Merrick here...


SilentWar sent in a look at SUPERHERO MOVIE...which (surprisingly enough) we've been hearing consistently positive things about.

You can see a trailer for it HERE - the movie opens on March 28.


Here's SilentWar...

It seems like such a long time ago that I considered the spoof comedy to be a real treat, the kind of movie that I would eagerly anticipate. The Naked Gun, Airplane, Hot Shots, Top Secret... these were fun, fun movies. Newer attempts at the genre like Don't Be a Menace and High School High have their flaws but their hearts were in the right place. This was a genre that, to me, seemed pretty bulletproof.

Then something really tragic happened. Some people with no real appreciation or understanding of the genre came along and put out some truly awful movies. These were so bad and so completely clueless about the ground they were treading on that, somehow, all of the good work that had been done before seemed to recede into the mists of time, leaving only the Epic Movies and Date Movies to take a huge shit on all of my goodwill towards parody movies.

Superhero Movie is a step back in the right direction, away from the mindless pop culture aping and cripplingly unfunny jokes that dog Meet The Spartans, modern cinema's equivalent of being waterboarded. Superhero Movie is sharp, smart enough when it has to be and hysterical most of the time.

Rick Riker is a nerdy kid who gets bitten by a radioactive dragonfly. He falls in love with The Girl and does battle with The Hourglass, who needs to suck the lifeblood out of one person each day in order to live. Along the way Riker visits a school for the (non-asian) gifted, has flashbacks to his mother and father getting robbed and killed, and saves the day.

So... Spiderman, Batman Begins and X-Men.

I'd argue that superhero movies are almost parody-proof, that the situations and reality's of these movies are, by and large, so fantastical that trying to shine a light on their ridiculousness is pointless. We get it. What's funny in Superhero Movie isn't so much someone directing their biting wit against the genre's conventions, but rather Craig Mazin, writer and director, taking the events of recent superhero movies and putting his own crazy spin on them.

This is a funny, funny movie. Drake Bell does a good job of playing a Peter Parker one-off without actually aping Tobey Maguire's performance much. Leslie Nielsen, playing Riker's guardian Uncle, is, of course, great, a master of this kind of comedy, having fun with what he has to do. Jeffrey Tambor makes hay with his few lines, always a pleasure to watch.

Chris MacDonald plays Hourglass with a really cool overzealous charm. I wouldn't say this is his best work but it's definitely one of his most enjoyable to watch.

The movie has it's mis-steps. There's a gag with a Johnny Storm one-off that is pretty much D.O.A., as well as a few other moments, but these are more of a temporary thing, not a movie ender. The ship doesn't sink.

Parody, when done to perfection, can be great because it works as social and popular culture commentary, showing us how absurd things really are. Superhero Movie really isn't that, and it isn't great. It is a mostly hilarious movie, though, and I would recommend it not only as a good time at the movies but also as a detox agai` nst all those awful parody (in name only) movies we've had to slog through.