Superhero Movie
Genre: Comedy Spoof
Director: Craig Mazin
Stars: Drake Bell, Leslie Nielsen, Sara Paxton, Christopher McDonald
Produced by: David Zucker, Robert K. Weiss
Written by: Craig Mazin
Distributor: Dimension Films, MGM
Release date: March 28, 2008
Running Time: 87 mins.
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Country: USA
Language: English
Budget: $35 million

Following the Scary Movie series, Date Movie, Epic Movie, etc., Superhero Movie spoofs the superhero genre, especially Spider-Man. Rick Riker is on a school field trip to a research lab where he is bitten by a mutant butterfly. The next day, Rick finds that sticky spines are growing on his hand.

Realizing that the bite has given him superpowers, Rick decides to become a superhero known as the Dragonfly. Meanwhile, a lab accident has turned Lou Landers, who owns the research lab, into a monster that can steal the life forces of others. Now known as the Hour Glass, Lou tries to steal Cerelyum from a lab, believing it will make him immortal.

Thugs attack Jill, the love of Rick's life, when she walks down an alley. The Dragonfly saves her, and she kisses him and thanks him. Lou then comes up with a plan to make himself immortal by killing thousands of people at a comic book convention.

Like all the other current "Movie" spoofs, Superhero Movie has a great premise that is ruined by excessive crude humor. As I said before, this one spoofs mostly Spider-Man, but there is quite a bit of X-Men and the Fantastic 4 in it also. The trailer looks good and the movie starts well. However, it soon descends into the abyss and the laughs start coming fewer and fewer apart.

Remember all of those hilarious Airplane and Naked Gun spoofs of the 1980s? Well, they were made by David Zucker who also produced Superhero Movie. What happened? It beats me. This was written and directed by Craig Mazin. Mazin also wrote Scary Movie 3 and Scary Movie 4 and directed the low-budget The Specials.

The cast is great. It includes Drake Bell, Sara Paxton, Leslie Nielsen, Jeffrey Tambor, Brent Spiner, and many others. They do their best but it takes more than a great cast to make a movie. It mainly takes a great story. Oh, and by the way: Pamela Anderson has high billing in Superhero Movie. If you want to see this because she is in it, be forewarned that Anderson is only in one or two scenes.

I remember the great satires of the past, films like Young Frankenstein and Airplane, and I yearn for their return. With the box office failure of this movie, they will either come back or be gone forever.

Learn more about this author, Bruce Harden.
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