My Super Ex-Girlfriend 2006

After watching Megamind the other day, I considered moving on to some more animated movies again, but I finally decided on a movie that’s been sitting in my collection for a couple months ever since I picked it up for two bucks at the used DVD store on clearance. I’ve been vaguely dreading the day I actually sat down to watch it because even from the trailers, I knew it was not my type of comedy, and boy was I ever right. Through the entire movie, there was only one moment where I wasn’t laughing at a joke because of how ridiculously stupid I thought it was. It also doesn’t help the movie that none of the characters are likable except for Anna Faris, and I don’t even remember her characters name, or any character’s names except for Jenny aka G-Girl played by Uma Thurman and Barry aka Bedlam played by Eddie Izzard. Which is why I will generally refer to the actors rather than the characters, because honestly they felt more like it was just the actors. The one saving grace, if you could call it that, is that it does feature a female superhero, which is quite rare in Hollywood. But it continues the trend set by all the other movies led by a female superhero by being a bad movie.

The movie starts out by establishing that Luke Wilson seems to have a penchant for attracting crazy chicks. And we know that because his male chauvinist friend Rainn Wilson tells us. He’s supposedly a nice enough guy and he hits on mousy Uma Thurman in a brunette wig and a generally disheveled make-under at the urging of Rainn. She initially rejects him, but conveniently a mugger runs by and steals her purse so Luke can chase him down. He gets the purse, but ends up hiding in the dumpster to be unknowingly saved by Jenny, thus beginning the relationship. The relationship consists of a couple of dates featuring a version of a neurotic girlfriend that’s somewhere between funny, creepy, and annoying. In my mind, it comes much closer to annoying, yet somehow we’re supposed to believe that Luke keeps dating her under the consistently bad advice from his friend Rainn. It doesn’t take long before Jenny trusts Luke enough to show him her secret, that she is actually the superhero G Girl, and not just wearing a G Girl costume. Which doesn’t really make any sense that there would be a “G Girl” costume, she wears something different in every scene, and the only constant is the letter “G”.

The one thing that I do give the movie a little bit of credit for, is that it tries to play with the typical hero and villain roles. G Girl is set up to be the hero because she saves the city, catches some robbers, and whatever else. But the movie paints her in a bad light at every point possible. Besides being comically needy, it’s noted that she uses her role as a superhero for financial gain, and while it’s not clear exactly how that happens, the implication I got was that she was possibly doing something illegal on the side. And once she’s dumped, she uses her powers for extremely vindictive reasons, like ruining Luke’s business presentation, throwing his car into space, and hurling a shark at him and Anna Faris. Bedlam on the other hand, is painted in a very sympathetic light. He has a couple goons for henchmen, and we’re told that he’s a supervillain, but we never see him do anything remotely villainous. And especially in the origin story flashback, he comes off as the victim.

The biggest problem I have is that there are no likable characters in this movie besides Anna Faris who’s role is entirely to play the “perfect woman”. Luke Wilson is a bit of a jerk, dating Jenny essentially for the sex, and constantly listening to the advice of his pig of a friend. Rainn spends the entirety of the movie hitting on anything with legs, and making sexist remarks, and yet he supposedly ends up with the bartender that he’s been bothering the entire movie. I couldn’t even like Wanda Sykes as the boss who’s constantly trying to get Luke fired for sexual harassment towards Anna Faris. Jenny slash G Girl is unlikable from almost the very beginning, and we’re supposed to go with it, I guess, because it’s supposed to be funny. Which it’s not. Even the sex jokes were ridiculous. During the first “sex scene” with Jenny and Luke, she moves the entire bed so much it cracks the wall. But it’s done in a very slow, wide, sweeping motion, which doesn’t even make any sense as to why that would be any form of “super” sex. The one line that did make me laugh was when she said at the end “I’m sorry, I’ll get you a new one.” and Luke replies “A bed or a penis?”

Another thing that bothered me throughout the movie was the chauvinistic nature of many of the jokes. When G Girl originally gains her powers as a teenager, her brown hair turns blonde, her braces fly off, and her breasts get bigger. None of that is funny, it just felt sexist to me. And at the end of the movie when “spoiler” Anna Faris gains G Girl’s powers as well, her hair turns from blonde to red. And not even a good red, more of a faded blondish red. I suppose it’s a matter of the filmmaker’s tastes that redheads are sexier than blondes, but it just irked me. And all of the relationships in the movie felt unnatural, and not in any way that made me laugh. It just completely rubbed me the wrong way throughout the entire movie. What little special effects there were in the movie were also quite unimpressive. I wouldn’t recommend seeing this movie at all, unless you find psycho ex-girlfriends funny. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.