Phantom Strikes!, The

A fun edit of the 1996 cult classic that improves upon the original by removing the nonsensical ghost of Kit's father character and trimming some of Treat Williams's worst overacting. The conversion to b&w is perfect for the retro 40's style pulp adventure style of the film. Highly recommended.

The Phantom Strikes delivers what I wanted The Phantom (1996) to be in the first place. It was the 1996 movie that introduced me to the character and made me a lifelong fan or "Phan" of Lee Falk's and Ray Moore's creation. When I was a kid and watched this I adored it and, in many ways, it was The Phantom movie (along with the Green Hornet radio show on old cassette tapes) that made me love the pulp genre.

As an adult, my problems with the original cut are not many... but DRAX is the absolute worst... the overperformance of Treat Williams, takes me out of the film. What this edit does is remove a lot of Williams' manic dialogue and actually makes him more of a credible villain, closer to the campy but dangerous portrayal of Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor in Superman: The Movie. Transferring to black and white is simply inspired as it makes the film feel like an update on an old movie serial and also respects the original comic strip's roots. What the film tried to do in 1996 was adapt the first 2 Phantom strips: "The Singh Brotherhood" and "The Skyband" and what this edit does, by toning down the Drax character, it allows those narratives, and the film's overall charm, to better shine through. By removing the origin at the beginning and removing the 20th Phantom (Kit's father) sequences, the film becomes much tighter. Overall, this edit delivers a much more enjoyable experience and it actually looks better in B&W.

If I have one criticism it would be that Drax's "It's Beautiful/Show Me the Power" line should have been removed during the museum scene where the 2 skulls cut a hole in the map. Any line where Drax gets manic and high-pitched just makes him oafish. Even still, this is the definitive version of the film and the editor should be very proud of himself that he has given Phantom fans a near masterpiece. This edit will be rewatched many times, no doubt.

I love the Phantom, it has some fun moments and great matinee action. This edit makes the movie works well with the old 40ies pulp series with its black and white. The black and white in this have great balance, it never feels to bright or to dark. The part that got removed was the part that are bad in the original movie and I didn't notice any weird cuts, it all flowed great. Thanks for this experience!
Would love to see some work done on the more modern min series too ;)

You continue to impress with your Pulp edits, BionicBob! This was a splendid matinée with good editing throughout. As with your LXG-edit, I almost wished for a 1.33:1 crop to further sell the pulpiness. But it is of course hard to re-frame an entire movie! Anyway, I found it impossible to tell where the edits were made. Great work!

Some mixed feelings about the tone of the b/w. Might've been my setup, but it felt a touch unsaturated and slightly, slightly, just a bit, blue-tinted. Again, might've been my setup. Otherwise this edit is great! A good narrative that makes you wanna pop another bowl of popcorn. Replaces the original, no doubt.

Well done!

Much like the Shadow, I love the Phantom movie. It's a fun adventure and quite charming. The visuals are great and I love the music. Billy Zane is a natural in the role and is very likeable without being snarky or obnoxious (which he also was a natural at in Titanic). This movie alone makes me wish his career had been more successful.

BionicBob takes the fun original and makes minor cuts to improve pacing, improve flow, and converts it to black and white and suddenly it's a classic adventure out of the 50's. BionicBob warned that the black and white did not look that great but I felt it looked fine. It's a nice improvement over the original.

My few minor and personal complaints are that the original color version looked spectacular, especially towards the end on the exotic islands and during the end credits. The black and white lessens this but it's still a nice view. The other complaint I have is that my favorite song from the original that plays at the end of the movie and over the end credits (showing the islands) is cut down by about half. I wish BionicBob would have removed the voiceover during this part but retained the song and visuals. I can see how this might affect the pacing though because the ending shot of the Phantom is a rather perfect way to end the edit.

Still, don't let these minor complaints keep you from checking out this wonderful edit.