Mazes and Monsters (1982)

"The most frightening monsters are the ones that exist in our minds."

My sincerest apologies for not having updated sooner. Between work, vacation, visiting family, and illness, we've had a VERY eventful couple of weeks around here. It's going to get a fair bit of catching up to get the Hanksing back on track, so here goes.

This one actually threw me for a loop. The year was 1982, and Hanx was fresh off wrapping the second and final season of his breakout TV sitcom, Bosom Buddies, in which he portrayed a man constantly forced to cross-dress in order to live in apartment designated solely for women. Add to this that while his previous film role in a slasher pic wasn't exactly slapstick, his character had a pretty jovial and easygoing nature, and I suppose I figured that with Mazes and Monsters, we were in for a buoyant comedy-adventure, perhaps a college-age reimagining (or pre-imagining, as it were) of The Goonies. Everything, right down to Hanks' impish grin on the movie's poster, seemed to promise a lighthearted romp.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when the film opens on the streets of New York City with the ominous sounding of a police siren and reports of a possible death following a session of the eponymous game, followed shortly by a weepy Anne Murray-esque ballad. Huh.

The setting of this confused plot is an idyllic college campus; its heroes are a quartet of college students drawn together by their enthusiasm for the roleplaying game Mazes and Monsters. Jay Jay is a boy genius with a staggering collection of bizarre hats. Kate is a budding novelist who's way prettier than any gamer girl I've ever personally seen. Daniel is a video game enthusiast with a reputation as a ladies' man who longs for a serious relationship.

As the film progresses, we get the impression that each of the quartet indulges in Mazes and Monsters as an escape from their unbearable reality, because this is a made-for-TV movie, and having normal families and playing a game just because it's a lot of fun is for the sort of drivel that passes for cinema on the big screen. There are contradictory moments when we're left scratching our heads. For instance, Robbie's mother is portrayed as an alcoholic by Robbie's ranting father, a point further reinforced in a later scene when she has a telephone conversation while holding a wine glass. The only problem is that she never exhibits the slightest hint of inebriation. Then there are points that are forcefully beaten into our heads, such as the conversation between Daniel and Kate that fully details Robbie's descent into madness and his inability to separate reality from the game as a result of pining away for his missing brother who ran away from home some years earlier. 

The pacing and the dialogue do an awkward, halting dance where the tempo keeps changing. There are times when it's part soap opera, part dinner theatre, and the last half hour seems to go by at an interminable crawl. It's a rather bizarre patchwork that doesn't feel terribly cohesive, and the ending leaves more questions than answers, but if anyone, anyone could make this whole thing bearable, it's Hanx. As impossible as it seems, you believe him unquestioningly even as he follows a plotline that rarely makes much sense. Hindsight may well be 20/20, but I think it was evident even at this point that this young upstart was destined for some very impressive things.

I had a friend once who I always thought of as a particularly silver-tongued fellow, but even he had his missteps. Whenever he told a joke that fell awkwardly flat, he'd shrug his shoulders, adopt a winning smirk, and say, "Well, they can't all be gold." Getting another view of Hanks' cheeky smile (a facial expression he never once displays in the course of the film, for the record), I have to think that he was fully aware that this one wasn't going to break any records, but he was completely okay with it, because somehow he just knew he was bound for some impressive things. Or, you know, maybe the photographer just said, "Hey Tom, smile like you've got a really big secret." I dunno. 

At any rate, I've decided I'm going to start a ranking system. As the Year of Hanks progresses, I'm going to sort each film into a numbered list from best to worst based on nothing more than my own personal preference. Here's what we've got so far:

1. He Knows You're Alone (yes, I preferred the awful slasher fic)
2. Mazes and Monsters