“Your mind and your will belong to me… forever!”

Justin’s rating: P-U-M-A! That’s how you spell “two wasted hours!”

Justin’s review: Origin stories. If you’re tossing a new superhero onto the scene, you’re legally obligated to provide one, otherwise audiences’ heads might explode due to over-suspending disbelief that a man has the powers of a spider and the responsibility of a dead uncle. So the filmmakers whip up an origin story to function as a bridge between normalcy and accepting that a rich dude terrorizes gangs while dressed as a giant bat.

The Italian superhero hit of 1980, The Pumaman, does provide an origin story, don’t you fear. It’s just that it ends up being sillier by far than the hero it’s trying to explain. So there’s this Aztec dude who’s going around London randomly throwing people out of windows to their death. Serial killer? Nay, he’s merely a holy priest trying to find his people’s natural protector via the process of extreme elimination. He eventually tosses out a guy who lands on his feet instead of his brain stem, pronouncing this candidate the true Pumaman of old.

You see, the Pumaman is an inherited position that originated when a happy Death Star came to Earth and tagged a human as a future superhero. “You’re it!” the aliens said, quickly zipping away because this was only a college fraternity prank. But we did not know that, and so for millennia to come, the sacred line of Pumapeople continued.

Our superhero-in-training is Tony, a paleontologist (sure, why not) who is light on his feet like a cat, can see in a dark like a cat, can rip through steel like a cat, can fly like a cat, and can sense bad emotional juju like Star Trek’s Counselor Troi. He’s also given a belt that, when worn, makes him look like a D-list cosplayer at a Mexican comic convention and picks up the ability to walk on the astral plane. You know, like a cat.

He’ll need every one of these advantages to defeat his foe, a sweaty Donald Pleasance who’s been stuffed into a latex outfit that does the middle-aged man no favors. Pleasance is in possession of a special mask — also bestowed by the alien pranksters — that lets him control people’s minds as long as he has mannequin head lookalikes on his shelf. It’s never really explained how this works other than it’s the dorkiest super-weapon ever portrayed on film. And he’s going to use it, too, to control the world’s bigwigs. This is the sort of thing that Lex Luthor might do in that old Superfriends cartoon, so are we surprised that he’s easily thwarted by a guy in a half-cape and a puma medallion?

This epic struggle takes us repeatedly to the same ugly warehouse and the same garish mansion. Pumaman receives on-the-job training with his native sidekick, who teaches him to astral project and, er, commit suicide. It’s a rough first week on the job, but he’s determined to acquit himself by stealing that mask for himself.

Listen, absolutely nobody in the world is going to argue that this funk-soaked piece of low-budget superhero storytelling is good. Donald Pleasance went on record by saying that this was the worst thing he’s ever been in, and I can see why. Lame mind control sequences scream “we have no money for any real F/X,” the music sounds like a ’70s technocolor fever dream, and our hero lacks motivation or a backbone.

But The Pumaman is that special kind of bad superhero movie where its weak points are entertaining enough to keep you watching. I’ve seen much worse in this genre. At least here the editing is pretty straight-forward, the powers consistent (if goofy), and the fight scenes full of double-fisted fun. I can see why it became a MST3K favorite, as you do want to mock it… but with grudging affection.

Intermission!

• The Aztecs built the first Death Star
• Donald Pleasance cannot pull off a black leather ensemble
• Lots of Americans being thrown out of windows in London, apparently
• You shouldn’t exercise while working at a museum
• Bone stealer! Bone stealer!
• Thrown out of a window? That’s only the start of your problems!
• “Is that a proposition?” ick
• He literally sees red
• “You see in the dark. You fall like a cat. You are the Pumaman!”
• Dinosaurs became extinct because they stopped loving each other
• FOREHEAD SMACKING!
• Utterly believable flying effects
• Oh this delightful soundtrack of whimsy!
• “How one sleeps does not matter. How one wakes up is important.”
• Yeah just become one with the cosmos now. Shouldn’t be that hard.
• “You cannot escape me – you can no longer jump into space! Because you are made of earth! And to earth, you shall return!”
• Pumaman resorts to suicide really quickly when he loses his powers
• Bug on the face! That must’ve been a fun shooting day.
• About time someone threw dynamite around
• Forget everything you know about geography, Stonehenge overlooks the ocean