Superhero Movie

*Sigh* Why do I subject myself to this stuff? I mean, I know that so far I have enjoyed one of these “parody” films, Not Another Teen Movie. Part of what made that one work is that it stuck to it’s premise. It mocked the teen movie genre and rarely strayed from it. The most recent efforts were Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans.

They were terrible. Epic Movie, first off, completely missed it’s most obvious target, Lord of the Rings. Secondly? Borat, Nacho Libre, Snakes on a Plane, X-Men, the Da Vinci Code and so on are not epic films. Meet the Spartans suffered pretty much the same trouble…Britney Spears jokes in a sword and sandals parody are not funny. I had trouble staying awake in Meet the Spartans. There was plenty to work with from Ben Hur to Troy, from Clash of the Titans to 300. But why do that when you can make Ugly Betty Jokes.

To it’s credit, the folks behind Superhero Movie tried to reign those impulses in. It tried to go back to the Airplane/Police Squad days. Even in the audio commentary, one of the writers expresses that one scene represents what they were aiming for, a central plot that simply pokes fun more at the genre, rather than specific films. And the movie does stick pretty closely to it’s target. This automatically elevates it over Meet the Spartans and Epic Movie. It uses the plot of Spider-Man, and I will say, I generally got some laughs, though they were pretty few. Brent Spiner screaming like a eight year old girl? Had me laughing. The Facebook joke that followed it? Not so much. The nail gun scene? Pretty funny. Oddly, what makes it funny is it is not aping a sequence from another Super-Hero movie. The X-Mansion sequence brings the film to a dead halt.

It relies heavily on the plot of Spider-Man, but then has appearances by the X-Men, Fantastic Four, Batman, Superman and so on. When the film resembles Scary Movie, Date, Movie, etc and just apes scenes from other films? It becomes less funny. The funniest aspects of the film are not parody moments, and it disappoints me that the people who brought us the wackiness of Airplane are reducing themselves to these films. These mock the superior parody films of the late 70’s and early 80’s. There are clear hints of good jokes, but they are ultimately trapped in a less than funny overall film.

What is the worst part of watching any of these films though? In the end it is seeing people so worthy of much better material being used in such crap.