and he protects skulls and he protects the jungle in which he lives. But alas, some bad guys have come to the jungle to nab themselves a skull, bringing along with them... Short Round the Sequel. (Come on, he's a little boy and he drives a vehicle. That's what Short Round does in Temple of Doom!) Okay, so... vague connection, right? WRONG! Because what is this little boy driving across? A suspension bridge, that's what. And will this suspension bridge break, and send our hero, Billy Zane, swinging down it in a heroicy way? YES! But not yet. First, the bad guys try to get the skull, which is in a cave, but the cave is cleverly rigged with booby traps. Not the kind where you have to remember to be penitent or to remember that in the Latin alphabet, Jehovah begins with an I, but rather the kind you might see in Raiders of the Lost Ark (ie: "Hey, sure, take this artifact, fine... BUT YOU WILL TOTALLY DIE!!!!") Despite Billy's best efforts, the jerks get away with the skull, and then we have the suspension bridge suspenseful moment (sorry about the pun) and then Billy swings down with Short Round. At this point in the review, I'm going to confuse everyone by starting to call Billy by his character's name in the film, which is Kit. Okay? Great. Kit is talking to his father. Which seems all warm and fuzzylicious until we realize that his father has croaked a long time ago and Kit is evidently insane. Not only is he insane, but he is very sad. But why is Kit sad, you ask? Because the bad guys got the skull, duh, and if the bad guys collect two more similar skulls they will be ultimately powerful. So... what's next? Um... did I mention this movie is long and intricately plotted? If not, allow me to now RAPIDLY SPEED THROUGH THE REST OF THE MOVIE... Diana Palmer, Kit's long-lost love, comes to the jungle to investigate an ancient symbol. She runs into some trouble, however, when she is kidnapped. After an elaborate chase scene involving planes, horses, and tribal guys with ropes, the Phantom manages to bring Diana to safety. All the while, Diana lusts for the Phantom. Which is all fine and good because he lusts for her, too. Now it is probably important to mention that there is this whole plot thing going on with Diana's uncle (the owner of a newspaper), a tyrant-wannabe (Xander Drax)... Treat Williams IS Xander Drax! ...and an evil clan known as the Sengh Brotherhood. It's REALLY complicated. I've watched the movie like 40 times and I still don't get it. So let's just cover the most important points: 1. The Phantom/Kit wants the skulls 2. Xander Drax & his cronies (including Catherine Zeta-Jones, who lusts after both The Phantom and Diana's boots) want the skulls (they're the ones who nabbed the one from the cave early on in the movie) 3. The members of the Sengh Brotherhood want the skulls The obvious problem here is that EVERYONE wants the skulls... and they don't just want one, oh no, they want them all. Within the next half hour, Kit goes to New York City (or, you know, the Universal Backlot) and meets up with Diana and tells her that he, too, is looking for the skulls and she's like hmmm okay so they get a tip about where to find a nice perty jade one. They go to this museum and SURPRISE, Xander Drax is there and he's all GIMME and he takes the skulls (he has two now, are you keeping track?) and puts them together and VOILA the two magically point the way to the third skull, which is hanging out on this tiny island in the middle of nowhere. So. They all go to the island. And there are pirates. And fighting. And the Phantom avenges his father's death. And everyone almost dies. But the Phantom lives cuz he's the Phantom omg yeah. And in the end, they all live happily ever after, but not before The Phantom uses his awesome SKULL RING... ... to totally defeat and disintegrate Xander Drax. Oh, and Diana figures out Kit = the Phantom, proving she's either way sharper than Lois Lane... or The Phantom's disguise just isn't that great. But it's purple. Very purple. And so, thus ends The Phantom. Yeah, I know I breezed over most of it. What do you want, a transcript? Go rent it! "Oh, Buffy!" "Oh, Match!" It's love! Leave a message in the guestbook to comment on this article. :) (c)2004 AlligatorJuice.com.