Superhero Movie (2008)

Synopsis:

In this superhero spoof, Rick Riker (Bell) is just another loser in high school until he is bitten by a radioactive dragonfly. Using his new abilities of super strength and armored skin, Rick fights evil as “The Dragonfly.” But, will supervillain The Hourglass (McDonald) - complete with the ability to steal life force from his foe - be too much for him to overcome?

Our Thoughts:

While I do have a fond remembrance for The Naked Gun and Airplane!, the recent flux of ridiculous spoofs - including all of the Scary Movie series (how many are there now? 12?) - have left me with a bad taste for spoof films. So much so, that when the recent Meet The Spartans spoof hit, I didn’t give it’s idiocy a second glance.

Back in the days of Airplane! and The Naked Gun, there seemed to be actually comedy in these spoof films, rather than just poking fun at popular films just for the money - and very little laughs (Recently, I had the misfortune of sitting through one of the films in the Scary Movie series and didn’t come close to laughing even once. Instead, I was sorry for the people that actually paid to see that schlock). Back in the days of Airplane and The Naked Gun, they managed to poke fun at something - and make the experience actually enjoyable, rather than just tossing out brief hit-or-miss jokes at everything from pop culture to a whole slew of varying films.

With seemingly no limit to the ever-increasing popularity of superheroes in films these days, it would be inevitable that a spoof film would come along to poke fun at them too. But, would it be able to have a decent storyline all it’s own, like Airplane! and The Naked Gun, or would it be just a mishmash of one-liners tossed together like the Scary Movie films?

Well, Superhero Movie is on it’s way to answer our questions. While we would like to think the film is hearkening back to the film spoofs that became near-instant classics rather than just flash in the pan comedies not worth the time or effort it took to make them, chance are our old pal David Zucker (who was behind both The Naked Gun, Airplane! and the Scary Movie series) will continue in the Scary Movie. While they may be crappy, teens love the things, and shell out cash to see them.

Even though the films are promptly forgotten, they are money-makers, and Zucker probably won’t turn away from that to give the rest of us (anyone over the age of 18) a movie we might actually enjoy.

Still, it’ll be nice to have the horrendous Spider-Man (2002) films knocked down a peg or two - and with the preview seeming to focus on that particular hero, chances are this film will do just that. Even that won’t be enough to trick us into seeing this one though.

Okay, maybe once it’s on DVD, but that’s as far as we’re going to go.