Superhero Movie
Directed by Craig Mazin
Starring: Drake Bell, Leslie Nielsen, Sara Paxton, Christopher McDonald, Pamela Anderson, Tracy Morgan
Rated PG-13
Release date: March 28, 2008

Remember when spoof movies were laugh-out-loud funny? Films like Blazing Saddles, Spaceballs, and Robin Hood: Men in Tights ruled the parody movie circuit, but all of these films were only Mel Brook’s contributions to the genre. For the title of the king was given to no one other than David Zucker, the man that brought comedies such as Airplane!, Top Secret, and The Naked Gun films.

But over the past five years, the king has been thrown off the throne. His last two films, both entries in the money-making Scary Movie franchise, have sucked BIG ones, but they were nonetheless popular with audiences. But he has now lost the steam that he once had in the ’80s and ’90s, by replacing comical jokes with fart and barf jokes and by replacing plot devices with unnecessary pop culture references. (Although this isn’t much of Zucker’s fault. While he only served as producer, writer of the Scary Movie films Craig Mazin wrote and directed this film).

That is not to say that Superhero Movie is any different.

Actually, that is being super nice of me by saying that. And I’m going to be super nice to this film for one reason and one reason only — I never paid for it. I walked right out of 21 and walked right in to Superhero Movie. I wouldn’t have paid for it anyway, because I support the Darth Weinstein guys. But even I have my limits with shitty parodies like this. I never paid for Meet the Spartans when I went to go see it in theaters. Whenever I put my head on a pillow, I feel so much better as I drowse off.

Superhero Movie tells the tale of Rick (Drake Bell). One day on his school trip, he gets bit by a dragonfly. Five days later (because someone can honestly sleep for five days from a dragonfly bite), he wakes up with superpowers, or if you want me to be more specific, powers of a dragonfly. The only thing Rick can’t do is fly, and in order to impress Jill, the girl next door, (Sara Paxton) he must become a hero. But when the evil Hourglass (Christopher McDonald) has prepared for world domination, this calls for a time to be a hero, to both the town and Jill.

And I wasted all of that time typing away at the unnecessary plot summary where all I had to do was erase and replace it with one word — Spider-Man. The film is basically a remake of the original Spider-Man film. It takes everything from the film and incorporates it into one shitty flick, from the loser kid to the adoptive aunt and uncle to the Thanksgiving dinner to the photo gimmick. It’s supposed to be a satirical take of Spider-Man, but I think it is the only version of the film that you can keep a straight face on while watching it.

And, you know, I was beginning to think that this will be the first spoof movie since The Naked Gun 33 1/3 that will actually be, you know, decent. It definitely had the potential to be a funny comedy. It was in production even before Scary Movie 4 was planned, so you would think that Mazin would have thought the entire film out just a little bit more. A lot of the details were kept secret to the public… which means it was probably shot three months ago.

Why do I think that? The film tries to jam as much pop-culture humor as possible. They bring up references from Britney Spears to MySpace and Facebook to YouTube to Tom Cruise (though I will admit, that impersonation is the best I have heard so far) to V-Cast’s Top Five to Google to iProducts to even fucking Iron Man, and that hasn’t even been released to the public yet. It would have been one thing if the pop-culture humor was funny, but predictably, none of it was (of course, except for that Tom Cruise impersonation, but that’s only because it was so good, ya know).

And these bastards couldn’t cast anyone else in the lead role other than Drake Bell? Never in my fucking life have I seen such a miscasted whiny twit playing a role like this. Was he not getting any girls next to that fat bastard in that annoying Nickelodeon sitcom? Are you even sure that Dimension couldn’t even get DAN FOGLER to play Drake Bell’s character? Your movie must suck that bad if Fogler wouldn’t even hop on top of it.

Leslie Nielsen, comedic god, has stooped down to a new level. Yes, he was the best part of the last two Scary Movie films, but here, he loses everything that he has done for himself. He had made such a name for himself with Airplane! and The Naked Gun back in the ’80s and ’90s. And now, it feels like that everything that he has done for his career and all of that hard work has been done for NOTHING. Damn shame.

Superhero Movie is, without a doubt, one of the worst wastes of time that I have ever had. The fact that it only spoofed four superhero films is a reason why you shouldn’t watch it. But do you want a REAL reason to watch it?

It is infinite times better than Meet the Spartans.

Infinite plus one.

* out of ****