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VIVA films "
Darna Ang Pagbabalik" June 9 1994
(
Darna The Return)
Gallaga’s Darna: Ang Pagbabalik (1994) was technically polished and Anjanette Abayari
looked sensational in the revealing Darna costume; yet as a Darna movie (and a Gallaga film), it wasn’t memorable.
A new red bird is back! Beauty queen turned actress Anjanette
Abayari as Darna.
Fearless Anjanette essayed the role of Darna
almost perfectly, without using a stunt double. For the fourth time aging reptilian, Valentina returns with Valentine
and Magnum, her kids. Their mission is to get Narda's magical stone so Valentina can have her youth back. Her son
made Narda fall in love with him so they can easily get what they want.
A volcanic eruption in the country side forces
a number of families to abandon their homes in Talisay and seek refuge in Manila. Young country girl Narda leads
a secret double life as the crime figthing Darna and can trasforms back and forth between this two personas by
yelling out either "Narda" or "Darna". While trying to find her grandmother and little brother Ding, Narda is
viciously struck upside the head and her magical stone that furnishes her power is stolen. The culprit is Valentine
Adan, a tele evangelist who claims that only she can protect the city from an advancing lahar ( volcanic mud flow)
and will save those who have pledge their undying devotion to her. Valentine dark intentions becomes more and more aparent
and Narda discovers that the woman is actually the daughter of Valentina, Darna's arch enemy. Ding is able to
recover the magical stone allowing his sister to transform back into Darna and in the ensuing chaos, the aged Valentina is
injured and reveals her true form. Like her mother Valentine is actually a gorgon concealing the snakes on her head
beneath a bathing cap like hat ( turban) before the inevitable face off with Valentine, Darna gains a new ally when she helps
police liutenant Max Ablan ( Edu Manzano) foil a bank robber and later, a kidnapping perpetrated mob boss Magnum (Bong Alvarez).
The crime lord manages to escape in both instances, and is actually playing a key role in Valentines plans. She also
has another clandestine operative, who is charged with making sure that Darna is helpless to protect Manila
from the rapidly approaching lahar.
The movie showed some improvements in
special effects. I am trying to be fair about giving my comments but, Peque Gallaga and his co-director used numerous
slow motions that I thought is not relevant in some scenes. The flying scenes are accomplished with atrocious
blue screen rear projection and cel animation, while the bladder and morphing FX utilized for the monsters are equally
quaint. Althought it occationally delivers the serial-style thrills one expects from this genre, the
screenplay is episodic and the proceeding are too slacky paced. They should also have revised the storyline
like how Narda lost her memory and acted silly in almost half of the movie. It was a waste of time and negatives.
I almost fell asleep waiting for Darna to show up again.
Cherrie Gil was great as Valentine.
The only problem is her snake wig looks so fake they were not moving at all. And what's up with Valentine's
allies? Why do they keep leaving their necklaces at the scene of the crime? It was not explained in the movie.
If Valentine only wants Narda's magical stone she could had easily killed her when she had the chance.
In the early part of the movie one of Valentine's followers hit Narda on the head that caused her memory loss and
stole the magical stone. And when Valentine's car accidentally hit Narda and they came face to face, why didn't she
recognize her? These are just some of the loop holes of the movie that I thought would have been easily spotted.
I know that our local film makers can make such a great version of the next Darna, they just have to review the script
carefully and give her more fight scenes and powerful enemies. And stop making Darna deflecting bullets because
she is not vulnurable to any man made weapons. There also was a scene where Valentine hit Darna with a TV antenna
and actually made her bleed. It does not make sense at all. Darna The Return, showed potential on making decent
special effects. And one more thing - STOP changing Darna's costume we almost didn't recognized
her.
DARNA THE RETURN! DVD - the case says"16.9" but dont believe it. My
way has taken a cropped full screen tranfer and vertically compressed it down to 1.75:1! sure, the image now fills a
16:9 set but everyone is four feet tall and a foot wide! if you have a 4:3 monitor, setting your DVD player to 16:9 will return
the image to to its proper full screen dimensions or, if your machine has X-Y scaling, you can use that to fix things.
My way is HK's worst video label and the presentation looks far from stellar. The image is hazy, with weak contrast
and light blacks, and master tape damage can be seen on occasion. The Tagalog track is quite flat and becomes
horribly distorted for several minutes, and Mandarin dub ( the default language) was prepared without the original music and
FX tracks. Thus, different music is heard ( including cues from the original A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) whenever any
of the character's speak in this version. The English sub titles are out of sync and constantly blend characters
line together, while the original opening credits have been omitted and replaced with a chinese-only video equivalent over
a blank screen. Fortunately, the disc has a low list of price, so those interested in trying DARNA film may wish
to proceed.
One of the finest actresses in local cinema Cherrie Gil as Valentine.
Asia's Queen of songs Pilita Corales as the aging Valentina.
Viva's DARNA ang
Pagbabalik! Movie soundtrack.
Darna- Anjanette Abayari makes a cameo appearance in the movie "Pedro Penduko"
starring Janno Gibbs.
Mars Ravelo's Darna 2000 - 2002. All Rights Reserved.
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