Superhero Movie Reviews

*This review contains spoilers.*

Superhero Movie is about how a teenage guy is bitten by a radioactive insect, gains its powers, and uses it to stop crime. In other words, a spoof of Spider-Man.

I'm not a very big fan of the "_____ Movie" series that was started by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Setzer. All of their movies boil down to shallow parodies of numerous cinema franchises. By no means is Superhero Movie a unique entry in the series that abandons this formula, as you can see from the poster and DVD box art. However, while Superhero Movie is yet another forgettable entry in the series, its director, Craig Mazin, is actually a much better director and writer than the founders of the series themselves.

For one thing, Craig Mazin actually does other things beside making parody movies like Superhero Movie. He worked on the Hangover sequel, for example, which wasn't too terrible. The only other "Movie" movies that he worked on were Scary Movie 3 and 4, which were still bad, but compared to Meet the Spartans and the aptly named Disaster Movie, they're not as bad. Another small merit that Mazin has over Friedberg and Setzer is that the latter two's movies, such as Disaster Movie and Epic Movie, have only a couple of disaster or epic movies lampooned and the rest are other films that came out at the time. These other movies not relevant to the parody's title are less apparent in Mazin's "Movie" entries, though they're still there.

Sometimes, Superhero Movie has some decent gags in it, like the parody of Steven Hawking and a few others, but these instances are very rare and it requires the audience to sit down for more than twenty minutes with this movie. The rest of the gags range from generic to dated to unbearable. Many of them are poorly done sex jokes or pop culture references, though when I say "many", I mean "almost all of them". There's a scene in the movie with two human-shaped balloons in a...suggestive position as the main character is walking by. That's the joke. There's no buildup, no punchline, just two balloons making love to each other, no rhyme or reason. Trust me, this is how a lot of the jokes in this movie are going to turn out.

The plot is a parody of the original Spider-Man movie: kid gets superpowers, things don't go so well at the beginning, villain shows up to do something horrible to the hero (in this case, it's killing his aunt), hero wins against villain, hero gets the girl. Everything else is irrelevant.

Drake Bell stars as Rick Riker, the main character in this movie, and Sara Paxton as Jill Johnson, his love interest. They're not that bad in this movie, but not too good either. Drake Bell has certainly seen darker moments in his acting career (Yours, Mine and Ours and College come to mind), though this is probably the darkest moment in Sara Paxton's (Even Shark Night 3D was better than this garbage.)

If you're a fan of the "Movie" series (though I don't think there are many), you may like this. If you're a big superhero fan and want to see someone parody Marvel Comics properties, there's a slim chance that you'll like this. Other than that, Superhero Movie has a strictly teenage target demographic. It's too mature for kids, yet too immature for adults. However, even if you fall into the target audience, you probably won't like this movie. There's much better parody out there.

I just couldn't see how this was funny. First of all I don't think having Drake Bell in a spoof movie works. I also think that Leslie Nielsen couldn't save this movie. The main movie it spoofs is Spider-Man and I find that insulting. Even that joke about Tom Cruise wasn't funny, Scary Movie 4 did a better job of spoofing Tom Cruise. Probably the funniest part in the movie is where those airdancers are "doing it." I'd pretty much only recommend it if you want to see every movie Leslie Nielsen was in, even the crappy ones. Anyone else I wouldn't recommend it.

This movie I am willing to admit gave me a few good laughs here and there, but overall is not very good. A lot of the jokes aren't very good, but as said said some do work. It feels a lot more like the Scary Movies than Friedberg/Seltzer Movies. That is a very good thing. The actors don't really do a good job. Drake Bell just wasn't very funny. The effects are not good at all, but just like jokes and acting compared to other spoof movies this is good. One joke I hated was one about Stephen Hawking. They make fun of his illness, and make themselves look like very cruel people. Overall it isn't good, and it isn't bad it is just average, and that's saying a lot.

In recent years, Hollywood have spent so much time producing spoof comedies that have been utter piles of rubbish that are almost painful to watch. Date Movie and Epic Movie destroyed all hope of a future in spoof films (it wasn't even solid to begin with) due to the woeful writing of two blokes who single-handedly made two of the worst movies in the history of cinema.

At first I was reluctant about Superhero Movie but I must say that I was relieved when I realised some of the talent involved. At first glance one would dismiss Superhero Movie as its title lumped together with the dreadful filmmaking of those who made Date Movie and Epic Movie. This film could have been a whole lot worse, but on the other hand it could have been a whole lot better.

In a spoof predominantly of Spider-Man, Batman, and Fantastic 4 among many others we follow our hero named Rick Riker (Bell) who is a geeky science nerd with limited friends at school. He takes a massive fancy towards a girl from his school named Jill (Paxton) who is interested in other more sophisticated guys. But Rick's life changes when he is bitten by a dragonfly during a science excursion and eventually transforms into a superhero.

And hence the stage is set for Rick, who now calls himself Dragonfly, to begin cleaning up the city of all crime.

Superhero Movie is not nearly as bad as many were anticipating. Sure, the plot is as thin as a piece of paper and the gags are cheap...but at least the gags were actually funny. While watching this in the cinema I was in stitches for a lot of the film's duration. Unlike the other cheap spoof films, this one actually delivers a number of genuinely hilarious laughs. In the cinema I was almost in tears with laughter. A quality foreign to those who have been exposed to the aforementioned spoof films that I unquestionably detest.

The send ups of many films I found to be quite creative. Of course the elaborate sets are very clever and mirror those used in the films that are spoofed. On top of this, there are some very creative ideas that are incorporated into the film.

The cast was decent. The performances were never worthy of an Oscar but they certainly did what they set out to do. Leslie Nielson was a stand out amongst the cast. He's about 80 years old but he still hasn't lost his touch with such comedies.

Honestly, Superhero Movie is a film that has been created merely for a few laughs. The movie is a myriad of hilarious scenes stitched together with little evidence of a plot. There was a little evidence of establishing a plot, but it wasn't strong enough to make the film as good as it had the potential to be. It has been a long time since Hollywood saw comedy gold found in such movies as Airplane! and it has been my hope that another film like it would come along.

Superhero Movie may be from the same creators as the abovementioned comedy, but it's not near the same quality. I loved some of the hilarious gags that had me in tears with laughter, and I liked the creative ideas. Unfortunately the film's plot is appalling and it seems the gags won't be very funny the second time around.

This brisk 80-minute spoof is good for a laugh and nothing else. I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed this movie it was funny and a whole lot better then Meet The Spartans the thing is this movie has a real storyline. I disagree though with Regina Hall only getting a small part as she is funny and should have had a bigger part. Drake Bell really makes it good been the main person in the movie and really proves how good of an actor he really is.
Wolverine should of been used because it only had a really and i mean really small part you blink you would miss him. The movie is short but better quality and better acting then Meet the Spartans this is worth checking out. Trust me the jokes are not bad they were actually funny.