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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.
6/10
