Opening Day: 24 April 2008

Synopsis:

How many superheroes does it take to save the world? The creators of "The Naked Gun" and "Scary Movie" answer this question in hysterical "David Zucker" fashion with the uproarious comedy "Superhero Movie." Meet Rick Riker. He's young, he's cool and he's got superpowers. Now, if he only knew how to use them... but the world is in danger and no one is safe when Zucker and the gang - headed by the hilarious cast of Drake Bell, Leslie Nielsen, Tracy Morgan, Pamela Anderson, Regina Hall and many others - take aim at some of the biggest blockbusters of our time including "Spider-Man," "Batman," "X-Men," and "Fantastic Four," to name a few.

Movie Review:

We’ll be damned if any self-respecting critic penned a glowing review of this awful movie (we shudder at the thought of even defining this mess as a movie).

One look at the promotional poster and you’d know what to expect: appalling performances, senseless storyline and jokes that try to hard to be funny. And any discerning viewer who has the common sense to predict all that is spot on – there is nothing epic about this movie…

Wait, if you remember reading the above two paragraphs from somewhere, click on the review for Epic Movie. Yes, you’d probably be thinking that this reviewer is sloppy and lazy writer, and should be banned from writing forever. But aren’t spoof movies like this all about upfront copying of successful blockbuster movies which we are so familiar with?

If Spider-man ever took a break from saving the world, we would have to settle for his poor cousin Dragonfly: We see how Dragonfly the superhero morphs from a geeky nerd to a world saving champion. We see how he visits a mutant school to witness Wolverine shaving his legs, crosses paths with the members of the Fantastic Four gang and burns one of them in the process. Then there’s this villain who wants to kill of us mere mortals, but thanks to Dragonfly, we are saved from that terrible fate.

From the opening credits to the music score, the movie draws its inspiration (that’s just a nicer way of saying that the movie is a copycat) from other superhero movies. You see the male lead being bitten by a dragonfly, a female love interest who resembles Mary Jane, a villain gone berserk after a failed experiment, a mutant school full of teenagers with superpowers, a underwhelming finale where good triumphs over evil. But that isn’t the point of this movie. Other than the silly copycat scenes from movies like Spider-mad, Batman and X-Men, there are some truly funny moments where crude humor and toilet gags step in to milk pathetic chuckles out of us. If you saw a gang of animals humping hero, a toilet bowl riding Professor X (he’s black!), a chicken being stuffed with unusual ingredients and people spoofing Tom Cruise and Stephen Hawking, you’d be laughing, even if it’s a small chuckle.

You also won’t care much for the unknown cast here, well, except for Pamela Anderson who appears briefly as the Invisible Woman (the guys’ eyes will be on her well endowed assets) and Leslie Neilson as Dragonfly’s grandfather who spouts a few deadpan but hilarious lines (watch how he rudely intrudes into someone else’s coffin at his wife’s funeral).

And to end what I started, I shall end this review by saying: There is only one reason why the movie studio agreed to produce this movie: the box office potential. Judging from the US$21.3 million (I did my research to change the figures!) it has made in the States, it’d probably make bored audiences here fish out their wallets to pay for a ticket for this movie.

Movie Rating:

(A few laugh out loud moments here and there, but that’s about it – not a bad way to spend your boring weekend though)

Review by John Li