The Ghost Who Parkours—Syfy’s The Phantom

Copyright © 2010 by Sarah Stegall
The Phantom
Syfy, 9:00PM Sunday
Written by Daniel Knauf & Charles H. Knauf
Directed by Paolo Barzman
“I thought it would be kind of cheesy but once you do it live, it’s kinda cool.” —Kit Walker
Syfy Channel’s latest translation of a comic book hero to the small screen comes as a four-hour epic, obviously designed as a test of the waters to see whether viewer reaction justifies a series. As such, it has some of the good points of a pilot—good character delineation, lavish production values, good directing—and some of the bad points—uneven pacing, a plot which plays second fiddle to the job of establishing who’s who, and hanging threads in the story which are left to tie later episodes to. Overall, however, it was quite a bit better than I expected. So many “reboots” of a well established franchise either hew too closely to the original, or depart too far from it, displeasing everyone. The Phantom manages to walk a middle ground.
Of all the comic book heroes invented in the 1930s, that decade that followed the other great recession in modern American life, the Phantom was one of the first to have no super-powers. He was the descendant of 20 previous Phantoms who passed the mask from father to son; everyone thinks the Phantom cannot die. Like the Batman (who came along three years later), he was just a guy who liked to dress in tights and fight crime. His weapons were his fists and two .45s with his skull emblem. He didn’t even wear Kevlar. I doubt if anyone would have even considered bringing him to the screen, if it had not been for the success of the Batman in movies and television.
As comic books and their heroes age, the question becomes acute: update, or not? When Paramount brought out the 1996 live-action version of the comic book The Phantom, it left Kit Walker (Billy Zane, Bloodrayne) and Diana Palmer (Kristy Swanson, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) in the 1930s. The result was a lovely bit of nostalgia enhanced by some top-notch production design, a great example of pulp fiction come to life. The Phantom could not fly, or melt things, or throw buildings around. He was just a great rider and shooter, a guy with muscle and brain and a snazzy purple suit. He could toss off jaunty one-liners as he swung into the saddle or climbed into the cockpit of a single-engine plane. He was equally at home in Skull Cave and a Manhattan cocktail party. In short, he had style.
Syfy’s new Phantom does not. However, he does have smarts, street-savvy, and a certain reserved cool which might, in the long run, serve him well. Ryan Carnes (Trailer Park of Terror) brings a youthful zest to Phantom number 22, presumably a descendant of the Kit Walker and Diana Palmer played by Zane and Swanson in 1996. In fact, we see him first in a parkour race across Manhattan, leaping from rooftop to car to construction crane with lithe and carefree ease. So thoroughly convincing is this evocation of the character that when he is forced to flee for his life a little later, his parkour getaway seems to make perfect sense. It doesn’t, but that’s the beauty of good writing and directing—you don’t question these things until much later.
“It’s a family thing.” —Kit
We begin our origins story with the classics: death of his parents, upbringing in the bosom of a loving foster family who tell him nothing, not even that he is adopted. “Chris Moore” is a law student finishing his final year, until a minor injury in his parkour race brings him to the attention not only of lovely medic Renny Davidson (Cameron Goodman, Sons of Anarchy) but the sinister Singh Brotherhood. The foster parents are murdered and Chris himself flees via rooftop as mentioned. He meets the keeper of his unknown heritage, Abel Vandermaark (Jean Marchand, Mars et Avril), who persuades him to drop out of sight and take up the mantle of the Phantom. We then segue to the usual bit where the young hero is revealed as a long-lost heir to, in this case, a huge secret crimefighting organization. If this story sounds familiar, it is hardly surprising. Before he invented The Phantom, creator Lee Falk tried to launch a comic strip based on the life of King Arthur; he was well aware of the semi-mythic elements of what Joseph Campbell later categorized as the hero’s journey.
But at this point, when Chris/Kit is introduced to his family’s support group, we take the greatest departure from the old Phantom comics. The Phantom was always a bit of a loner. He had his Skull Island, his Skull Cave, his jungle natives to guard his privacy. Most of all, he had the legend of the “Ghost Who Walks”, the idea of an immortal crusader, to inspire fear in his enemies. This production does not abandon any of those crucial elements, but adds to them in ways that sometimes diminish them. The most important of these is what I was referring to as PhantomCorp after the first hour of the show.
Abel Vandermaark is not just a recluse holding on to the past. He is CEO of a huge organization that is plainly modeled along the lines of a modern capitalist corporation. There is a research and development division, an arms division, field operations, and an extensive medical facility. Clearly there is wealth and power behind the Phantom. Like any ancient monarchy, it exists solely to support its prince, the Phantom, but it is organized more like General Motors than a royal court. Vandermaark takes charge of Chris, renaming him Kit Walker and enrolling him in a course of physical fitness, education, and martial arts training, all designed to make him a good Phantom. He is trained in the organization’s history and expectations; he is offered the suit and mask of his fathers—but told he must earn them. Kit goes along with this for a bit, but it is increasingly apparent to him and to us that what supports the Phantom is going to destroy him, by turning him into a mere employee of a multinational corporation.
The other organization that is out to get Kit is the notorious Singh Brotherhood. This is one element I wish the producers had changed. I think we have moved past the unconscious racism of the late 1930s, where the mere mention of a South Asian name like Singh was enough to conjure dark prejudices in the minds of Falk’s audience. Rhatib Singh (Cas Anvar, Lost), the nominal head of this criminal organization, swaggers with all the comic arrogance of an early talkies villain. He bullies his Board of Directors, beheads subordinates, and sneers when taunting Kit. If he’d had a mustache, he’d have twirled it. He should have been delicious, but the racist overtones of his casting and his role made me squirm. Nor was I made any happier when Singh was, at the end of the movie, replaced by a Caucasian. It’s still the Singh Brotherhood, regardless of who the head is, and it still sounds like racism incarnate.
Ground between two huge organizations that are focused on him, Kit asserts himself in a very mature and honest manner. Kit is a hero—a real, modern hero—not because he rides, shoots, fights, or jumps from rooftop to rooftop, but because he refuses, ultimately, to be a cog in any of these machines. Singh sees him as a minor pawn in a larger game and does not take him seriously. Vandermaark views him as a mere asset to PhantomCorp; Kit is having none of that. He rebels at the sterile role Vandermaark insists on, breaks free of Vandermaark’s nannying, and reaches for his own destiny. Ryan Carnes gives us a first-class character arc, from the breezy, devil-may-care man-boy of the opening, to the wise, quiet, and sober man of the final scene. He sketches a realistic and believable development. I can believe in this quiet, smart, dedicated young hero, who retains his boyish charm even as he matures into the crimefighter.
Jean Marchand balanced fatherly and sinister aspects expertly, giving us an off-balance feeling every time Vandermaark appeared. The rest of the cast were little more than walk-ons, especially Cameron Goodman and the actor playing her detective father. Isabella Rossellini’s cool and beautiful presence lends gravitas to a character which is otherwise flat and clichéd. Sandrine Holt plays a female version of Guran, the Phantom’s right hand, in a low-key but important role that clearly is intended for further development. Frankly, I liked her much better than Renny, but then Renny didn’t have a lot to do other than moon over Kit.
Pacing was uneven at times; the first hour dragged considerably as we were painstakingly introduced to Kit’s life and family, only to have them utterly disappear as soon as the story really gets underway. However, the last half of this four-hour epic felt like “Extreme Sports meets Batman”, right down to the dark suit, the snappy car chases, the explosions, and the acrobatics. Every stunt man in Canada must have gotten a piece of this show.
The plot is hardly worth rehashing—it was never intended to be the main focus of the epic. This is all about Kit and how he becomes a hero. How he does it is not very relevant. There are some major gaffes, but they mainly derive from the kind of illogical bits that a writer can get away with in a comic book, or even in a storyboard in a writer’s room, but never onscreen, such as Kit pulling a white-hot metal ring out of a fire, unharmed. I continue to be amused at the naïveté of TV characters, who conduct long and incriminating conversations over unsecured cell phones. And if Kit is really a good guy, why isn’t he donating all this high-tech wizardry to the greater world community? Questions like these should be cleaned up before this backdoor pilot evolves into a series.
“No. I’m not wearing that.” —Kit
And one other mistake has to be rectified: the suit. My God, the suit. The original Phantom was the first comic hero to wear a skin-tight suit. Billy Zane worked for months to build up the muscle to fill out his purple tights. Ryan Carnes may be three inches shorter and considerably lighter than Billy Zane, but even a medium sized hero can look athletic and wiry in the right suit. But the armored monstrosity that the costume designer imposed on this Phantom is a nightmare. For one thing, it’s not even purple. It’s so patently not purple that lines had to be inserted into the script for characters to let us know that it was supposed to be purple. For another thing, like the Batman, the Phantom relies on his wits and his physique, not a lot of high-tech 007 gadgets. The scene where the director of PhantomCorp R&D plays Q to Kit’s James Bond was absolutely squirm-worthy. The suit itself was so ugly that it was covered with a trench coat for most of the time Carnes was wearing it. If Syfy picks up this show for a series, it has got to rework the suit.
“You have, without a doubt, exceeded every expectation I had of you.” —Vandermaark
The Phantom did indeed exceed all my expectations, which were admittedly very low. Critical response has been mixed; as one would expect, the die-hard purists reject any deviation from the 80-year-old originals, and the less committed are pleasantly surprised. Not being as invested in The Phantom comics as some, I found this take on the venerable crimefighter to be refreshing and original, if sometimes flawed. If Syfy turns this movie into a series, I’ll watch the first few episodes very happily.