Avengers of Justice: Farce Wars 2019

I saw this movie a couple weeks ago at Wal-Mart. It had all the makings of a bad superhero parody movie. The cover had a bunch of the characters including a low rent Joker and wrestler Shawn Michaels painted green with some bad ears to make an ugly looking Yoda knock-off. And just a few days ago I was graced with a $3 credit for Vudu. It just so happened that this movie is available to rent on Vudu for a mere $3.99 so I decided to take to Twitter and ask my followers if I should spend the dollar to rent and review this movie. But I also attracted the attention of one of the screenwriters who offered a joke answer and when I checked out his Twitter profile, I noticed that he had a great sense of humor about this obviously bad parody film and despite his warnings, I decided to rent and watch it. Was it pretty much exactly what I expected? Yes. Did I have at least some fun with it? Yes, but only just.

If you couldn’t tell by the title of this movie, it’s more or less a mash up parody of Marvel, DC, with a little bit of Star Wars thrown in for good measure. And what that actually entails is that every character in this film has a name that’s a mash up of either two or more known characters or is just a single character turned into a joke. Like the main character SuperBat who goes by his secret identity Bruce Kent. He’s married to his wife Jean Wonder and is being plagued by the Dark Jokester and Lisp Luthor who are being instructed from afar by Emperor Purple Guy. There’s also Beaverine who’s just Wolverine with beaver jokes thrown in and Lando Fury with a few other random joke heroes that play small parts. There’s mention of the Farce which has a naughty side and a nice side even though there’s no connection to Christmas whatsoever.

One of the biggest problems with this movie is that it spends too much time focusing on the mediocre plot rather than trying to be funny. They start off with a slightly Incredibles-ish beginning only instead of superheroes being outlawed, Jean Wonder and Superbat lost their powers, Jean Wonder completely and Superbat mostly, along with his incredible wealth. Although breaking with Incredibles and falling more in line with Up, Up, and Away they have two children: Reya who has telekinesis and Invisible Woman slash Violet style protective orbs while their son Lucas has no super powers although he does have a bit of genius level intellect as evidenced by his robot Creepio. Dark Jokester is sent by Emperor Purple Guy and teams up with Lisp Luthor to kidnap Lucas, turn him evil, something something something, rule the world.

Besides the story and humor, there’s also the overall production value. And this falls along the lines of the lower budget movies with a touch of special effects that wouldn’t be out of line in an Asylum feature. The costumes and overall look of the film is pretty cheap and poor, with none of the costumes looking like much more than a Halloween store knock off and just a few moments of CGI that feel very out of place. The movie even starts in outer space for some reason but that never really plays a role in the overall story. The actors also feel like low budget post Scary Movie 5 parody film alums plus Amy Smart who honestly doesn’t have that much higher of a pedigree and isn’t given much to do in the film. The surprising bright spot in this film is wrestler Shawn Michaels as the Incredible Master Yoga. He’s obviously a Yoda knock-off but actually plays it up for its comedic value more than pretty much any other actor in the film and it works more often than not.

There wasn’t much to grasp onto with this film, the story was mostly nonsensical and the humor was barely there outside of an entertaining Master Yoga and an embarrassing Beaverine complete with retractable metal beaver-style teeth. There were a few moments of humor spread throughout the film but they were mostly one note jokes that overstayed their welcome like the other group of Avengers like the furry Thorbacca and the hispanic El Capitan South America. Even Ironing Man Tony Starch’s brief appearance and accidental death couldn’t help this film out very much. It either needed a more well thought out story, or at least three times as many jokes to help the entertainment value. As it is, it was a bit of a slog except for the few brief minutes when Master Yoga was on screen. And even then, he had to share some of his screen time with Beaverine. Until next time, this has been Bubbawheat for Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights.