Superhero Movie review by Jackass Tom

It’s a bad sign when the trailers have as many laughs as the feature. The trailer was Finishing the Game and the movie was Superhero Movie, but that’s a story for another day.

Superhero Movie is yet another film in a long line of spoof films as unoriginal as the title. At one point in my life I welcomed such films as they were a rarity perfected by a chosen few: The Zucker Brothers, Jim Abrahams and actor Leslie Neilsen. In 2000, the Wayans Bros created Scary Movie and resurrected the spoof genre. The success of Scary Movie created a monster. Every year no fewer than two horribly conceived films overflowing with bad jokes. The goal of these films is to lampoon as many topical situations as possible while taking on a specific genre or film type. Usually the title is a key: Scary Movie, Epic Movie, Date Movie, and so on. This time the subject is comic book movies. The list of movies on the menu for mocking are X-Men, Fantastic Four, Batman but mostly this movie centers around the first Spiderman. Instead of Spiderman, the school nerd Rick Riker transforms himself into the Dragonfly. Happy Gilmore villain Chris MacDonald plays villain plays the life sucking super villain named Hourglass.

Follow the Spiderman story line for about 60 minutes and insert a bunch of sex jokes. Add 10 more minutes of awkwardly out-of-place moments spoofing other comic films. Put some fart jokes in those scenes. Double check your work: Did someone fall in poo? Check. Did a couple get farts blown in their face? Check. Did someone mock a recognizable public figure like Steven Hawking? Check. Did we try to reference at least 12 movies even if they had no tie in to our current script? Check. Ok, that’s your movie.

Like nearly all spoof movies (in particular all spoof movies since Scary Movie), it wears you down with bad joke after bad joke. Imagine this: You ask 15 comedy writers to put 5 jokes on separate pieces of paper. You take their best joke and put it in the trash can. Then with the remaining 60 jokes you make a movie. Concentrating on individual jokes and making them better is not necessary. Just write a joke, film it and ship it to you the customer. Its like the Hyundai of movies.

And through all of this non-sensical material, the best jokes are those that are delivered by Zucker veteran Leslie Nielsen. I seem to remember asking fellow Jackass Critic, Matt Fuerst, “Is Leslie Nielsen not in a nursing home?” The movie answer emphatically “Not Yet!” He has been in Zucker spoofs since Airplane (1980) with that same mane of white stallion-esque hair. You would think that even if he were still acting that his delivery would be hampered by adult Huggies, but the guy is still swinging for the fences. At 82 years old he is still the best thing in this time-waste of a movie.

The kid who plays the Peter Parker-type character (Drake Bell) just isn’t very funny. He is good at getting hit in the face with a door or humped by 12 animals, but overall…. he didn’t learn much from Leslie Nielsen. The poster/cover boast a large collection of superheros/actors who aren’t in the movie more than a handful of minutes. Tracey Morgan plays Professor X for about 5 minutes and actually the movie might have improved if that would have been multiplied. Pamela Anderson as Invisible Girl; even less screen time. The guy who plays Wolverine and girl who plays Storm; one shot. I’m not even sure why the movie would promote characters who barely had screen time. Its slightly deceptive.

Superhero Movie should not be high on your list of rentals this week unless quality is not a necessity and you really are looking to be pummeled with a never ending stream of bad jokes. Then, if that’s your situation, you can’t go much worse than Superhero Movie.




2 out of 10 Jackasses
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