The Return of Swamp Thing
Directed by: Jim Wynorski
Starring: Dick Durock, Heather Locklear, Louis Jourdan
Released: 1989
Watched: October 22nd, 2015
Thoughts Before: After the original Swamp Thing movie, I'm not expecting much. On the other hand, there is almost no way this movie could be worse than the Superman flicks I've been subjected to as of late. Oddly, this movie wound up leading to a 72 episode television series. Apparently this movie tried to be a bit more humorous, and the show went with the original's "darker" themes. I'm morbidly curious about the TV show, they even managed to get the same guy to play Swamp Thing from the movies in the show.
Thoughts After: Definitely better than those Superman films. The campiness is there, and it's damn proud to be there. Swamp Thing giving a thumbs up, and taking pictures with kids, I don't feel like it suits the character very well. But for that exact reason it works for me. Seeing Swamp Thing acting in this way is just fascinating, it's clearly not who this character was meant to be.
The plot in this movie is as simple as can be, Dr. Arcane is back from the dead in this movie, and he's combining animal DNA with humans which somehow allows him to steal their youth for his own. They might have done a better job of explaining this, but I missed it. The plot is basically B-movie material, the main draw here is seeing Swamp Thing acting like a campy action hero. He saves people from weird animal/human hybrids on several occasions, and there's even a weird evil mercenary group combing the swamps again for him to confront. Dr. Arcane's stepdaughter comes to the swamp seeking answers when she discovers his mother is dead. Eventually she finds out about her step father's evil plans, and almost succumbs to them. Swamp Thing rescues her, and she has seemingly fallen in love with him. Even having a strange romantic scene with him where Swamp Thing briefly appears human again, but that might just be a weird day dream, I'm not really sure. After Swamp Thing heals her a flower grows out of foot, has Swamp Thing denied this girl her humanity? We will never know as he walks away with her as the movie end. Probably to keep her away from the civilization she once knew, but she may never return to again.
Overall this movie was pretty good, not the traditional good, but a solid B-movie good. So far it's my second favorite of all of these DC movies, and that kind of depresses me. Two campy movies have heralded this journey. I can't think of a situation where I would recommend anyone seek this out, but if you like the character a lot and don't mind seeing a version of a character diverge heavily from the source material this might be worth looking into. Or maybe if you're looking for a bunch of B-movies for a cheesy movie marathon it might meet your criteria. This isn't a bad one, but it isn't terribly good either.
Bonus Round: A successful television show isn't the only Thing this movie duology spawned, there was even a doomed cartoon, lasting a dismal five episodes. How does that even happen? A series gets the green light and within five episodes being made it's cancelled? This must be a disaster.
And a disaster it is. This reeks of "please buy our toys". As a kid I never noticed this aspect of cartoons, all the silly over the top vehicles and weapons that the heroes of cartoons used which was supposed to drive the unsuspecting viewers to want to pick them up for themselves. Honestly, this didn't really work on me. Of course I yearned after a myriad assortment of toys, but I can safely say I never really fell for the "wow that's a really neat buggy Spider-Man! I gotta get one for myself!"
That is this entire show. Arcane has a few cronies who he routinely sends after Swamp Thing who then, with the help of his friends, beats them back with brute strength and horrid one liner's. Arcane uses a trans-juicer (what the fuck) to transform his minions into half animal/half man Un-Men! And everyone, EVERYONE, has a ridiculous looking vehicle which don't look particularly affected and almost always have the word "bog" in their name". Everything that happens comes down to that basic scenario. Swamp Thing saves his friends, and the swamp, from Arcane being a dickhead. If I remember right the last episode was partially a clip show, with only four episodes prior! Ugh. Also, Swamp Thing's voice, while it works as a kid's cartoon hero's voice, is not Swamp Thing.
This cartoon is a curiosity not worth digging up. I'm a pretty big fan of Swamp Thing, even the cornball Return of Swamp Thing was pretty enjoyable to me. This is just pointless, there's nothing unique or different here. It's a shame because the idea of a Swamp Thing cartoon was awesome, but they went the safest route with it and copied the plots of a million other children's cartoons.
Also, the theme song is (usually) a bad rewritten version of Wild Thing. Yeah.
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