Superhero Movie (2008)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008
	Director: Craig Mazin (screenplay writer of Scary Movie 3-4 and The Hangover 2-3)
	Actors: Drake Bell, Leslie Nielsen (Forbidden Planet, The Naked Gun), Sara Paxton (The Innkeepers, Shark Night 3D)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy
	Conditions of visioning: 06.06.2018, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: Rick Riker (Bell), ordinary high school student, can't talk to the love oh his life Jill (Paxton). Until he gets bitten by a super-bug that gives him super-powers.
Review: I used to know by heart all the ZAZ parodies produced in the 80's - 90's by the trio Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker (or part of it) like Airplane!, The Naked Gun, Hot Shots... David Zucker went on until recently with five Scary Movie which I haven't seen, and he is producer on this Superhero Movie. The recipe is always the same: take scenes from a movie sub-genre that is popular at the moment and twist them for comedy. The humor is usually pretty dumb but can work if you are in the right mood, and if you accept the very bad jokes against Stephen Hawking. The difference I found in this movie is that instead of a succession of funny scenes, it is rather a copy of a movie (Sam Raimi's 2002 Spider-Man) from which it repeats the whole structure and many scenes, sometimes not even in a funny way, more like making its own version of it. And on a few occasions are inserted scenes from X-men or Fantastic Four. The movie poster is in that sense totally misleading: it doesn't show neither the bad guy nor the lead female actress Sara Paxton, maybe because she can't compete with the cleavage of Pamela Anderson shown here although she only has a short cameo. The poster also focuses on other characters we barely see, but leaves a good spot to the unmissable Leslie Nielsen, king of the genre, and who does have an extended role to play (as Uncle Ben who survives while Aunt May doesn't!). Nice cameo also from Robert Airplane! Hayes. Remember that it was released on 2008, the year of the first movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Iron Man), so that's all the movies there were to copy at that time, when we though the super-hero trend would soon come to an end... So it's nice to be reminded with this movie what was the cinematographic landscape ten years ago, but I didn't find it very funny. I am probably too old for this kind of humor. In fact I was more interested by the semi-serious scenes that try to be more original and tell their story, and by some subtle details like the name of the characters that start with the same double initials for example.
Rating: 3 /10