The Phantom Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

The Phantom Blu-ray Movie Review

The Phantom lives. . .or does he?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 31, 2010

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That oft-quoted adage might be the mantra for the telefilm gurus at Syfy (which I am tempted to keep calling Sci-Fi, if only because I find Syfy perhaps the stupidest “new, improved” name in the history of marketing). With a somewhat spotty track record, which includes marginally successful attempts like Tin Man, and a lot of other middling crap (technical term) like Alice and the recent Riverworld, Syfy has yet to really hit a miniseries completely out of the ballpark. It is not for lack of relatively large budgets (at least in the confines of the cable television universe), some decent to very impressive actors, and better than average special effects (again in the confines of the cable television universe). While Syfy’s reinvention of The Phantom may not be the grand slam its makers may have been hoping for, or even in fact the slam dunk selling point for a potential new Phantom television series, the miniseries does do a creditable job in modernizing the circa 1930s hero, as well as crafting an enjoyable, if at times patently silly, story that downplays some of the mythic elements of comic strip creator Lee Falk’s original conception, while confirming your worst suspicions about how evil your local cable company really is.

Ryan Carnes portrays Chris Moore AKA Kit Walker AKA The Phantom.

While the public at large probably defaults to either Superman or Batman when they hear the word “superhero,” the fact is Falk’s The Phantom predates both of those caped crimefighters by several years. It might make an interesting sociological study to explore why exactly the superhero genre took off so wildly in the 1930s. Was it due to the emotional hangover caused by the Depression? Or was it somehow the collective subconcious’ attempt to provide us an antidote to the festering political turmoil which would soon engulf the globe in World War II? The Phantom first appeared in 1936, a heady mix of myth, history and costumed crimefighting which immediately caught the public’s fancy. The strip was serialized for Saturday afternoon moviegoers in 1943, and then had a glancing blow with television in the early 1960s, when a pilot was filmed for a potential series which never saw the light of day. (Interestingly, of course, Superman with George Reeves had just ended due to its star’s suicide, and the Adam West campfest version of Batman was still a couple of years in the offing). In 1996, a much lamented film adaptation with Billy Zane hit the screens, which placed the character firmly in his 1930s origins. I personally found that film a lot of fun, but I was definitely in the minority.

Syfy’s approach is to basically move the story ahead a generation. For those new to the Phantom’s universe, the character is a more or less hereditary “position” taken by succeeding males in the Walker line, a lineage of men which traces their founding back to the sole survivor of a pirate raid in the 16th century. Because each of the subsequent Walkers wears the same uniform and utilizes the same methodology, a legend has grown up around The Phantom that he is actually one immortal being, “the ghost who walks,” incapable of being killed. That doesn’t stop the Singh Brotherhood, an assemblage of thugs and gangsters, from trying. In this iteration of the story, the youngest Walker, Kit (Ryan Carnes), has actually been adopted early in childhood, after his father, the previous Phantom, has died of cancer and his mother has been killed by the Singhs. Raised under the name of Chris Moore by a blue collar couple in New York City, Kit has no idea of his “real” identity until he is mysteriously kidnapped and informed of his ghostly inheritance by Abel Vandermaark (Jean Marchand), a longtime ally of Kit’s biological father, and the man who wants to reintroduce the young man to his “true calling.” Soon Kit finds himself in the center of a Singh plot to brainwash assassins to kill a man who can potentially bring about peace in the Middle East.

Director Paolo Barzman and scenarist father-son team Daniel and Charles Knauf have taken the basic Phantom mythos and neatly updated it to the 21st century. This Kit is a “Parkour traceur,” an expert in freerunning (made famous in the great opening segment of the Daniel Craig Casino Royale), who is also a law student at Columbia. Once he agrees to at least consider assuming the mantle of the Phantom, he is whisked away to the tropical island of Bengalla, the paradise where his long ago ancestor had washed up after the pirate attack. There he’s surrounded both by the high tech wizardry of the Phantom’s supersecret team, but also, rather oddly, the primitive tribespeople and frankly ridiculous looking Skull Cave which houses his private lair. (The exterior of the cave is one of very few set design misfires in this otherwise quite striking and handsome production).

Carnes makes for a very appealing and charismatic lead, affable in his “everyman” guise, and not overly portentous as The Phantom. Isabella Rossellini is bizarre but also quite amusing as the evil scientist behind the brainwashing plot. Sandrine Holt portrays Guran, the exotic island girl who becomes The Phantom’s right hand aide. The best supporting work comes from Cas Anvar as the despicable Rhatib Singh, the leader of the bad guys. Both menacing and disturbingly funny in an “I can’t believe he just did that” sort of way, Anvar tears up the screen with his depiction of this over the top character. The Singh board meeting where Rhatib deals with an unexpected “motion” from one of his Board Members (with an unexpected motion of his own), is both horrifying and laugh out loud funny, especially with director Barzman’s expert staging, which repeatedly cuts back to the poor schlub who dared to confront Rhatib to begin with.

The Phantom does have its shares of problems. For an “origins” movie, it spends an awful lot of time, especially in the first half, with extraneous, albeit enjoyable, sidebars. Although there are a couple of very exciting Parkour segments in this first half, there’s little to any of The Phantom himself. That same qualm also beleaguers the second half, where Kit is forced to go “undercover” to expose the brainwashing plot. The second half of the miniseries also devolves into some patently ridiculous scenes, with an over the top climax that borders on Adam West Batman campiness.

All in all, though, this is far and away one of the best miniseries to come out of Syfy. With an exceptionally handsome production, including some very nice looking cinematography (including some cool filtered shots of various metropolises, which make them glow with oddly vivid colors), and a very affable lead performance by Carnes, The Phantom may not ultimately have the mass market cachet of Superman or Batman, but this “ghost who walks” may definitely have, to use some showbiz parlance, legs.

The Phantom Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Phantom wafts onto Blu-ray with a surprisingly strong and sharp looking VC-1 encoded transfer, in full 1080p and an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. The first thing which jumps out in this miniseries is the really nicely filtered shots of several cityscapes, which give the glittering lights and dappled water an eerie, otherworldly glow, full of bright and sometimes just slightly bizarre colors. Detail is excellent sharp throughout this feature, to the point where it's actually a detriment a time or two, especially with regard to the miniature utilized for the outside of the Skull Cave set, which just looks like it wandered in from a second grader's plaster of Paris experiment. The miniature jet utilized in a couple of sequences also doesn't stand up to the high resolution of the Blu-ray. Otherwise, though, detail is sharp and clear, and colors are beautifully saturated, with a nicely variegated palette. Everything from the cool blues of the evil "cable company" to the yellowish tint of The Phantom's island hideaway are delivered with superb results. A couple of very minor aliasing issues popped up with some fine patterns in a couple of costumes, but they were extremely minimal.

The Phantom Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While The Phantom's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is generally pleasant, with a couple of really excellent uses of immersion in some of the Parkour segments, overall it suffers from the front heavy mix that seems to plague so much television. While dialogue is crisp, and the source music cues are well mixed, I couldn't help but hope for a little more variety in the soundfield. There is some attention paid to detail in the action sequences, where some of the foley effects are clearly directional. The running and jumping sounds in the freerunning sequences are probably the best example of this, but even relatively more subtle moments, as when Singh swings a golf club at one of his underperforming henchmen, pan nicely. Overall, this is an acceptable mix with excellent fidelity, which features a few standout sequences, but it could have been considerably more immersive.

The Phantom Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Two brief Interviews, one with Carnes (HD; 11:03) and one with Barzman (HD; 6:01) are OK, if not especially insightful. The television Trailer is also included.

The Phantom Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Saying The Phantom is one of the best Syfy miniseries yet may be damning with faint praise, but the fact is this is by and large a very enjoyable outing, with a smart updating of the franchise that still manages to stay mostly true to Falk's original conception. A series may not be in the offing, but even as a standalone The Phantom is fun, if sometimes silly. Recommended.