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Spurred
by the Jack Black wrestling comedy Nacho
Libre, BCI recently released a double feature
DVD of Mexican luchador flicks that's sure
to delight fans of the genre —
despite
the fact the proffered titles constitute a decidedly
mixed bag. Regrettably I must report that the
disc's Side B feature, Mystery
in Bermuda, is easily the worst El Santo
film I've ever screened;
it's actually sad to see the great Latino grappler,
well past his prime, appearing in such a lifeless
snoozer. 'Tis
a good thing, then, that the top-billed pic more
than compensates in every possible way... Champions
of Justice is an astonishingly loopy joyride,
an incredibly bad movie that's virtually nonstop
goofy fun from start to finish. And Santo ain't
even in it.
Usually remembered as the hero's
sidekick/buddy in nine El Santo vehicles, the
almost as popular Blue Demon (1922 - 2000) also
headlined a number of his own films. In Champions
he's large and in charge, the captain of Mexico's
top masked wrestling team. During a match at a
public arena, a pair of dwarves — dressed in superhero
costumes, skulking in the rafters — open fire
on Blue and his compadres with submachine
guns. The assassination attempt fails but the
hit men escape. So who wants Blue Demon and company
dead? A mad scientist codenamed Black Hand, that's
who. An evil genius-for-hire to hostile foreign
powers, Black Hand (David Silva) was sent to prison
by Blue and friends some years earlier. Now he's
escaped and continuing his nefarious experiments.
He's also sworn revenge on the wrestlers who defeated
him. To that end he dispatches his cadre of colorfully-attired
midgets, to whom he's given superhuman strength
via one of his inventions. Assisting this diminutive
death squad are a few normal-sized thugs, including
another longtime enemy of Blue Demon, the masked
luchador Black Shadow. (Which begs the
question: why doesn't Black Hand use his strength-giving
apparatus on these guys? Wouldn't they
be a lot more effective than Herculean dwarves?
I suppose it's because only midgets can fit inside
the machine...)
Black Hand decides to strike
at his enemies through their relatives. Blue Demon
and his four teammates — Mil Máscaras, El Médico
Asesino, Tinieblas el Gigante, and La Sombra Vengadora
— are each sponsoring a niece in the Miss Mexico
pageant. The girls are kidnapped and taken to
Black Hand's secret lair, where they're cryogenically
frozen for eventual brain reprogramming. (Why?
Who cares!) This naturally draws out our heroes,
who are lured into ambush and attacked by the
villain's henchmen. Blue and his pals are certainly
surprised when they find themselves getting their
asses kicked by incredibly strong midgets! Luckily
this super-strength effect only lasts so long,
tending to wear off in the middle of combat...
Time for a little old fashioned dwarf tossin',
muchachos!
Folks, this bat-shit crazy
film is what "so bad it's good" cinema
is all about. Spectacularly cheesy, Champions
of Justice has almost everything one could
hope for in a Mexican wrestlers-vs.-mad-scientist
movie... More luchadores! More action!
More midgets! Car chases, skydiving and an underwater
battle, too! The only missing elements are monsters
— no, the dwarves don't count — and a musical
number. (Great lounge/jazz score, though.) This
is actually rather fortunate, because I don't
think my brain could've handled being immersed
in even more cheese in a single sitting.
Talk about psychotronic overload!
This was the first film in
a trilogy, followed by The
Champions of Justice Return (1972) and
The Champions of Justice
Triumph (1974).
I'd really like to see these other pics
make it to DVD as well.
Our second feature, Mystery
in Bermuda,
came late in the screen careers of both Blue Demon
and Santo. Joining Mil Máscaras on a wrestling
tour of Florida and the Caribbean, they're recruited
to act as bodyguards for Sobeida (Gaynor Kote),
Princess of Irania. Her Highness — who as a child
was trained in karate by Santo — is targeted for
death by a gang of foreign spies led by the G.
Gordon Liddyish "Mr. Godard" (Carlos
Suárez, Santo's real-life manager and a frequent
supporting player in his films). To conceal her
identity, the princess poses as a martial arts
expert giving public demonstrations. (???)
Our grappler heroes reveal their randy side when
they're easily lured into trouble by a trio of
shapely señoritas — grizzled old
Santo, in fact, is ready, willing and able to
accompany one of the cuties back to to her place
within 30 seconds of meeting her. (He does like
to help people, you know.) The gals are working
for Godard, keeping Santo, Blue, and Mil Máscaras
occupied while the spies make one failed assassination
attempt after another. Things get a bit weird
when one of the spy girls, Rina (Silvia Manríquez),
is kidnapped by guys in shiny silver jumpsuits
who materialize out of nowhere, then take her
by boat into the Bermuda Triangle. The boat vanishes
into thin air. Rina finds herself in an underwater
city (!) populated by a hidden society of elite
scientists (who are really just people wearing
metallic jumpsuits, lounging on plastic lawn furniture
in front of some museum or art gallery).
Now this sudden lurch into
sci-fi has nothing at all to do with the
whole wrestlers vs. spies thing, but everything
to do with one of the most mindnumbingly stupid
wraparound plot devices I've ever been subjected
to. Suffice to say the filmmakers needed some
way to hook the story into the then-popular Bermuda
Triangle fad... and they did so by pulling one
out of their collective ass. It's really that
retarded.
Mystery
in Bermuda is sub-par lucha cinema
featuring two over-the-hill stars, from the period
when the whole genre had not only run out of gas
but been towed away and impounded. Santo was then
60; time had finally started to catch up with
him. Blue Demon isn't exactly a spring chicken
here, either. And Mil Máscaras — well, he's just
along for the ride. Less action, a lethargic pace,
no midgets or monsters — the film fails miserably
to deliver what these movies are supposed to be
about: goofy, balls-to-the-wall fun. Of
course one can't have masked Mexican wrestlers
in a movie and not have at least some laughs,
and there are a few here, too. Very few.
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