Barkey J. Dog Reviews 1996’s The Phantom!

Friends, it has sadly been a couple of months since we last shared one of Barkey J. Dog’s reviews – but I believe we have a video today that makes up for it – as he tackles 1996’s The Phantom. A movie as well as pop culture icon that I am extremely fond of – having managed to talk about “The Ghost Who Walks” on this site once or twice myself. As you will see for yourself though – the esteemed Barkey J. Dog puts the 1996 film adaptation of The Phantom in a special category of ’90s films. A holy trinity as he puts it – of movies that were released back in that era that were quite enjoyable but somehow received a really bad rap. I have sneaking suspicion that I can guess what those two other films are that he hints at in this particular review – but we will just have to wait until he covers them on future videos to find out for sure.

Much like Barkey J. Dog, I too have long been confused by the fact that The Phantom failed to find it’s intended audience when originally released on June 7th of ’96. The film itself manages to capture the pulp origins of the character and as is pointed out in the review itself – it is just a ton of fun. A throwback to the action serials – The Phantom benefits from a cast featuring Bill Zane (Demon Knight), Kristy Swanson (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Treat Williams (Deep Rising), Catherine Zeta-Jones (The Mask of Zorro), and James Remar (The Warriors).

At some point I will have to discuss the film adaptation of The Phantom on an episode of the Pop Culture Retrorama podcast – until then however – enjoy this review of the movie by Barkey J. Dog!