Movies Seen Recently: The Whisperer in Darkness, Thor: Ragnarok, Enter the Ninja

The Whisperer in Darkness (2011) – The same people who made Lovecraft’s 1928 short story “The Call of Cthulhu” into a 2005 movie in the style of a contemporaneous silent film weren’t quite so faithful when adapting Lovecraft’s 1930 story “The Whisperer in Darkness” into a Universal Pictures-style “talkie” monster movie.  There’s a lot more obvious CG instead of the stop-motion that comprised the climax of the earlier movie, and a lot more modern cinematography and editing in evidence.  But hey, it’s in black-and -white, so it’s period, right?

“Whisperer” has always topped my list of “Lovecraft Stories With Incredibly Clueless Protagonists,” so the way the first part of the story was telescoped helped make poor Albert Wilmarth (Matt Foyer, also star of The Call of Cthulhu) not so dense.  On the other hand, Lovecraft’s stories typically ended with the protagonist’s comprehension of the situation, not so much with the resolution of the problem, so Lovecraft’s original ending becomes the end of the second act here, with the action in the climax being a lot shakier, in terms of both its “Lovecraftian” story sensibilities and its ability to realize what they wanted to on screen with the budget they had.

Still, a solid effort to be faithful to the original while also making a watchable movie. It’s a pity they didn’t just keep the Mi-Go in the shadows, where they were most effective.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017) – After a pretty okay Thor movie and a mediocre Thor movie, I’m glad that they actually made a decently good Thor movie.  I especially liked that the Hulk was upgraded from uncontrollable violence machine to sentient-if-slow being.

Of course, because I enjoyed it more, I was paying attention more, and I ended up with more questions and inconsistencies, like:

• Why is the fact that time is unpredictable on Sakaar mentioned once, and then it never impacts on the plot again?
• There are “common” people in Asgard? Why?  Actually, there seem to be maybe 200 of them, tops; is this supposed to be a functioning society?
• For that matter, why is this itty-bitty society so racially heterogeneous?

Actually, what bothers me more in retrospect is the way that Loki is being rehabilitated. After the events of The Avengers, he should be treated as the equivalent of Osama bin Laden, and yet here he just comes across as a roguish trickster whose heart is really in the right place when we get down to it.  After all, what are a few thousand dead New Yorkers and attempted world conquest?

Enter the Ninja (1981) – Franco Nero plays the world’s least believable Caucasian ninja. Seriously, the man moves like a clumsy brawler when it’s not his stunt double wearing a white ninja suit — especially when his opponent is Sho Kosugi, absolutely the best movie ninja ever.  In fact, Enter the Ninja‘s big claim to fame is that it introduced Kosugi to the world; the pseudo-sequels to this movie, Revenge of the Ninja (1983) and Ninja III: The Domination (1984), are related only in that they were made by the same people and starred Kosugi, now as the protagonist.

Enter the Ninja‘s other claim to fame is that it was the movie Menahem Golan directed right after allegorical disco fable The Apple (1980) bombed so badly; he and his partner and cousin Yoram Globus changed their business model to action flicks, and through the ’80s their company The Cannon Group gave us many punches, kicks, machine guns and explosions — it’s fair to say that Chuck Norris wouldn’t be a star if it weren’t for Golan and Globus.

This movie is also a necessary corrective for anyone complaining that Michael “American Ninja” Dudikoff wasn’t a martial artist — maybe not, but he was a dancer, so at least he moved with grace and precision, unlike Nero.