The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven (1998)

Mourning Becomes Carmen Electra

The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven (1998)
Directed by Lawrence Lanoff
Written by Sam Rappaport and Khara Bromiley

This movie is a veritable melting pot of plagiarism—from the title, which sounds like a rare collaboration between Chaim Potok and Edgar Allen Poe, to the star, Carmen Electra, who sounds like a Bizet opera based on a Eugene O’Neill play. Get ready to spend the next 87 minutes of your life squinting into a Déjà Vu-Master.

This rip-off of The Crow starts with a rip-off of Star Wars, as a block of scrolling text entitled “Episode One: Renewed Hope” informs us that “Good” (embodied by big-breasted women with pubic hair sculpted like topiary) will do battle with “Evil” (represented by the laws against copyright infringement).

Playboy Playmate Shauna Sand digs up an ancient tribal talisman that will endow her with superhuman powers. True to the legend, the necklace grants Shauna the highly photogenic ability to counter-rotate her breasts while running; but before she can use her new power to fight crime, she’s killed by an evil redneck named Cole.

Shauna’s death forces her estranged sister Carmen Electra to return to their ancestral home, Knott’s Berry Farm. She immediately picks a fight with her wizened Native American dad, Popi, and is reunited with her true love, a Sheriff’s Deputy who makes Barney Fife look like Buford Pusser.

Popi presents Carmen with the super-powered tribal necklace. Shauna’s ghost appears, dressed in gravity-defying post-mortem lingerie from the Victoria’s Sepulchre collection, and announces that Carmen has been chosen to combat evil.

Her first act as a mystical, crime-fighting superheroine is to wash the dishes with her tongue. But this is only the beginning of her metamorphosis. The necklace has endowed Carmen with the power to make her hair really poofy, which she uses to lure Barney into a sex scene with her body double.

Meanwhile, Cole, the redneck who killed Shauna is holed up in a shack with two other mentally challenged crackers. They’ve got a big ol’ still and, like most gun-toting hillbillies, are using it to make Windex. Hopped up on cleaning fluid, Cole takes a personal inventory and resolves to reconcile with his former lover Nora, the current trailer mate of Deputy Fife. When Barney objects, Nora beats him up and leaves him bleeding and dazed on the ground. Then Cole urinates on him, which excites Nora so much that she and Cole have implied sex in a pickup truck.

They dump Barney in Carmen’s yard, after first taking him to the face-painting booth at the Iowa State Fair and getting him airbrushed like a raccoon. Shauna, the Victoria’s Shroud model, shows up to remind Carmen that “you have the power,” which inspires Carmen to wave her hands and make Barney’s face paint disappear. So apparently the talisman has also endowed her with the power of cold cream.

Popi starts doing voiceovers, and informs us that Carmen’s “powers were growing faster than her understanding.” But then, so were her toenails.

Meanwhile, the Windex bootleggers are shooting trees, when Carmen suddenly shows up and takes a bullet in the arm (thereby demonstrating her power to attract gunfire).

She runs away, and the rednecks chase her into a night scene as Carmen reveals her awesome power of Bad Continuity. The Chosen One flails ineffectually at her tormentors with a shovel until they shoot her, thereby demonstrating her power to die stupidly. Then Cole shoots and kills Nora, because he’s too embarrassed to break up with her again.

Later that night, the two women are raised from the dead by the power of Carmen’s accessories. Nora has turned into The Wolf, a creature whose evil lupine nature is betrayed by her predatory bloodlust, and her tendency to curl up on the rug and lick her own genitals.

Finally, Carmen dons her superheroine costume: a silver lamé jumpsuit with see-through knee-high boots. Her ensemble is topped off by a stainless steel catcher’s mask with vertical blades that curve far enough past her chin that the first time she looks down, she’ll give herself a tracheotomy. This creates an almost unbearable air of tension, as the viewer waits for Carmen’s enemies to shout, “Hey, your shoe’s untied!”

The Wolf arrives in her costume (which, in keeping with the plot, is assembled from other peoples’ cast-offs: Elvira’s dress, Audrey Hepburn’s cocktail gloves from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Clayton Moore’s Lone Ranger mask).

Carmen begins the explosive climax by walking into a western saloon and uttering her now-famous battle cry, “Hello, Scumbag!” This inspires The Wolf to promptly kick her ass. Fortunately, Barney arrives in the nick of time, to save her. Bursting through the door, he pumps his shotgun, and declares, “It’s over!” Then somebody shoots him and he falls down.

Popi pops back up to tell us that Carmen must now call upon “her most formidable power—the power to transform time and space.” She uses it to transport herself and her nemesis to the set of a Warrant video, where the two of them have a fierce nipple-jutting contest. (Carmen wins by a millimeter.)

Carmen is now The Raven, The Chosen One, and asks Deputy Fife to join her in her crusade against evil. As they drive into the sunset, they consider new sidekick names for him. Pigeon Boy, perhaps? Maybe The Bleeder. How about Easily Maimed Man...?

So, The Chosen One: Legend of the Raven. A perfect example of the old story formula: “Boy meets girl; Girl fights girl; Boy whimpers in the corner.”

As this movie demonstrates, ancient sexist stereotypes are no longer appropriate in today’s modern world. It’s now acceptable for the woman to get into drunken bar fights with lowlife lingerie models, while it’s fine for the man to break his heel and fall down. However, it’s not acceptable for him to borrow your new dress without asking, since he’ll inevitably bleed on it, smear face paint on it, or get urinated on while wearing it. Now, here are a few more tips on how you can cast off the chains of traditional romance and turn your relationship into a progressive 21st-century union of equals:

Decide on a gender-neutral term to use when referring to each other. Good examples include “life partner” and “significant other.” Also, to assist in pair bonding, come up with gender-neutral superhero names for each other. For your dynamic duo, avoid sexist appellations like “Batman” and “Catwoman,” or “Boob Babe” and “Power Penis.” Instead, follow our movie role models and choose more enlightened titles like “The Raven” and “The Lemming”; or “The Falcon” and “The Snowperson.” Or how about “Consumer Advocate” and “Director of Homeland Security”? (Although “Thigh Master” and “Buns of Steel” are sexier, while being equally non-sexist.)

Don’t try to make your partner conform to traditional gender roles. Men should be able to cry when they feel sad, giggle when they’re feeling silly, and pout after they get beat up by the Wal-Mart greeter. And women should feel free to act assertively, use strong language like “scumbag,” and get into knockdown, drag-out fights while wearing skimpy outfits that make their breasts poke out.

Take turns paying for things like meals, movies, and imposter Windex. And whoever uses the last of the Aqua Net should buy some more.

Make sure any sexual acts are performed only with the explicit consent of both partners. Cole should have asked Barney if it was okay before he urinated on him.

We hope this discussion has helped you think of ways to increase the equality of your own relationship, and has convinced you to never make another movie starring a Baywatch chick.