Superhero Movie

“Superhero Movie” has not chosen a genre so much as a sub-genre, this one being superhero films. Our protagonist is Rick Riker (Drake Bell), a dorky high school kid who lives with his aunt and uncle (Leslie Nielsen & Marion Ross), has the hots for the hottest girl in school, Jill Johnson (Sara Paxton) and is being pursued by a scientist who is sucking the life out of people to prolong his own, Lou Landers (Christopher McDonald). After a class field trip to a research lab, Rick is bitten by a radioactive dragonfly and begins to notice he has unusual super powers, which he eventually masters and starts using for good. Memorable side characters include Brent Spiner as Dr. Strom, Tracy Morgan as Professor Xavier, Jeffrey Tambor as an E.R. doctor with a strange way of delivering bad news and Robert Hays as Rick’s father. The film is filled with well-known character actors and well-known comedic actors, some turning out to be more successful than others. Some fall completely flat, like Robert Joy as Stephen Hawking, a joke which seems both offensive, unnecessary and tasteless in the extreme. The ending of the film is all about good versus evil, Rick Riker versus Lou Landers. In many ways, the ending feels like an actual ending rather than the parody of an actual ending.

You have to trust your audience and “Superhero Movie” does not. You have to give you audience credit for being able to tell when something is funny and something is not. “Airplane!” did that and so did the best of the Zucker Brothers films. You create a joke or situation and then you hit the audience with the punchline and cause them to laugh well into the next joke or situation. What “Superhero Movie” does is create the joke and then cut to a reaction shot from one of the different characters, that way the audience knows it’s supposed to be absurd or funny. It’s like the film does not trust the audience to figure things out for themselves. In addition, the film seems forced. It feels as if the production was on this deadline and some of the scenes feel like they are not complete, like they are shots the cinematographer forgot to get.

            Oddly enough, however, the visual effects in the film are not that bad – far better than we’re used to seeing in spoofs of this nature. Many of the prop gags work also, as when Professor Xavier’s wife (Regina Hall) lifts up a little boy in a wheelchair. Or, as when a small snail slowly makes its way to make some ‘snail business’. As mentioned before, the film has some genuine laugh out loud moments. They also manage to work a classic fart joke into the picture and not make it so disgusting that you can’t stand it. “Superhero Movie”It doesn’t rely on toilet humor alone to elicit laughs. You can always count on a film like this to let the words find the humor more so than the sight gags. “Superhero Movie” was disappointing, but with some humorous moments.