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Superhero Movie
Relentless sadism and farts
By
JASON O'BRYAN
|
April 2, 2008
SUPERHERO MOVIE
" alt="photo of 'SUPERHERO MOVIE'">
1.0
Stars
PLAIN BAD: Even the real Spider-Man cannot save you.
Superhero Movie
is more enjoyable than
Epic Movie
— but then, so is getting stabbed in the chest. Taking almost exclusively from
Spider-Man
, the story follows the toad-faced Rick Riker (Drake Bell) as he is bitten by a radioactive dragonfly, summarily gets superpowers, and tries to defeat the evil Hourglass (Christopher McDonald) and become a hero. Zany exploits follow. Writer/director Craig Mazin and producer David Zucker aim for
Airplane!
-esque joke-a-minute absurdity but come up with a relentless mix of sadism and farts. At 85 minutes (and that includes 15 minutes of outtakes at the end), this movie feels as if it had been written in an afternoon, and without so much as a cursory check as to whether the jokes were funny. There are some chuckles — okay, two — but the film’s big accomplishment is that it elevates the “spoof” genre from ludicrously awful to just plain bad.
85 minutes | Boston Common + Fenway + Fresh Pond + Circle/Chestnut Hill + suburbs
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