As promised, this new Saturday feature will be “nicely mortifying.” The title of the feature should make it clear enough. I will dig into my big bin of old reviews and share something here every week, no matter how painful it may be to retype it without making any fresh edits. I’ll even try to refrain from too much second-guessing or grousing about syntax errors in the freshly-penned annotations that will serve as introductions. Anything that has not previously shown up in this little corner of the internet is fair game, so even items from my former online home may be included in the retrospective array. For the inaugural installment, it makes sense to go back to the very beginning.

It is has now been almost twenty-five years since I first took on the task of writing movie reviews for wider distribution. The Reel Thing made its debut on the WWSP-FM airwaves in 1990, just as fall was getting underway, all the better to kick of the series with a recap of the top ten movies at the summer box office. I and my esteemed co-host offered up weekly film reviews in a format familiar to anyone who’d watched Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel squabble on their balcony set. The show also included a fairly substantial film news segment and interviews (the first to air was with Chris Lee, manager of the Spike’s Joint, a Brooklyn shop devoted to memorabilia associated with his brother’s films). For the first proper episode of The Reel Thing, we reviewed The Lemon Sisters, After Dark, My Sweet, and Mo’ Better Blues. Besides those, the episode kicked off with a review of Sam Raimi’s Darkman, making what follows the first true film review I ever wrote.

DARKMAN tells the story of Dr. Peyton Westlake, played by Liam Neeson. Westlake is a scientist who is working on an incredibly realistic synthetic skin that would revolutionize the world of reconstructive surgery. There’s only one problem with his creation: after 99 minutes, the fake skin dissolves into a useless puddle of goo. Doc Westlake is on the verge of a major breakthrough when his lab is broken into by a group of thugs seeking a document that would implicate their employer, Mr. Strack (played by Colin Friels) in some pretty nasty business. And seeing as how that document was lifted by Westlake’s girlfriend Julie (played by Frances McDormand of Mississippi Burning) they correctly assume they will find the memo in the good doctor’s lab. During the break-in the lab is destroyed and Doc Westlake is put through a merciless attack which includes his head being dunked into a conveniently placed jumbo vat of acid. He miraculously survives the ordeal but finds himself horribly disfigured, unable to return to his stable life as a scientist or return to his love life with Julie. This all leaves him quite understandably in a state where staying centered is not the easiest thing to do. So, he does what any not so rationally minded person would do in that situation: he seeks revenge on the men who destroyed his life, including Strack. So he dons an overcoat and a battered old hat and takes to the streets and rooftops as a wild combination of the Phantom of the Opera, Batman, and especially the Shadow. Director Sam Raimi of Evil Dead fame has brought enough style and action to his first major release to keep this movie clipping along at a wonderfully exciting breakneck pace. Sure, the film has its share of plotholes and the script stumbles at times, but the film is so visually invigorating that it really doesn’t matter that much. The film plays out like an exceptionally well done first issue of a comic book, right down to the Darkman’s final monologue where he proclaims that he is “everyone to no one, everything and nothing,” that seems to have straight from the typewriter of 60s Marvel master Stan Lee. Like those terrific origin issues it recalls you don’t necessarily love everything in the issue, but you’re more than ready to come back for more.

3 stars.