Blog Archives
Son of the Mask
Son of the Mask 2005
After sitting through My Super Ex-Girlfriend, I thought I’d turn this into a mini marathon of bad superhero comedies. The Specials wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t that great either. And today’s movie trumps the both of them by a longshot. It rightly has a place on my earlier list of 33 of the worst superhero movies ever made. It shares some of the same mythology as Thor, and shares some of the same backstory as the Mask, but it goes in a completely different direction to try and make it into a more kid friendly, and seemingly therefore brainless, movie. There was not a single joke that made me laugh, I did not care about any of the characters, and the cartoonish action was a stale rehash of the actual cartoons that inspired it.
The Specials
The Specials 2000
I continue with my spree of superhero comedies with a little known movie from 2000 called The Specials. It’s a low budget movie with a lot of moderately well known comedians or comic actors, like Rob Lowe and Thomas Hayden Church, playing what is essentially a third or fourth tier superhero group. It also seems to draw inspiration from other superhero comedies such as the Tick, where the majority of the plot revolves around what happens in between natural disasters and super villains. In fact, in this movie there’s not a single action scene, and only a slight hint of what the heroes powers actually are. Instead it revolves around what happens with their interpersonal relationship in a pseudo reality show format, complete with confessional moments talking directly to the camera. While it does have some funny moments, there’s really too much going on and too many characters to try and service, so it felt like most of the runtime tries to work all the characters into the plot more than it tries to be funny.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
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.
Megamind
Megamind 2010
After going through a few documentaries, I figured it was time to get back to some more lighthearted fare. And it also helped that the newest announced acting school over at the LAMB is for Brad Pitt, who conveniently voices Metro Man in this movie. This movie is a real mash-up of different superhero tropes looked at through different angles, and there are quite a few surprise twists along with several unsurprising twists, which I will be mentioning farther down in this review in case you haven’t seen this movie yet. I don’t think knowing any of the twists beforehand really affect the outcome of the movie, but this is your spoiler warning anyway. There are also a few nice touching moments, and throughout the whole thing is a lot of laughs.
Superhero Me
Superhero Me 2010
I’m finishing up this week of documentaries with Superhero Me, which I found by randomly searching “superhero” over at Hulu and this was the first movie that popped up. It’s an odd mix of comedy and interviews based around the recent real life superhero movement combined with the filmmaker, Steve Sale’s quest to become a real life superhero himself called SOS. The humor comes from the affable nature as well as the general absurdity of the whole process. There is a large amount of charm in this movie, and it was made completely on the cheap, with practically no budget, which is really the biggest downside to the movie.
Stan Lee’s Mutants, Monsters, & Marvels
Stan Lee’s Mutants, Monsters, & Marvels 2002
After watching Confessions of a Superhero, I thought it would be a good idea to watch a couple more superhero themed documentaries, and since I actually own this one, I figured it was a no-brainer. It’s not a traditional documentary, in fact it’s almost more of a bonus disc to a non-specific movie. It was released right around the time Spider-Man came out in theaters, and the first part of the film is strictly about Spider-Man. It’s basically just director slash writer slash podcaster Kevin Smith, interviewing the father of Marvel comics, Stan Lee. As I mentioned, the first part of the interview is all about Spider-Man, and the second part covers pretty much the rest of his career. It’s quite interesting, as both Lee and Smith are both great speakers, even though it’s essentially just the two of them sitting down talking to each other for about an hour and a half.
Confessions of A Superhero
Confessions of a Superhero 2007
I was asked by Dusty of Dusty On Movies to write a guest review for his Quirky Documentary Series. I had heard a little bit about this film, Confessions of a Superhero, but when Dusty asked me to review it, I thought it was a good change of pace. It’s presented by Morgan Spurlock, of Super Size Me fame, but he doesn’t really have anything to do with the documentary. The main focus is on four Hollywood street performers, although performers is kind of a strong word for what they do. They dress up as superheroes, pose for pictures, and take tips. The four heroes featured in this movie are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Hulk. Although Superman seems to get the most screen time out of the four. They all claim to be actors who just haven’t gotten a gig yet, and they’re all varying degrees of normal.
Superhero Shorts: Death of Spider-Man
Death of Spider-Man Motion Comic
Welcome to this week’s edition of Superhero Shorts where I take a look at a different superhero themed short film and get the creator of the film to answer a few interview questions. This week I’m talking with Andrew Bates and Drew Lawson who came up with their own motion comic for Ultimate Spider-Man #158-160 written by Brian Bendis where Peter Parker dies. It’s very high quality both in terms of the animation as well as the voice work, it’s on par if not better than the few professional motion comics I’ve seen before. It’s a bit longer than many of the shorts I feature here with a runtime of just over 20 minutes, but it’s worth the watch.
Almost Super: Mortal Kombat
Mortal Kombat 1995
I hit a little bit of a movie block this past week, possibly due to watching The Dark Knight Rises, also possibly due to a couple movies that I plan on watching but haven’t been in the mood for. That, and I’ve been under the weather for the past few days and haven’t been in the mood for much of anything. So I put a call out on Twitter, and the only suggestion was Mortal Kombat. I was a big fan of both the game and the movie when it first came out, but haven’t watched it again in years. I believe the last game I played was Mortal Kombat 4, and didn’t play very much of that. The movie tosses in a ton of references to the game, which isn’t always a good thing, the fight scenes were pretty well done, and while it’s a little bit more campy than I remember, it’s still a pretty fun watch. Especially if you’re a fan of the Mortal Kombat games.
The Dark Knight Rises
The Dark Knight Rises 2012
I have to start off by mentioning that this is turning out to be one of the harder reviews I’ve had to write. I actually ended up seeing it by myself in the local theater at a late Saturday night showing, largely because I got the chance to participate in my first podcast for the Lamb which I believe will be posted this weekend. I jumped at the chance when the Dark Knight Rises episode went up for grabs, and even though it got filled before I got to put my name in the hat, a couple people dropped out so I snuck my way into the pod. And then I realized I would have to do something I have almost never done before: see the movie opening weekend, and see it by myself. I am a very shy person, and I dislike crowds of any kind. I was worried that the theater would be crowded, especially when I got to the theater at 9:25 and saw that the 9:30 show was flashing “sold out”. But luckily for me, the theater was only about two thirds full for the ten o’clock showing. I ended up having a good theater experience, sitting with empty chairs on either side of me, and near complete silence during the entire movie, the only crowd reaction was for the line “So that’s how it feels”. And since watching the movie, I’ve gone through and read many different reviews and takes on the movie, which has made it a little bit harder to sort out my own opinions from those of others. But I will say that Dark Knight Rises is an epic end to the best superhero trilogies of all time, even if it doesn’t have much competition in that category. I’ll even say that it’s one of the best movie trilogies of all time.
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 