Review: Superhero Movie


Drake Bell plays a high school geek bitten by genetically-altered dragonfly on a school field trip, which gives him superpowers. Now as the Dragonfly, he must do battle with the scientist-turned-bad Lou Landers, AKA the Hourglass. Sara Paxton is Bell’s would-be love interest Jill Johnson, Mario Ross and Leslie Nielsen are his devoted Aunt and Uncle, and in a “Batman Begins” parody, Robert Hays turns up as Bell’s father, in flashbacks. Craig Bierko gets to lampoon Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine character from the “X-Men” series.


2008 comedy spoof from writer-director Craig Mazin (co-writer of some of the “Scary Movie” sequels) is one of the better efforts in the spate of spoofs of the “Scary Movie”/“Date Movie”/“Epic Movie” variety. That’s faint praise, but praise nonetheless. This one actually has some genuine humour in it, if you can believe that, not to mention the funniest fart gag in ages, involving a certain cherished TV matriarch. The makers of “Meet the Spartans” and “Epic Movie”, are thankfully nowhere to be seen here, and really ought to watch this film to see how to do it in a non-sucky way. Then go back and watch “Airplane! (Flying High!)” and “Hot Shots!” to see how to do it even better.


Best bits are Tracy Morgan, instantly funny as Dr. Xavier from the “X-Men” films (Morgan is funny in that Jon Lovitz way, he’s funny because he shouldn’t be! And just wait ‘til you see his wife and kids!), an hilarious scene between hero Bell and villain Christopher McDonald where they compare injuries (and try to one-up each other) sustained during their activities as their alter-egos, Miles Fisher’s scarily dead-on Tom Cruise parody, and a shamefully funny caricature of Stephen Hawking (Robert Joy) as a lascivious old perv.


A lot of the gags flop and land with a thud (Jeffrey Tambor and Brent Spiner are surprisingly unfunny, Leslie Nielsen is wasted), but the ones that work are enough to easily pick this one up off the bottom of the heap (Could producer David Zucker be a primary reason for this?). Still, I’d rather watch a marathon of TV’s “The Greatest American Hero” for my superhero funnies.


Rating: C+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chil...
Read more

Review: Cinderella (1950)

The story of poor young Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), treated as a servant by her nasty stepmother (voiced by Eleanor Audley), and dismissed by her thoroughly rotten, ugly stepsisters. Her only friends are a group of mice, who are forever being menaced by a cat named Lucifer (or as I call him, Grumpy Cheshire Cat). The King (hoping to find a wife for his charming son) is throwing a ball and every available young woman is invited to attend, and Cinderella is most excited to go. However, her stepmother and stepsisters do all they can to prevent this from happening. But with help from the mice and one fairy godmother (voiced by Verna Felton) later, and Cinderella looks set to attend the ball. You know the rest, folks.   Lovely 1950 Disney animated movie from directors Clyde Geronimi ( “Peter Pan” , “Lady and the Tramp” ), Wilfred Jackson ( “Fantasia” , “Alice in Wonderland” , “Peter Pan” ) & Hamilton Luske ( “Pinocchio” , “Fantasia” , “Peter Pan” ), that is a bit t...
Read more

Review: Jinnah

The story of Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Sir Christopher Lee) the politically moderate founder of Pakistan. A Muslim lawyer, Jinnah fought to form a separate nation from India for the Muslim minority, whilst Mahatma Gandhi (Sam Dastor) wished for India to stay united and proposed Jinnah as the new PM as a compromise. James Fox plays British viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Indira Varma plays Jinnah’s wife, and veteran bit player Vernon Dobtcheff plays a British dignitary.   Although Christopher Lee’s title performance received some critical notice and the actor himself was very proud of the work, this modestly budgeted 1998 biopic from director Jamil Dehlavi ( “Immaculate Conception” with Melissa Leo) and co-writer Farrukh Dhondy ( “Red Mercury” with Stockard Channing and Ron Silver) was largely ignored at the time and still very little-known today. Part of that is probably due to the poor marketing of the film, and difficulty in finding a distributor. It’s hard to get people to talk abo...
Read more