Superhero Movie

A spoof flick based on the plotline of the original SPIDER-MAN movie. In this case, a young teenager with a crush on a hottie in his class is bitten by a radioactive dragonfly and soon enough, becomes a superhero with powers similar to the insect, but obviously amplified. What ensues are a bunch of gags based around the plotline, most of which don’t work, but a couple of which made me laugh. Lots of references to websites (except joblo.com) ensue…

I’m not exactly sure why I even bothered to watch this movie, considering that it pretty much looked like the same “spoof shit” they’ve been cranking out for the past few years a la EPIC MOVIE, MEET THE SPARTANS, but I think the name of David Zucker as one of the producers on this puppy gave me a little hope…seeing as he and his brother Jerry were pioneers of the genre (along with Jim Abrahams). Unfortunately for me and Mr. Zucker, this film blows like a monkey’s uncle, with very little regard for actual humor replaced by a ton of pratfalls, visual gags and very few jokes that actually work. I generally consider a “spoof” flick successful if over 50% of its jokes click, but in this film, I don’t think I laughed at more than 10% of the jokes. In fact, it’s pretty obvious to anyone who watches this movie that a) the screenwriter knows very little about superhero movies and would rather just make “stupid jokes” within a superhero storyline and b) that it took must’ve taken him about a weekend to write this entire script, without really proofreading it or attempting to make it as funny as possible. In other words, “Let’s crank ‘em out, mention Facebook, iPhones and Google every now and again, add some fart jokes and the kids will love it!!”

Frankly, I’m insulted by movies like this that don’t even attempt to optimize their jokes or humor and would rather just fill themselves up with cameos galore, in the hopes of a “big opening weekend” and a nifty profit. So a big “fuck you” to everyone who participated in this film for selling out (and yeah, that includes you, Mr. and Mr. Weinstein) and for forgetting what made movies “special” to them in the first place. Blaming the actors would be too easy, but most of them actually do alright within the structure of the film, which in its only defense, doesn’t try and toss every other movie into its storyline and concentrates rather on the entire first SPIDER-MAN movie for its plotline (with a little X-MEN thrown in). Major kudos for that! I much prefer when they try and spoof 1-2 movies alone, rather than 100 in one shot, but the only problem in this case was that they simply forgot to add actual humor! Sara Paxton is really hot though and Missus C (aka Marion Ross) does a great job as the Aunt May wannabe, but the rest of the cameos are pretty bad and embarrassing, especially Pamela Anderson, who is literally in the film for less than 30 seconds (if only we could say the same for Leslie Nielsen…oy-vey).

Other “names” that filter through this thing include the great Keith David, the generally funny Christopher McDonald, Brent Spiner, Jeffrey Tambor, Robert Hays (of AIRPLANE fame!!), Tracy Morgan, Regina Hall, Craig Bierko and others. None make much of an impression, to be honest with you. The only other “good thing” about this film is that it only lasts about 78 minutes, and even though the dude playing Tom Cruise is pretty hilarious in the movie, I think the clips I’d seen of him in the film’s trailer, were longer than his actual appearance in the movie! Surprisingly, the film’s final half-hour is more entertaining than its first 30 minutes, although that’s really not saying much. All that said, please SKIP this movie, tell your friends to skip this movie, tell your family to skip this movie, in fact, if you have some time on your hands, write a letter to the Weinstein brothers telling them to stop making these fuckin’ shitty “spoof comedies” and drop-kick every single one of those SCARY MOVIE writers (Jason Friedberg/Aaron Seltzer) out of Hollywood already!! (next up, DISASTER MOVIE starring Kim Kardashian?!?!?!). PS: My brother and I wrote a pretty funny “spoof script” a few years back…if interested, drop me a line. Hehehe.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian