By Tristan Bishop
You would have had to have been serving time in a cosmic prison not to have noticed that Marvel films have been running things in the past decade. Since the first two X-Men films at the turn of the millennium showed us how comic book adaptations should really be done, Marvel have seemed able to do no wrong, and now we can look forward to two or three quality sci-fi blockbusters a year from their stable. However, this was not always the case. Before Marvel took film production ‘in house’, many different people got hold of the rights to the characters and attempted their own films, which were pretty much universally awful. The entertaining slice of cheese which is Dolph Lundgren’s The Punisher (1989) aside, have you ever tried to sit through Albert Pyun’s 1990 version of Captain America?
Dr Mordrid may not at first glance appear to be a Marvel adaptation, but on closer inspection it starts to look an awful lot like Dr Strange. In fact, it transpires that Full Moon Productions (yeah, it’s Charles and Albert Band again!) used to own the rights to the character, but this expired before this film was made…Which makes this 88 Films re-release look extremely timely, given that a megabucks version is currently in the planning stages. Fact fans might also like to know that Dr Strange was actually one of the first Marvel properties to go live action – there is a 1978 TV movie with Peter Hooten in the role!
Jeffrey Combs here stars as Mordrid/Strange – a centuries-old wizard/alien sent to Earth by a being called The Monitor to foil an evil sorcerer called Kabal (cult actor Brian Thompson, here looking like Chris Hemsworth in a Willem Dafoe mask). Mordrid has his hi-tech base in an apartment building with wacky old tenants, a love interest (a Rebekah Brooks lookalike in double denim) who just happens to be a police researcher, and a raven called Edgar Allan. Mordrid wears a nice blue cape and makes use of a magic amulet and a crystal ball which puts him in touch with a cosmic entity called Deaths Head. Apparently some prophecies are coming to pass – large amounts of ‘basic alchemical materials’ are being stolen around the world. The trail of course leads him to Kabal, who has escaped his cosmic prison and is gearing up to open the gates of Hell. Can Mordrid stop him in time?
You’re probably as intrigued as I was when I was sent this disc – the cast and production history make it a very intriguing prospect. But, unfortunately, this is flat stuff indeed. Combs is badly miscast as the good guy, Thompson looks laughable rather than scary and the wizardry/outer space stuff fails to excite on any level. For a Full Moon Production there is a paucity of sex and gore too – which shows the intentions of the film-makers to go for a more mainstream audience. There is one scene in which Brian Thompson kills a naked punk chick by placing his ring on her head (stop sniggering at the back), which feels like it may have been added at the last minute in order to get some exploitation elements in the mix, and the climax features a fight between two stop-motion dinosaur skeletons, as well as some VERY briefly glimpsed mini-monsters (it IS Charles Band after all), but when a film can even fumble a reanimated Saurian battle, then you know it isn’t worth your time. Dr Mordrid is a very good reminder that sometimes the old ways are not necessarily the best.
Dr Mordrid is available now from 88 Films.