You
know how I love my bad girls. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is a weekly ritual,
"Xena" is an occasional guilty pleasure, and if "Cleopatra 2525" or "Relic
Hunter" had any bite, I'd watch them too.
Good
TV heroines, like any characters with depth, have to be tough and tortured.
A little darkness in the soul has to rage against her mission of light.
That's what keeps us rooting for the Sunnydale slayer each season...
and what the creators of TNT's "Witchblade" are hoping will draw in enough
viewers to make this cable movie into a series.
"Witchblade,"
premiering at 8 p.m. Sunday on the cable channel, is a back-door pilot,
a TV movie that has a shot at being made into a series. Action fans should
hope for its success. A comic book that launched in 1995 when the "bad
girl" trend was in full swing, "Witchblade" and its champion Sara Pezzini
have enough of a hungry fan base to drum up a sizable audience for its
debut.
The
comic's TV arrival is also perfectly timed. USA's erstwhile hit "La Femme
Nikita" is closing in on its series finale, with the second-to-last episode
airing the same night as "Witchblade." This summer's seen many of us go
gaga over another comic-book series, "X-Men," at the box office. Superheroes
are hot.
Moreover,
TNT is overhauling its image. Instead of simply cranking out movies or
relying on the faltering WCW for ratings, it has a hit in its first original
series, "Bull." With one show securely in place, TNT will surely search
for another. The channel could do far worse than "Witchblade" and its lead,
Yancy Butler, an actress whose gritty beauty and athleticism match comic-book
characters'.
As
New York homicide detective Pezzini, Butler gives us angst and anger by
the pound. Having endured the murders of her father and her best friend,
Pezzini becomes obsessed with the mobster named Gallo (Conrad Dunn), her
buddy's killer. One of her shakedowns leads to a sprint through a Joan
of Arc exhibit in a museum, where a strangely alluring gauntlet gleams
under glass. A gunfight breaks out, the glove gets knocked out of its case
- and somehow flies right onto Pezzini's arm.
The
destruction that ensues lets you know this is no ordinary piece of armor.
The Witchblade is a centuries-old mystical weapon that's been wielded by
an assortment of women warriors, including St. Joan. It has chosen Pezzini,
and in doing so, commits her to proving worthy enough to wield it, battling
evil, yakety yak. At least that's what its sinister owner, billionaire
Kenneth Irons (Anthony Cistaro at his oiliest) and his mysterious henchman,
the shadowy Nottingham (Eric Etebari) are hoping she'll do. Using the Witchblade
means feeding its dark powers and submitting to its will. Failure to do
so means abandonment in the wearer's darkest hour, a fate that famously
befell poor Joanie.
"Witchblade"
is gothic eye-candy, replete with captivating cinematography and those
wacky 360-degree-rotating freeze-frame effects. It even has those slow-motion
computerized bullet trajectories, a la "The Matrix." All of that is too
expensive to keep in a series, and that's just fine - as long as they use
that extra money to hire a stunt double who knows how to duke it out.
The
fight sequences are abysmal, particularly hand-to-hand combat sequences
that look like they were edited under strobe lights. The flashes of action
pasted together in a hodgepodge were obviously meant to hide Butler's lack
of battling skills, a big fat letdown for anyone expecting some of the
fisticuffs the comic book delivers. The movie's interpretation of the weapon
also leaves a bit to be desired; basically it deflects bullets like Wonder
Woman's bracelets. Big whoop.
There
are times, too, that the movie's blocking and acting mimic that of a comic
a little too closely; it's either over the top or flat as paper. Butler,
though, carries her lead nicely and has enough of a dark edge to help you
ignore the movie's shortcomings.
Can
"Witchblade" enchant its way onto the tube? A lady of my cheesy tastes
can only hope so. It's worth a look anyway, if only to sate your appetite
until the next Tuesday-night rerun of "Buffy."
Some
viewers prefer their heroines to attack with their wit, not their knuckles.
For those gentle folk, MTV presents "Daria: Is It Fall Yet?" Sunday at
7 p.m., in which the Champion of Barbed Comebacks suffers indignities over
her summer break - and survives!
Girls
kick butt, says Melanie McFarland.
