Juve contre Fantomas (1913)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
The second film in the series finds Rene Vavarre returning as Fantomas, the master thief who escaped his death sentence and finds himself on the run from Inspector Juve (Edmund Breon) who plans to stop at nothing to bring the man to justice. I had heard that this second entry was a pretty big letdown and that was certainly the case as it really does seem like the filmmakers had forgotten the events of the previous film because there are moments throughout this film where you'd think that they either forgot the previous movie or perhaps another bit was filmed but not shown. The first twenty-minutes of this movie is pretty much a head-scratcher because it really doesn't make since when you look back on the events of the first film. There's a long note that we read that tries to bring us up to date but it does very little. I'm guessing that this note was meant to explain the events that had gone on but they still don't add up very well. Another problem is that the majority of the middle section just features Juve talking about how much he wants to capture his number one case who made a fool out of him. This is fine but it really doesn't add too much entertainment. Feuillade's lack of imagination or style means we really don't get much to look at and the story this time just isn't strong enough to carry us through. Once again Vavarre is good in the role of Fantomas and Breon is good as well. The two actors don't have any problem nor do any of the supporting players. The highlight of the film comes towards the end when Juve is in bed and Fantomas sends a large snake into kill him.
