Blog Archives
Super Heroes The Movie
Super Heroes The Movie 1998
I was in the mood for an ultra low budget cheesy superhero film and there are still quite a few of them available on Amazon Prime. When looking at the trailer for this film apparently it was made in 1998 but the original copy was lost in a fire that destroyed the negatives, and just recently a VHS copy of the film was discovered so the producer made it available on Amazon. It’s probably most notable at this point because Lisa Guerrero plays Wonderful Woman and is now a lead correspondent on Inside Edition. The film overall is a pretty direct parody of Super Friends with all the heroes and villains named just a few letters off of their DC counterparts though for some reason they still call the Wonder Twins the Wonder Twins only changing their individual names to Zana and Jan. The special effects are atrocious, the costumes feel like they were either pulled from a costume shop or cut with felt and scissors. But it was hilariously bad and an absolute treat to watch.
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Thunder Force
Thunder Force 2021
The year is almost halfway through and while most of the 2021 films keep getting pushed back there have been a small handful that have released on streaming services. This one came out just a few weeks ago on Netflix and while it has gotten some pretty poor reviews, it managed to tickle me quite a bit while I was watching it. Unfortunately, those moments of hearty laughs were interspersed with heavy moments of eye rolling so it’s ultimately a mixed bag. There aren’t very many instances of good superhero comedies, there are plenty of good superhero movies with a lot of comedy, but not the other way around. When the superhero element isn’t taken seriously, the entire movie generally suffers. Everyone in the cast plays their parts well, but the action is dull and the comedy is very hit and miss. And since this is still technically a recent release, here is my obligatory spoiler warning as I will be discussing potential plot twists as I see fit.
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Supervized
Supervized 2019
Even though I still have quite a few relatively major movies that I’ve missed out on the majority of the past year, one of the things that I enjoy the most about working on this site is finding these smaller and lower budget superhero and comic book movies. And trying to get back into the reviewing swing of things I didn’t just want to immediately tackle all the bigger releases, I wanted to seek out some of these smaller flicks that I do enjoy watching. This one was on my radar last year though I wasn’t able to get things lined up with a screener or the correct streaming service. But as of this writing it is streaming on Amazon Prime which I do have for the time being so I checked it out. There were actually a surprising number of parallels to Sky High only at the other end of the spectrum as this takes place at an old age home for superheroes rather than a high school for superhero kids. It’s rated R, has several familiar faces, but it still has a low budget feel in terms of the writing and special effects. The comedy is just a notch above fart jokes, the plot gets interesting towards the third act, but it all fizzles out at the end.
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American Rescue Squad
American Rescue Squad 2015
This review was in part decided on via my Patreon where for just $1 a month you can vote each month on what I watch for this site. This is one of the many indie superhero movies made in the past fifteen or so years but this was much more inspired by the political humor of South Park. It even opens with a dedication to Matt and Trey. Unfortunately, they really miss the mark with incredibly obvious metaphors and an oddly conservative overall outlook so this feels much more like heavy handed propaganda rather than subtle political humor.
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Avengers of Justice: Farce Wars
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.
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Inspector Gadget 2
Inspector Gadget 2 2003
This is one of those movies that’s been sitting in my Netflix queue for well over a year and I’ve been waiting to pull the trigger on it because I knew it was going to be pretty bad. But me being me, I was in the mood for a bad movie so I finally watched this one. Now, I was a big fan of the cartoon series when it was on Nickelodeon, but I never watched the first live action movie because I also suspected that it was kids movie trash. And while I did initially have some slight reservations on whether to actually consider this a superhero movie, I figured that there is a direct line from Cyborg to Robocop to Inspector Gadget. The best argument I heard against is that he is typically more of a spy than a superhero crimefighter, but at least in this movie, he’s a straight up cop. With super powers. So I think he’s just barely over the line. As for the actual quality of the movie? It’s straight to DVD Disney sequel trash that never got a laugh out of me and barely resembled the cartoon it was based on.
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SuperLopez
SuperLopez 2018
In topics few people reading this site really care about, I decided to switch from Netflix to Hulu as my streaming site of choice for a while. And as I have just under a month left of Netflix before my membership runs out, I decided it was time to try and watch some of the movies that have been sitting in my queue for months. But instead of that, I watched this film which I had just heard about coming onto Netflix a few days ago. It’s a Spanish superhero parody movie, but it’s actually quite similar to Mystery Men as it’s not just a movie parody of Superman, but the original comic was a comic strip parody of Superman and this is an adaptation of that comic. As for the actual movie itself, it was pretty slow, but it did have a few good laughs mixed in between a lot of nothing.
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Deadpool 2
Deadpool 2 2018
Generally, the two most difficult types of reviews to write for this site are comedies and films that I enjoy. To put it mildly, Deadpool 2 is both of these things. When the first movie came out, it was a surprise hit and quite possibly rejuvenated the R rated superhero movie despite Watchmen’s mild success back in 2008. Deadpool’s comedy was something that hit in just the right way for audiences that were nostalgic for 80’s music but also current internet memes and Ryan Reynolds has the right kind of passion to get the film into the right people’s hands to make it something that does justice to the character that it previously lacked. The sequel ups the ante with a better story, better characters, a bigger budget, and keeps the humor intact for a ride that’s more enjoyable than the first movie as long as the humor hits you in the right way.
The Death of Stalin
The Death of Stalin 2017
Every so often I do a Twitter poll to help me decide what movie I should watch and review next. The poll I ran a couple weeks ago had this film in the lead, but it was checked out of the library last time I went there so it took me longer than I had planned to get around to watching it. For this movie and the next one I’m planning on watching I was able to go in almost completely blind. I only knew three things about this movie before pushing play on my DVD player: the title, that it was a comedy, and it was based on a graphic novel. The comic was written by Fabien Nury and drawn by Thierry Robin and originally published in French under the title La Mort de Staline, it’s loosely based on the real life events that happened during and shortly after Stalin’s death. And the movie itself extends that concept a little bit further by including some satirical comedy to shine a light on the absurdities of the situation despite how dark some of the situations are.
Monkeybone
Monkeybone 2001
While I did put up another poll on Twitter for the movie that I should watch & review next, I haven’t had time to fit in the 3 hour cut of Batman v Superman just yet. So in the meantime, I had a little bit of time the other night and decided to toss on this film which is currently streaming on Netflix. It’s a movie that I had watched many years ago because I’m a fan of weird animation and dark fantasy movies. I remember generally liking this film, but never had a real desire to revisit it or own it. Watching it again now, I really appreciate plenty of the visuals and designs on the fantasy world, but the overarching story that drives the plot forward leaves a lot to be desired, especially everything that happens in the real world.
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Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 