{"id":18516,"date":"2016-02-08T00:35:10","date_gmt":"2016-02-08T05:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=18516"},"modified":"2016-02-08T00:57:26","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T05:57:26","slug":"superhero-movie-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/08\/superhero-movie-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"Superhero Movie (2008)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"superheromovie\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSuperhero Movie\u201d is a comedy that\u2019s remained off the radar for a long time since its release, and that\u2019s a good thing. As a comedy it\u2019s a pretty solid spoof of the \u201cSpider-Man\u201d movies, mocking the inherent silliness and idiocy of the Sam Raimi movies. And ironically enough it manages to be a much more creative and coherent superhero picture than \u201cSpider-Man 3\u201d ever hoped to be. I don\u2019t disagree that the movie is a mixed bag of humor that tackles the superhero movie craze, as well as old hat superhero tropes, but it\u2019s succeeds as an entertaining novelty and a respectable guilty pleasure.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Director Craig Mazin hits on point why the original Sam Raimi \u201cSpider-Man\u201d movies are so absurd, and while it does march to the beat of its own drummer mid-way, most of the laughs are at the expense of Sam Raimi\u2019s campy adaptations. Drake Bell is well cast as the buffoonish Rick Riker whose own sense of innocence comes off more like a social deficiency. He walks right in to accidents left and right when we first meet him and we can only really identify with him because of his longing after the girl of his dreams. Incidentally the beaming Sara Paxton does a better job playing pseudo-Mary Jane Jill Johnson than Kirsten Dunst did, playing the actual character.<\/p>\n

Riker gets a new purpose when he\u2019s bitten by a scientifically advanced dragon fly, and as he realizes he has the powers of the dragonfly (and a bit from a spider), corporate executive Jim Landers has learned he\u2019s dying from Cancer. Creating a new machine that allows him to suck the youth from people to restore his health he becomes the Hourglass, a mad villain anxious to find victims to help him acquire immortality. Riker must navigate between learning his powers, and discovering his love for Jill, all the while trying to carve his own identity as a superhero. \u201cSuperhero Movie\u201d follows all of the beats of the first two \u201cSpider-Man\u201d movies, reveling in Riker\u2019s idiocy, mocking the relationship he has with his eccentric adopted uncle, and even does a fine job with some hilarious flashbacks.<\/p>\n

Even when the movie falters, Mazin picks up the pace by injecting solid madcap and one-liners by Leslie Nielsen and Kevin Hart. There are also some fun twists on key moments in the \u201cSpider-Man\u201d movies like the thanksgiving sequence, Riker building his own costume, and Riker tolerating his eccentric aunt and uncle. *Bell is often very funny as Riker, mastering the art of the double take and gaping glance, as well as playing well off of the equally funny Nielsen, Hart, and Christopher MacDonald. While it does hit pitfalls, including a painfully drawn out spoof of \u201cX-Men,\u201d and a lame Stephen Hawking running gag, \u201cSuperhero Movie\u201d is a surprisingly solid guilty pleasure that inspired many chuckles and chortles, and even manages to be a fairly decent superhero origin in its own right.<\/p>\n

*Bell who plays a pseudo Spider-Man, went in to voice the actual Spider-Man years later in “Ultimate Spider-Man.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSuperhero Movie\u201d is a comedy that\u2019s remained off the radar for a long time since its release, and that\u2019s a good thing. As a comedy it\u2019s a pretty solid spoof of the \u201cSpider-Man\u201d movies, mocking the inherent silliness and idiocy of the Sam Raimi movies. And ironically enough it manages to be a much more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[58,71,219,240,349,874,885,898,906,973],"class_list":["post-18516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-action","tag-adventure","tag-comedy","tag-crime","tag-fantasy","tag-romance","tag-s","tag-satire","tag-science-fiction","tag-spoof"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18516"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18516\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19092,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18516\/revisions\/19092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}