Condorman (1981)

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Condorman has a reputation for being one of the least-known as well as one of the worst films ever made by Disney! I knew the day would eventually come when I would have to see for myself if I agree with the consensus. Unfortunately, that day is now! Without further ado, here’s my review of Disney’s Condorman!

And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!

Directed by Charles Jarrott, the film begins with an animated version of our main character as the opening credits play against scenes of France.

The first 7-ish minutes are incredibly exposition-heavy and feel forced, but quickly lay down the plot for us. Our main character is is comic book artist, Woody Wilkins, played by Michael Crawford. His big comic book superhero creation is Condorman, a superhero whom we don’t ever really learn much more about other than he flies with wings like a condor. Woody wants Condorman to be realistic, so he doesn’t make Condorman do anything that he himself hasn’t tried and proved possible to do in real life. This is why he’s testing out a winged costume he invented by jumping off the Eiffel Tower, which doesn’t go as well as planned.

He’s in Paris with his friend and apparent roommate, Harry, played by James Hampton, who works for the CIA. No, he’s not a spy; he’s only a file clerk. (Hey, someone’s gotta be the file clerk!) Harry supports his friend’s experiments, but is always trying to make him see reason and bail him out of trouble when necessary.

One day, Harry is asked by his boss, Russ, played by Dana Elcar, to select a civilian for an important papers swap with the KGB in Istanbul. The KGB are the ones who want this to be done with a civilian rather than an actual spy, so Harry comes up with the idea of sending Woody who agrees after some persuasion.

Woody heads to Istanbul where he meets and exchanges the papers with the KGB spy, Natalia, played by Barbara Carrera. Woody is told by Harry to just do his job and not make things complicated, but of course Woody decides to pretend he’s an actual spy known as (what else?) Condorman for no apparent reason whatsoever!

The way you’d expect this sort of situation to play out in a film is that the fake spy would be incredibly bumbling and incompetent resulting in hilarious shenanigans. However, Woody is actually pretty competent as seen when he fights back other agents who attack him. It’s an odd choice to go with and I feel it reduces the comedy that a scene like this could actually evoke.

In the end, the exchange is done and Woody returns home while smitten with Natalia. He even creates a new character for his Condorman comic book known as Laser Lady based off of Natalia!

It turns out the two will eventually meet again as the CIA have become aware that Natalia wants to defect to the US and has specifically asked for “Condorman” to be her escort.

They meet up undercover in Yugoslavia which begins their journey back to the US. It’s riddled with obstacles from the start as Natalia’s boss, Krokov, played by Oliver Reed, is aware of her defecting and sends his goons to recapture her. This leads to Natalia and Woody needing to escape in sometimes interesting ways.

You get your expected car chases and the duo even get locked up in a small Italian jail for trespassing, until they’re rescued by Harry. Long story short, eventually Natalia is recaptured by Krokov and his men. Woody and Harry then go after them to rescue her.

They arrive at Krokov’s residence in Monte Carlo where he’s hosting a party. They disguise themselves as Arabs in a way that I could have sworn that Michael Crawford was actually Peter Sellers!

Woody makes himself known to Natalia and while Harry sets off explosives as a distraction, Woody escapes with Natalia. Thus begins another chase where Woody and Natalia escape via car, boat, and even the Condorman suit from the beginning of the film!  In the end, they escape from Krokov and his men and Natalia arrives in America where she gets to engage in that cherished American pastime, tax evasion baseball!

The film ends with Russ and Harry asking Woody if he would like to go on another assignment to a location that we don’t hear. From Woody’s growing grin on his face, we can assume that his answer is yes. However, from the poor box office earnings and critical reviews of this film, the answer would be no.

And that was Condorman! Yes, it’s quite bad, although I wouldn’t say it’s the absolute worst live-action Disney film that I’ve ever seen! (It’s still pretty bad though.) It started out promising with a premise that could have worked, but devolved into a basically plotless film watching two characters get to America rather boringly. The cut that I watched was even missing 10 minutes and I feel I didn’t miss a single thing!

I know that superhero movies weren’t really a thing at the time other than like Superman and Superman II, but you’d think we’d learn something about the character of Condorman in this film! Instead, Condorman is reduced to a mere alias. Heck, we never really get to learn anything much about any of our main characters!

While the film has some comedy and some thrills, it never goes all-out in either aspect. Again, I feel what prevented this film from being as funny as it could be was by not making Woody a bumbling, incompetent character. And regarding the thrills, while the stunts weren’t bad, the effects felt dated even for the time period. This is ironic because the effects were handled by Colin Chilvers who did the special effects for Superman and Superman II which both had way better special effects than this film!

I didn’t think any of the acting in this film was really that great other than maybe Oliver Reed and possibly James Hampton? And I really can’t stand listening to Michael Crawford’s American accent; it’s so annoying! Not just in this film, but anything that he’s done an American accent in!

I feel that a good remake could make this film work especially nowadays with our obsession with film superheroes! But until then, this film is best forgotten.

So, my final score for this film is 16/35 = 45.71% (F) !

The next review will be posted on May 21, 2024.