The end of Summer 1990 brought to theaters Darkman, which was not exactly a comic book movie, but it would be wrong to say that there’s hardly any comic book influence in it at all. Indeed, Sam Raimi, yearning to tackle the next phase of career after two Evil Dead films, was looking at Batman and The Shadow as potential heroes he could sink his talents into. With those two properties out of reach though, the later of which was to be made a few years later by Highlander filmmaker Russell Mulcahy, Raimi decided to create his own hero.
Darkman would end up being a macabre blend of Batman, Death Wish and Universal Monster movies of the 30s and 40s. With the titular character’s disfigurement, bandaged face and his long, black trenchcoat with mantlet, the visage of The Phantom of the Opera is well-realized. Indeed, the Phantom allusions go further, as Darkman is obsessed with his former girlfriend, whom he desperately wants to return to, but is frightened that she’ll revile him for his horrible scarring.
The story, simply, is a revenge tale in superhero clothing. A scientist named Peyton Westlake, played by Liam Neeson, is attacked and left for dead by gangsters looking for incriminating evidence left in his laboratory. Burned beyond recognition and left in excruciating pain, he becomes the subject of a medical experiment that severs his nerves so that he no longer feels pain. The process also accidentally gives him enhanced strength and stamina, but the side effects include becoming unstable emotionally. The victimized wimp getting enhanced abilities through medicine is an idea that would be revisited by Kick-Ass several years later.
Westlake’s scientific specialty though is his real super-power: artificial skin that can mimic any face with the scan of a subject’s photograph. Not only is it Westlake’s key to making a life again with his girlfriend Julie, but it’s the key to getting revenge on the gangsters that ruined his life. The flaw in the skin is that it only lasts 99 minutes before it melts away once it’s exposed to the light. “What is it about the dark?” Westlake ponders as he tries to solve the obvious flaw in his invention. Of course, it adds another layer of meaning to the name Darkman. It’s not just the idea that Westlake lives in the shadows due to his deformation, but when he emerges from the shadows, he can look like anyone.
Watching Darkman now is like watching Raimi caught somewhere between his big budget ambitions and his low budget instincts. The initial action scene with a theatrical looking car crash reminds one of something from an 80s series like The A-Team, but Darkman’s climactic face-off with the gang at his condemned warehouse ends with the exploding of an entire industrial campus and a helicopter chase across the Los Angeles skyline with Darkman hanging perilously from one of the choppers. Despite the big studio money he was playing with though, Raimi’s instincts for over-the-top, almost cartoonish violence remains intact, as does his love for off-kilter heroes more than a little in love with the carnage they find themselves at the center of.