you can’t beat the human spirit
"From Dan Dare to James Tiberius Kirk, Flash Gordon's DNA is shot through our notions of what a hero - and superhero - is like a jagged bolt of lightning," writes Adam Smith in Empire . Director Mike Hodges describes the role of Flash as "an all-American hunk, decent, honourable, but, most importantly, naive ." And, taking this film version, energetic and fun, and hardly capable of, let alone prone to, bouts of negativity. A nice birthplace for the 80s action hero, really. For example, Rambo had his angsty origins, but was all action and getting things done in the 80s. Not every 80s hero was angst-proof; Martin Riggs , for example, was essentially suicidal. But most were almost gleefully violent (and so, really, was Riggs, just for different reasons). Compare even Riggs to say, Paul Kersey from the Death Wish films, begun in 1974; or Harry Callahan, whose films began in 1971. Seventies violence may have been just as outlandish as the best moments of, say, Com...