When one speaks of classic films, the best of the best, one rarely thinks of superhero films, but today's appreciation covers not just a superhero film but a cynical, erotic superhero film starring Carmen Electra. I speak, of course, of The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven from 1998.
Some of your universe's critics are bizarrely unkind to The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven. Reviewer rayd-2 writes, "Almost impossible to follow, not that there is much follow in the first place. Stilted acting and an idiotic plot. This is just a very poor film." Reviewer Zanatos writes (cleverly but incorrectly), "The producers probably flew over the cuckoo's nest, because this bird-brained "Raven" should be locked in an atrium forever." And reviewer Leofwine_draca writes, "This is truly pitiful stuff with barely any kind of a story to drive it forward."
Read on for a full appreciation of The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven...
The film opens with a text crawl that is helpfully (and optimistically) spoken by an unseen narrator:
Episode One
RENEWED HOPE
The forces of Good and Evil have played out their battles on Earth since the beginnings of time.
Good does not always triumph.
Now the modern world has grown dark, and Evil is about to achieve the terrible perfection of its power.
Mankind's very existence is in peril.
The one, true weapon in this epic war is the Sacred Crescent, a powerful talisman whose origins extend beyond recorded time.
The proud and ancient Tribe of the Crescent has been the steward of this talisman for uncounted ages. Chosen to bear the Sacred Crescent is EMMA BRAVENIGHT, princess daughter of an honored tribal elder.
Emma has kept the Crescent safely hidden until the time when its powers will prove crucial in the ultimate battle against Evil.
That time has come.
The film proper begins in a forest, where a woman wearing lingerie for unknown reasons, Emma Bravenight, digs under some leaves and discovers a crescent amulet.
A man appears in the forest and immediately grabs her, then sees a tattoo on her shoulder. "What have we here?"
She pushes him away and runs, beginning a quick chase through the forest. She trips, dropping the amulet in the dirt, and the man advances on her.
"Cole, I don't have the crescent," she pleads.
"It's okay, baby. It's okay. I'll take good care of you." He giggles and steps toward her, and we hear a scream.
Later, in a trailer parked in the California desert, another woman wearing lingerie for no apparent reason brings breakfast to her boyfriend Henry. The couple begins to make love during breakfast, but they are interrupted by a phone call about a body wrapped in plastic, so Henry, a police officer, must investigate.
The film cuts to what appears to be a ghost town as the narrator (soon revealed to be Mr. Bravenight, the father of Emma) intones, "McKenna Bravenight had not seen the land of her childhood in four long years. It took her sister's death to bring her back now, and I can tell you with certainty that if she had known what fate had in store for her, she would not have come at all."
McKenna Bravenight, played by Carmen Electra, drives to her family home. She is not wearing lingerie, for unknown reasons. She sees her father (whose speaking voice and film-narrating voice are entirely different). Her father tells her, ambiguously, "Emma is one of us. As you are. And always will be."
"Are we gonna start this tribal crap again?" Ms. Electra asks. "I don't wanna come back."
"Ceremony begins at sundown," her father tells her, referring to the burial of her sister. "You will stay."
After the burial, Henry flirts with Ms. Electra, even though she is aware that he lives with his girlfriend Nora. She returns to her sister's ranch, where she stares at a photo of her sister for a while.
The film quits, quite surprisingly, to the lair of the villain who killed Ms. Electra's sister. His lair is filled with electronic equipment and a torture apparatus, to which is strapped his victim, a bearded man wearing fishnet tights and a platinum wig (these accoutrements are never explained). Fortunately, Ms. Electra's narrator father narrates the scene and introduces the villain: "Drawing ever nearer to our community was a twisted and lost soul that the media was calling The Route 33 Serial Killer. His terrible art was being practiced in the abandoned cellar of a nearby factory."
"I love my job," The Route 33 Serial Killer says.
Back at Ms. Electra's house, she sees a vision of her sister who tells her, "Come with me. You will be branded with the crescent."
At night, Ms. Electra is in fact branded with a crescent symbol by her father, though this is apparently all against her will. "Ow," she says.
Then she does a somewhat erotic dance and falls unconscious in the dirt.
In a fascinating subplot, Henry's girlfriend Nora believes Henry is having an affair with Ms. Electra because his car is parked in front of her house, so she gets revenge by taking drugs. As Ms. Electra's narrator father narrates helpfully, "When Nora found her lover's car parked at McKenna's, she gave in to a cold rage and sought solace in vices she had once been able to control. Crystal meth was an evil stimulant made and sold by a band of outlaw locals who called their handmade pills 'little green men.'"
We watch as Nora drives to what appears to be an Old West ghost town tourist attraction and tries to buy drugs from prolific comic actor Tim Bagley.
Meanwhile, Ms. Electra bizarrely licks her plate clean as she eats breakfast with Henry. He leaves, but she does a striptease-like dance, which psychically forces him to drive back to her house and they (i.e., their body doubles) have sex.
When Henry returns to his RV, Nora confronts him. “I can smell her on you.”
He replies, confoundingly, “I don’t know how you can smell anything at all.”
In short order, Henry is beaten up both by Nora and local criminal Cole (who looks and dresses exactly like Henry, though this is one mystery the film never explains). Her sister's ghost appears and tells Ms. Electra, "You have the power. Touch Henry." So Ms. Electra touches Henry's face and he is suddenly healed.
Ms. Electra also develops super-hearing (her father narrates, "She found herself suddenly able to hear at great distances, especially the sounds of evil"). She hears gunshots so she runs toward the sound and sees Cole, Mr. Bagley, and some of their idiot cohorts shooting at random trees. They mistakenly shoot Ms. Electra in the arm. She attempts to defend herself but, in a scene that might be described as confusing, Nora shoots Ms. Electra, apparently killing her, and then Cole shoots Nora, apparently killing her. Mr. Bagley attempts to cut off her magic amulet, but it is indestructible.
At night, Ms. Electra stirs as her narrator father narrates, “By the laws of the crescent, McKenna had to die to become fully alive. And so that night she surrendered her mortal skin and accepted the powers of the raven. The power of acute taste, smell, and vision. The power to change her shape and form. The power of perfect strength and grace. And finally, the power to transform time and space.” (Now, I am no ornithologist, but I must confess I was surprised that ravens have such incredible superpowers.)
Also, Nora was brought back to life by the magic amulet, but Ms. Electra is unaware of this fact. We learn Nora becomes a wolf instead of a raven, though we are not told what the wolf’s powers are, only that it is evil.
Nora, being evil, hitchhikes along a side road until she is picked up by The Route 33 Serial Killer, reintroduced into the film at the 49-minute mark. When they check into a sleazy motel, Nora takes a shower while The Route 33 Serial Killer sharpens a tiny scalpel with another tiny scalpel.
When he attacks her in the shower, however, Nora attacks him with her evil wolf powers and he screams.
The filmmakers then cleverly intercut a montage of the bloody killer’s body with Ms. Electra’s blanket-covered breasts accepting their new raven powers.
Also, Nora takes over The Route 33 Serial Killer’s lair and torture equipment so she can lure men to become her victims.
And, elsewhere, Ms. Electra finally reveals her costume as Raven, a perhaps inappropriate white bodysuit.
After accessorizing her costume with some sharp metal bracelets, Ms. Electra begins her crime fighting journey by attacking two lowlifes robbing a man in the middle of a ghost town.
When Ms. Electra returns home to find Henry suspicious about her new white clothes, for some reason, she, in an apparent attempt to distract him, pours milk over herself and has milk-fueled sex with him.
Eventually, we learn through another montage that the villainous Cole is dead, presumably killed in jail by Nora. Cole’s henchman, Tim Bagley and another man, hire a prostitute, then start accusing each other of homosexual tendencies while the prostitute is knocked unconscious by Nora, who appears to them in her costumed evil wolf form.
Mr. Bagley hides in a suggestively shaped cave while his partner is killed by Nora. She confronts Mr. Bagley and he stammers, “Don’t kill me! I’m gonna not do bad things anymore!”
Ms. Electra uses her raven powers to smell an old blanket and see where the prostitute is lying unconscious in the woods. She and Henry rescue her while Nora breaks into Ms. Electra’s house and starts knocking things off tables.
When Ms. Electra finds out her house was mildly vandalized, she realizes she needs to undergo the ritual that will finally transform her into a superhero: being tied up for nine hours and surviving a harsh night. Oddly, she does not undergo the full ceremony, asking her father to cut her free before it is over.
Surprisingly quickly, the final confrontation between Ms. Electra and Nora occurs in the ghost town saloon.
Ms. Electra introduces herself with the immortal catch-phrase, “Hello, scumbags.” Nora shoots Henry and then holds a knife to Ms. Electra’s throat.
Sensibly, Ms. Electra uses her power to transform time and space, which results in teleporting her and Nora to an empty warehouse. They have a quick fight. At the end, Ms. Electra holds the knife to Nora’s throat.
“Come into the light,” Ms. Electra says, “or your soul will be damned forever.”
“I will live in darkness,” Nora replies. She pushes her throat into the knife, forcing Ms. Electra to kill her.
In the denouement, Ms. Electra and Henry get in their car and drive away from his trailer. “Have you thought about a costume yet?” she asks him, implying he will be her sidekick.
“Why yes I have,” he jokes. “Got any milk?”
The narrator narrates, “McKenna had been transformed by the fires of battle and brought great honor to my people with her bravery. As bearer of the crescent, her powers would continue to grow, and it pleases me to say she has decided remain in the valley, sharpening her skills as she waits for evil’s darkness to return. I do not think she will have to wait for very long.”
The End
While some inexperienced cineastes might think that a cynical, erotic version of The Crow (1994) with Carmen Electra as the lead is a bad idea, such provincial ideas are immediately shattered by the existence of The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven as one of the finest erotic superhero movies ever made. Who would have thought director Lawrence Lanoff, known primarily for his direct-to-video documentaries of Playboy photo shoots and an occasional erotic thriller, could have created a superhero film as action-packed and cynical as any Marvel movie, but with the added spice of Carmen Electra and her body double performing various erotic dances and sex scenes? Add Tim Bagley to the mix and you have what can only be described as a classic of the superhero genre. My only quibble is that the actors playing the heroic Henry and the villainous Cole look exactly the same (with varying degrees of stubble that change throughout the film), but this resemblance is not incorporated into the plot. Perhaps in the inevitable sequel this will be paid off, though Cole was unceremoniously killed via montage in the middle of The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven. (And of course dead characters can never be revived, especially in the superhero genre.) In any case, cineastes have the near-perfect The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven to view over and over again, if they are so inclined.