Darkman (1990) - Review
Originally published January 2016Sam Raimi is a director who has earned both my respect and disdain for the various works he's made, not that he would care. Evil Dead was a decent independent horror movie, and its sequels became fantastic, fun, trendsetting spectacles of film. His Spider-Man films, however, went much harder in the other direction, and I haven't watched much else from him since. If you ever questioned how the horror mastermind behind Evil Dead managed to get into the director's chair for Marvel's most beloved superhero, look no further than Darkman as his pitch for the spot. Made over a decade before the first Spider-Man movie hit theaters, and with the same musical score by Danny Elfman—because every score by Elfman is the same—Darkman was one of the few movies by Sam Raimi that I enjoy.
I feel like I may be getting ahead of myself though, in terms of the quality and tone of the movie. Darkman, while successful and iconic enough to spawn a couple of sequels, is not a good movie. It is, and it isn't.
I always associated this film with Robocop when I was younger because Darkman's origin story is rather similar and almost as violent, not to mention that both Darkman and Robocop are just as vengeful and ruthless to their enemies in return. However, Robocop holds up as a quality film that is well-acted, has interesting characters, and is still relevant due to its clever satire, not to mention it has exciting action set-pieces. Darkman... not so much.
Image: Universal
Pros
Acting is over-the-TOP
Anti-heroes are cool
Film wisely chooses not to take itself too seriously
Liam Neeson makes funny noises when he's upset
Cheesy fun
Entertainingly bad plot conveniences
Helicopter sequence is pretty cool
Sam Raimi's camera tricks
Make-up effects and practical effects
Cons
Early ‘90s CGI
Really bad green/blue screen effects
Stereotypical misogynistic portrayal of damsel, who is also indirectly responsible for everything bad that happens to the protagonist
Rated R when it looked like it was trying to be PG-13 with all the cutaways
Final confrontation with the villain is boring and confusing
Plot conveniences are still bad, even if entertaining
Danny Elfman...
Plot & Thoughts
Liam Neeson plays a young, independent scientist in Los Angeles, seeking a method of creating convincing artificial skin for victims of accidents and deformities. None of what I just said makes any sense because everyone knows that Liam Neeson has looked 40 years old since he was 20 and only now looks like he's reached his 50s—you could say that time has finally Taken its toll (har har har).
Image: Universal
Anyway, the rest of that first statement doesn't make much sense either when you look at his "laboratory." You might expect a lab to be in an office building or something more secluded, but it's basically his apartment above what I think is an arts and crafts store or something. It's weird. We wouldn't know this if the movie hadn't spent the time emphasizing its location while he was hanging out with his girlfriend he's trying to marry. There's a reason why they're letting us know where his lab is and why it’s above a pottery store, right?
I bring this up because this is one of the first of many weird details in Darkman that, if you just stop and take the time to notice, you get stuck in a mental loop of trying to logically figure it out. Had we never seen that his lab was also his apartment we wouldn't have known—we just would have wondered why he's a scientist that works almost exclusively alone on a project that probably requires a lot more people and funding. Of course, these are all simply contrivances for the purpose of his origin story.
Image: Universal
What is his origin story? His dumb girlfriend—who is indirectly responsible for everything bad that happens to Liam Neeson's character—is a legal... person in a (real estate?) company who finds a document that implicates the company's CEO/her boss in illegal activity. Vague, right? The movie doesn't care, so you shouldn't either. All you need to know is that she's meant to be a useless damsel who's more trouble than she's worth.
She tells her boss about the incriminating document she found. He says that she needs to get rid of the document or else something bad might happen to her and her loved ones. Then he reassures her that he's not actually threatening her, but that his competition might do something to get him in trouble with the law. Sure...Too bad she left the paper at her boyfriend's apartment/lab. You can guess what happens next.
The apartment/lab, naive legal counsel, and makings of an origin story are good examples of the plot contrivance menage et toi is frequently happening throughout the film for the sake of setting up this character. Darkman is supposed to be a tragic figure, who has to give up his past life for his new goals as a vengeful hero. He has to be attacked, disfigured, and lose everything to become this new character. However, having someone attack him for arbitrary reasons and blow up just his lab, still would likely leave him with a home to return to, so it would be good if his home were the same building as his lab right? Two birds, one stone.
Logically speaking, it also would have been difficult for a gang of mobsters to kill a single scientist for these arbitrary reasons if there had been dozens of other lab assistants or security that a well-funded lab would likely have had. Considering how he somehow managed to survive such a situation, we would also be left wondering about what happened to anyone else who might have experienced the same trauma. By making his apartment double as a lab, and making him an independent scientist with only one assistant, the mobsters are able to assault the protagonist and destroy his lab/life in a single scene.
Image: Universal
The plot from then on is pretty straightforward: The mobsters attack and torture the two scientists. The lab blows up. Liam Neeson's character is sent flying through the air, while on fire. He ends up in a special burn unit in a hospital that has severed several nerves to help reduce his pain, but with the side effect of a loss of touch and super strength, because... sure. He wakes up, rebuilds his lab in a new secret lair, and tries to give himself his old face back with that same fake skin material he was developing so that he can date his girlfriend again. However, the skin material only works for a specific length of time before it starts bubbling and melting—that time limit, while supposedly 99 minutes, fluctuates when it's convenient to the plot. Oh, and he also finds the people who attacked him and seeks revenge.
I'm bringing up all the contrivances, clichés, and writing shortcuts to make a point. The overall quality of Darkman's writing is nothing special. In some ways, you could say with all of its convenient details, it's similar to that of Snowpiercer. I like Darkman more, however, because it is trying to be less of a serious art project with a message, and more of a dumb, entertainingly-bad action movie. It's not that they couldn't flush out any themes with Darkman, because there's plenty there. The psychological changes his character goes through due to his nerve surgery and PTSD would be more than enough to carry a serious and dark film if done right. But that's not what this movie is trying to be. It knows it's dumb. It just shouts "he has brain problems!" and moves on, keeping the focus on his origin story as an anti-hero seeking revenge. The writing contrivances certainly don't stop with just his origin either, they're a part of the plot all the way up to the end.
Image: Universal
(Spoiler for a 20-year-old movie if you care)
My favorite example of hilariously bad writing is in the final act of the film. Super-sleuth-lawyer-lady manages to find the same implicating document again in her boss's office with a familiar coffee stain on it, even though it should have been taken by the mobsters or destroyed in Neeson's lab. This proves to her and the audience that her boss ordered the attack. Where does she find this double-incriminating evidence? On the top of a small pile of papers on his desk. Not hidden. Not shredded in a trash can like someone who actually wanted to hide the document would have done. It was conveniently on top of an almost clear desk for her to find. Wasn't the whole point of killing her boyfriend and blowing up his lab to eliminate the evidence? You might think he intentionally left it exposed with mysterious motives, but the very next thing he says when he sees her with it is, "I'm sorry you had to find that." Find?! She didn't have to look for it!
You get the point. This movie's dumb, but it's great because it is, as well as some other reasons. Liam Neeson's acting is definitely amateurish in the early stages of his career, and the noises he makes when he's upset need to be mixed into a song. The action scenes range from good to bland. The helicopter segment, in particular, is exciting, but the final confrontation with the villain is on a cheap set and is rather boring. As for Sam Raimi's direction, it helps this film a lot more than hurt it because of the camera angles and fever-dream imagery he throws into it to make it almost a psychedelic horror. Raimi's work is at its best when there's significant darkness/horror and black humor to juxtapose against the cheese and slapstick he likes to throw into his films.
Image: Universal
Conclusion
Now that Robocop has been remade into the dark and edgy version, I feel like Darkman is likely to get the same treatment. This might not be a bad thing, since it's a story with a lot of potential, but also isn't so complex that the movie needs to be complicated. If there is a remake made, hopefully, the filmmakers will remember what Darkman is and always has been: simple, goofy, morbid fun; like Batman, but cheaper, dumber, and not so serious-sah.