My 90s and 2000s Experience: The Phantom (1996, Paramount Pictures)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. Today I'm going to be talking about the 1996 movie, The Phantom, starring Billy Zane, Treat Williams, Kristy Swanson, and Catherine Zeta-Jones, which I just watched for the very first time last night. Normally I talk about movies, shows, music, or whatever it is that I experienced in the 90s and 2000s, but, I've decided to start including 90s and 2000s things that I experience in the present as well, because there are so many things that came out during my childhood that I didn't watch or read that I'd love to talk about on here. So, let's talk about The Phantom. I watched it on VHS last night. Let's get into it.

Despite only watching it for the first time last night, I actually do have some history with this movie. I was nine years old when it came out in 1996 and I remember seeing the commercials for it on TV, starting probably in the fall of 1995, since there was lots of merchandise that came out. For example, on the back of Detective Comics #700, there was an ad for The Phantom trading cards from Inkworks. I also remember seeing the TV spots for it during Power Rangers Zeo as well as during the reruns of The Dukes of Hazzard on TNN, that I was also watching in 1996. I also had a replica of the Phantom's skull ring that somebody got at a convenience store or at Subway for me or something like that. 

I love this movie. At a time when superhero and comic book based movies weren't as prevalent as they became in the 2010s, The Phantom came out at the perfect time. Yet, I never saw it until last night. And the movie wasn't successful at the box office. similar to how The Rocketeer and The Shadow failed at the box office when they came out in 1991 and 1994 respectively. It's funny because just two years later, The Mask of Zorro did extremely well, and yet both are adaptations of old comic strips and pulp fiction novels. 1996 also wasn't a box office hit heavy year either. Though some very good movies came out that year like Independence Day, Twister, and Space Jam.

I love the cast of The Phantom. Billy Zane is great as Kit Walker/the Phantom. He's funny, charming, and very proactive, though not to the obsessive extent that Batman can be portrayed as in the comics, and some of the movies and TV shows. I've only really seen him in Titanic, though he plays a member of Biff's gang in Back to the Future and Back to the Future Part II, and he's apparently in Zoolander as an uncredited cameo role as himself. It's been more than twenty years since I saw Zoolander so I don't remember a thing about it. And he plays P.T. Barnum in season 3, episode 2, "Freakshow", of DC's Legends of Tomorrow. This was my first time seeing Kristy Swanson and I've only seen Catherine Zeta-Jones in Ocean's Twelve, but I really loved them both in this movie. Treat Williams as Xander Drax, the villain of the movie, "X-A-N-D-E-R D-R-A-X, both starts with an x", stole the show though. I watched Everwood for probably about half the show's original run from 2002 to probably 2004 or 2005 (I'm pretty sure I missed the show's fourth and final season) and he was one of the main characters of the show, as Doctor Andy Brown, and I loved him in that role. He's also in The Empire Strikes Back, but I have yet to actually spot him in the movie. The rest of the cast is phenomenal.

As a fan of 90s and 2000s things, I watched The Phantom on VHS last night, because, why not? But, it was rough seeing the opening previews on the VHS because the first one was for the home video release of Harriet the Spy, given that Michelle Trachtenberg passed away a few weeks ago. Especially because the 1999 live action Inspector Gadget movie was one of my favourite movies when I was a kid, and of course, I loved Harriet the Spy when I saw it almost 30 years ago. However, the last preview before the movie started is the teaser trailer for Star Trek: First Contact, which I saw on the VHS release of Mission: Impossible when I watched that sometime in the early to mid 2000s. There's no exterior shots of the Enterprise-E in the teaser. Some scenes, including Picard's line about "The line must be drawn HERE, no further!" are included, but it's mostly shots from the TNG season 3 finale/season 4 premiere, "The Best of Both Worlds" and Star Trek Generations.

I had so much fun watching The Phantom. To this day though I have no idea why I'd never seen it before. It was less violent and scary than Batman Returns, and Xander Drax was a way less scary villain than the Joker in Batman. It was also even less scary than any of the three Indiana Jones movies (yeah, I didn't see those until I was a teenager for that reason), and I was older than I was when Batman Returns came out. The only thing I can really think of is that my parents felt my siblings were too young to see it, though it didn't have sexual content in it, no swearing, and very little blood in it. Who knows at this point. I'm glad I got to watch it last night regardless. I might even watch it again at some point in the very near future. 

Alright my friends, that's it for me for today. I'll be back soon with more nostalgic posts for you. I'm probably gonna talk about a comic book next week. We'll see though. Until then, have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.