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hk6909
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
651 Posts |
 Posted - 10/08/2007 : 09:30:47 AM
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Bibleman: Breaking the Bonds of Disobedience
We open at the Randal Town Community Theater, where a “Bibleman” banner has been CGI’d in above the doors. “Finally, one of the good guys has a dance number” humorously exposits some caption text. Inside, in a theater lit with black lights, our old pal Cypher, wearing his brand new Full Armor of God, is performing a song about resisting temptation while an actor playing a Satanic flunky comes in and attacks him. Cypher calls to Bibleman for help, but it’s the brand-new BibleGIRL who appears wielding what appears to be a holy yellow tennis net. She unleashes some scripture, and Cypher is freed amid an explosion of Power Rangers spark bombs.
Bibleman appears applauding the performance. Evidently this was the audition of Miss Lia Martinez, a Hispanic lady implied to be an old friend of Cypher’s, hoping to play the part of Biblegirl, the fictional new hero in an upcoming stage show about the Bibleteam. I admit that’s not really my area, but do a lot of theater productions hold auditions with full costuming, make-up and special effects? Lia’s a little uncertain about taking the part because she just applied to a bunch of productions, but Cypher talks her into accepting with a little emotional blackmail about old times’ sake and pessimisim about getting another callback so soon. Or is that really what you’re saying, Cypher?
Backstage are Luxor Spawndroth and Ludicrous. Luxor appears to have realized he spent too much time coming up with flashy nicknames and not enough being able to win a fight, and is just himself this time. He shows Ludicrous his latest dastardly weapon, a vial of that stuff they put in glowsticks. He brazenly declares, “It will spread like the plague! People everywhere will turn away from God!” I’ve heard that one before, Mr. Spawndroth.
After our theme song and opening credits we return once more to the Biblecave, where Miles yells into a cell phone, tells UNICE to input ticket prices into the show budget (huh?), get him a revised script and to get those news releases about Biblegirl ready NOW. Cypher protests that Miles is overloading himself. I’ll say. The guy can afford to live in a mansion and surround himself with futuristic crime-fighting gear, and he has to supervise everything for the play himself?
Miles realizes he’s acting a little like Moses, who thought he could do everything leading the Israelites until his father-in-law told him to get some help. If that comes to mind so easily, it’s a little strange Miles is only acting on it now. UNICE suggests he recruit a real-live Biblegirl, although how that’s a solution to having too much work to do supervising the play, I’m not sure. Would she be delegated some responsibilities to lighten Miles’s workload, or fight crime so Miles and Cypher could devote themselves to the play? Miles says if God wants to add to the team, He’ll let them know who’s the right person.
As always, Luxor’s watching them on his magical hologram projector crystal ball. LUCI reports that she “hacked into Bibleman’s computer.” She relays to her boss that Bibleman’s “antibodies against spiritual attack” are “dangerously low.” Their sin-inducing weapons get through to him in every show so I wonder what basis for comparison she has. In any event, these findings indicate it’s the perfect time to infect Bibleman with their latest weapon, “microbius disobedientis,” a germ that makes you unfaithful to God. So that’s what causes it. Aren’t behaviors like being hateful, deceitful or egotistical disobedient to God as well? After so many shows about specific transgressions, general disobedience is kind of a weak concept to make a show around.
Back at the Biblecave, Cypher leaves to give Lia an updated script. Miles heads to his little prayer grotto to ask God for help with the show, “the props, and the tickets, and the lighting…” when UNICE interrupts his chat with God to report a distress call.
The fake call for help is realized with a shot of Ludicrous running scared through a forest meant to show us that someone on the crew saw “The Blair Witch Project.” (Although I’ll say this about “Bibleman”’s insider references to more entertaining media, at least they [usually] don’t smash you over the head and insist you realize what they are. Most bad movies like to make sure their cleverness doesn’t sneak by the viewer unnoticed.) Now, you’d be within your rights to think that after all this time, Bibleman should be able to recognize Ludicrous and tell this is a trap. You would, except Ludicrous has undergone another metamorphosis, this time to a pudgy balding guy in a Hawaiian shirt. UNICE asks to come with Miles because he’s so overworked, but evidently the play is more important than making sure they can help someone in trouble because he tells her to stay and keep working on that (nice role model, guys). Since it’s still early in the episode Bibleman is easily grabbed by the baddies when he arrives looking for someone to save. UNICE calls Cypher, who is somehow in his already even though he wasn’t when he left, and tells him that Bibleman is in trouble.
In their evil lair, Luxor and Ludicrous hook Bibleman up to some kind of EEEVIL apparatus with lots of hoses and begin to inject him with germs of disobedience. Guess a syringe was too simple and maybe too implicative, although if I were calling the shots the bad guys would get to be bad instead of just mean. After they kill some time, Cypher charges in. The bad guys start a running gag of getting his name wrong so corny one movie couldn’t contain it. Cypher and Luxor have a quick and less than pulse-pounding fight that allows Cypher to break in his new semi-circle light sabers before Luxor leaves so Cypher can drag a barely conscious Bibleman home.
Another recap session with UNICE. From this we learn that Cypher suspects Bibleman’s spiritual health has been seriously compromised, amusing because UNICE was just able to tell us in no uncertain terms that the bad guys have put “a ticking time bomb of rebellion” in Bibleman’s head. Gee, that doesn’t sound so bad to me.
We return to the cave as Cypher initiates a Spiritual Resonance Imaging test--whatever that means, but it sure sounds cool whatever it is--but Miles gets fed up and calls them off. They’ve already done “a retinal scan, a brain scan, a bone scan, a complete blood panel, a complete body mioscopy, and the only thing you haven’t analyzed is the cheese under my toenails.” UNICE komically answers that said cheese is next on the list. I agree with Cypher that they should be thorough, but that’s taking it to a rather insane and not terribly funny extreme. Cripes, did it look like they were injecting infernal substances into his toe cheese?! UNICE says that she’s detected “unidentified free radicals” in Miles’s brain, but he turns her off, the disobedience germs already taking hold.
(Note from reviewer: I’m sorry to say this, but it was at about this point I lost the tape I was using to write the review, and since buying it once was enough, I had to record it off TV to continue the piece. If I missed anything, please let me know, or blame TBN)
Miles tries to go over his lines while Cypher continues the analysis. When he opens his script, however, his vision is red-tinted with little globs squirming all over the place. He appears at most mildly discomfited and thinks he just needs new glasses. Most people would be quite alarmed that their vision had suddenly been invaded by cheesy special effects, but I guess a superhero doesn’t run screaming to the optometrist at the first sign of ocular irritation. Luxor gloats in his evil lair and sends Ludicrous to deliver a phony response letter from a Broadway production to Lia so she’ll bag on the Bibleman show, which will result in Our Hero going off the deep end. Ludicrous drops the letter off but is komically chased away by a tiny dog. Hyuk, hyuk. See Shadow of Doubt review for note re: show undermining itself with harmless bad guys.
That night Miles prepares to attend rehearsal. When he tries to suit up, however, he finds that his budding disobedience keeps the armor from appearing until he apologizes to Cypher and UNICE for being so harsh. At the rehearsal the cheesy blob vision is back and Bibleman storms out when Lia corrects him about what a particular verse says. A little girl meets him outside and asks for his counsel on a deep spiritual problem, but he says he can’t help her and leaves. Cypher explains Bibleman is a little sick, but offers Biblegirl as a substitute. People secretly enjoy it when you dragoon them into going along with your spiritual beliefs. Ignore them if they say they don’t. Lia agrees to go along with this and finds out that the little girl’s friend wants to copy her homework, but Lia tells her God wants people to be honest. Little girl thanks her and leaves with a smile. Lia leaves too to see if she got any callbacks. Cypher shakes his head like he can’t believe she thinks there’s anything besides this.
Next day, Lia checks her mail and finds Luxor’s bogus letter. That’s funny, it was night in the last scene. Either she wasn’t really in a hurry to get the mail, or she lives really far away from the theater. Anyway, she’s so excited to get a part in a big production she doesn’t notice it doesn’t say what she landed a part in or where to go to follow up. Not even, “Call 1-555-244-3845, x72826 to set up a meeting.”
Lia calls Miles and Cypher and tells them she’s going to leave town for a couple days to follow up on the letter, but promises to study her lines while she’s gone. If Bibleman’s going to be a jerk about it, though, she’s prepared to back out. The boys are more than a little upset to hear that she’s interested in furthering her career.
May I have a second to stand on my soapbox? What kind of message is this sending? Not everybody is rich and can afford to do nothing but go around telling people how neat God is all day long. A lot of us have to earn a living, and frankly not everyone’s cut out for the priesthood. Have the boys been cooped up in the mansion so long they’ve forgotten that? You can’t even assume it’s the disobedience germs talking because Cypher is almost as incensed as his boss.
Lia’s not saying she won’t do the Bibleman play either, she’s looking into something to do when it’s over, and she promises to study her lines while she’s out of town. If you watch this, note how they don’t give much of an idea of the schedule so we don’t know how damaging Lia’s absence would be and perhaps take her side. Yeah you should honor your commitments, but this is an awfully crude way to get kids ready for real life, which is rarely as simple as, “I made a promise and nothing’s budging me from this spot until I keep it.”
This also brings up the question of what exactly they’re so mad about. Is Lia a concerned Christian trying to do her part like Miles and Cypher, or was the “Bibleman” play just something to go on her resume? If the former, couldn’t she do more for the expansion of the faith as a famous actress than she could performing in a nickel and dime community theater play? Is there really a point to such a play at all in a town whose resident superhero bases his whole idiom on his religion? Lastly, isn’t it a teensy bit hypocritical for them to portray questing for fame as wrong when “Starring Willie Aames of Eight Is Enough & Charles In Charge” is typed across the front cover of every episode he was in?
Thank you for letting me rant.
Miles leaves to go for a walk in his Full Armor of God, and he runs into Dr. Freeman (ooh, clever), a good Samaritan who’s actually Luxor. Luckily the germs have gotten so bad Bibleman can’t tell who he is even though he’s in full villain regalia when they meet. Affecting a cheesy Forrest Gump impersonation (including the obligatory “box of chocolates” bit), Luxor tells Bibleman he needs to ditch the show and the whole obeying God gig, God just expects too much from His people. Completely in the grip of the germ, Bibleman leaves to cancel the show. At her place, Lia reads Matthew 5:37 and decides to stick with the play.
Bibleman is talking to some stage manager or somebody who begs him to reconsider. Lia comes in and tells Our Hero she’s changed her mind, but Luxor comes in as well and tells her to back off. “You’re a very confused young lady!” he says as he goes for his light saber. Lia says exactly what you think she says. She grabs what looks like a tennis net which begins to glow as she avoids Luxor’s attacks. Well, she’s Biblegirl, that’s all there is to it. Eventually Ludicrous, still being chased by the dog, runs in and Luxor runs out after him. Cypher and Lia take Bibleman back to the cave.
We return to the Biblecave, “check out the cool laser security system.” Lia looks around and forms an instant bond with UNICE, although the scene quickly descends into a display of their typical technobabble where they figure out what’s wrong with Miles. Cypher says the boss has been suffering some kind of allergic reaction; Lia says allergies are triggered by external stimuli (doesn’t everyone know that?). This bit of information allows our brainiacs to have UNICE search through known allergens and determine that Bibleman’s been infected with disobedience germs. “No wonder,” says Cypher, “Your scripture memory’s fuzzy, and your vision blurs when you try to read scripture.” And um, all the rest of the time. As usual, Miles is all better upon learning that. He apologizes to everyone, and says he was so focused on making the show great it became all about him and not about God anymore. And the bad guy used Satanic germ warfare on him. But mostly it was his ego. Would it be overly pedantic to say that sounds a lot like last-minute butt-covering? In fact, I think I got just the opposite of the idea they intended. If he was supposed to be losing the drive to obey God, maybe he would try LESS hard to make a good show? Prioritize things that don’t matter? That’s how I’d have done it.
Miles has UNICE send Luxor an e-mail challenging him to a showdown before the three of them suit up and head out to have the final battle. They have a set of armor all set to go that fits Lia? How…convenient.
The heroes and villains meet on a city street, UNICE tagging along in her mobile satellite form. LUCI’s there in remote spaceship form as well and traps them Bibleteam in an energy ring that their combined spirit (or something) shatters. Having shown the strength of unity, they pair off and head to different locations to have individual battles: Cypher takes on Ludicrous, Biblegirl and UNICE’s remote spaceship take on LUCI’s remote spaceship, and Bibleman and Luxor cross light sabers. Willie’s a bit too old and out of shape to pull it off, but I get the sense that he’s really trying to give us an action-packed fight scene this time and not just spend five minutes reciting Bible passages before the bad guys get it.
Cypher corners Ludicrous, who pulls out a pair of buffalo wings like weapons. “That won’t do much,” says an incredulous Cypher, prompting Ludicrous to throw them away. Again, Cypher’s the smart guy? Cypher prays to his Father for strength to vanquish this evil, causing Ludicrous to laugh and say that HE is Cypher’s father. Cypher begins to moan and wail, “Why?!” like some kind of insanely out of place scene from “The Empire Strikes Back” as we cut away while I sit slack-jawed, wondering what the point of that was.
UNICE and an apparently unarmed Biblegirl battle LUCI’s ship. LUCI fires lasers at them, but UNICE’s return blast of digitized girl power sends her running. Biblegirl seriously doesn’t get to do anything in the fight. I guess light sabers were deemed too un-ladylike.
Having eaten up enough time, all the combatants get back together again. UNICE makes LUCI explode, which makes Luxor and Ludicrous explode. One battle is won, but the newly-expanded Bibleteam leaves to defuse another emergency as the movie comes to a close.
No, as a matter of fact, there has never been one single time where I've been mellow. |
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GalahadPC
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
380 Posts |
Posted - 10/08/2007 : 3:06:34 PM
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Man, have I missed these... Just when I think I've seen some pretty bizarre television, this comes along to remind me what I've been missing.
I suddenly wonder if, when a Bibleman script goes through editing, it just comes back with a bunch of parenthetical question marks and exclamation points liberally inserted, due to the complete inability to make sense of what the point is, what audience this is being written for, and how it's all supposed to go together. |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 10/08/2007 : 4:57:25 PM
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I love these reviews. When I'm through reading them, I feel confused and exhausted, but spiritualy cleansed. Maybe that was the origonal intent of the Bibleman series?
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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hk6909
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
651 Posts |
Posted - 10/09/2007 : 3:45:18 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Greenhornet
I love these reviews. When I'm through reading them, I feel confused and exhausted...
Well my friend, I certainly hope that's more because of what I'm reviewing than how I review it.
No, as a matter of fact, there has never been one single time where I've been mellow. |
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In case somebody still cares...
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