Comments on: Superhero spoof troubling flop

by: Christopher Moonlight

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:14:10 +0000

Oh, and I have not seen ether Fantastic 4 movie. I was only speaking of the comics.

by: Christopher Moonlight

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:12:34 +0000

I don’t actually feel that strongly about it one way or the other anymore, but I do like to discuss these things (at cons) with people who will hear me, in person. It just seems to me that all the things people liked about The Incredibles where the things that were stolen from the comics I pointed out before. The central villain is a compilation of every comic book fan stereotype, which has then been ramped up, and set loose on the audience perception of a fanboy. Froze 0 and Mr. Incredible’s reminiscences of fights are about how fundamentally stupid the hero/villain conflict is. Don’t even get me started on how The Incredible family, including their children, kill people. Find me at comic con. I’ll be happy to talk about it more, then. I’m really friendly, even when you disagree with me.

by: Jason Green

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:56:47 +0000

Wow, I didn’t think there was a soul alive that disliked “The Incredibles.” Learn something new every day, i guess.

by: Unpopular

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:34:28 +0000

Why pay for a ticket to shameless mockery when genuine comedy is around the corner.

Labelling these types of films as satire or spoof is an insult to those terms. None of them come close to the quality of classics like Airplane. I do have to say that Meet the Spartans and Superhero have been just a bit better than the ones which were released in the previous couple of years.

by: James Van Hise

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:38:29 +0000

I like The Incredibles so much that I saw it 4 times in theaters because I knew I’d never see it on the big screen again. Snide? Not for a moment. If it were I’d have hated it. his film embraced superheros as something to admire, and portrayed those against heroes as being wrong-headed. Mr. Incredible was driven to help people. When he was forced to standby and see someone mugged, he lost it completely. The characterization in this film was so much better than the forced dialogue in the Fantastic Four movies. The CGI characters in he Incredibles were more real that the live action characters in the FF movies.

by: Ayo

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 21:27:29 +0000

Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t these movies all made by the same exact people? Are they not, in fact, the same exact thing done over and over?

“Scary Movie”
“Not Another Teen Movie”
“Superhero Movie”

What do these people expect?

by: Xenos

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:34:04 +0000

I didn’t see Incredibles as mocking at all. It was more like a loving homage using different enough characters. Hell, it was better than the actual Fantastic Four movie.

Meanwhile, I had my hopes up for this one. I heard it might be more alone the lines of Airplane! than the other in this dismal series of ‘____ Movie’ movies. Sadly that doesn’t seem like the case.

by: Christopher Moonlight

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 17:09:39 +0000

“see the self-mocking postmodernism in everything from “Superman Returns” to “The Incredibles”

I was angered by the Incredibles, because it was not self-mocking. It was just mocking. Non of it’s parodies were done with love of super-heros. They just pointed out how stupid they felt things were, while ripping off and poorly rewriting our greatest comic book stories. They stoled directly from Maxximmoral, Watchmen (a lot), and The Fantastic 4, and then presented it in a very snide manner. Sorry. I have strong feelings about that one, but I’ll stop myself from writing my essay on it here. It’s better as a drunken rant for chasing people away at Comic Con anyway.

by: Alex

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:15:58 +0000

“Most actual superhero movies these days are post-superhero movies — see the self-mocking postmodernism in everything from “Superman Returns” to “The Incredibles” — so who needs a spoof?”

that’s ridiculous. the Scary Movie films were hits, and their main source was the Scream franchise. few movies are as ’self-mocking and postmodernist’ as those movies. a scary movie where everyone talks about scary movies

by: Mark Coale

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:45:07 +0000

It still made 3 or 4 times more money than Run Fat Boy Run, which was okay but not stellar.

by: Mark

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:20:15 +0000

I have an idea, maybe it just wasn’t funny. The whole parody movie thing is long past it’s due date and maybe just maybe no one wants to see this crap anymore.

by: Ken Raining

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:59:54 +0000

Let’s just all hope that finally- FINALLY- people have come to realize how awful these “____ Movie” parodies are and that seeing one only encourages them to make more.

by: James Van Hise

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:22:51 +0000

While the TV series THE TICK did a parody of the superhero genre, SUPERHERO MOVIE just steals shamelessly from Spider-Man and X-Men and adds fart jokes. I also don’t know how they got away with using actual character names from the X-Men (Professor Xavier, Storm, Wolverine) rather than parody names. In the end credits they have a scene with Wolverine where an X-Man with rolls of toilet paper for hands is wiping his ass. That’s the level of humor in this film from start to finish. I didn’t laugh once. There’s a good reason this wasn’t made available for reviewers to see. Thus reviews didn’t appear in newspapers until Monday morning, though probably sooner on line.

by: Matt Maxwell

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:54:16 +0000

Let me amend my “stinky cash-in” statement.

Perhaps it was a stinky cash-in that nobody wanted to see this particular week in a great dead spot in the Hollywood premiere schedule. Perhaps the reliance on one-week totals, and indeed the system of distribution that we now “enjoy” where movies have a single shot to make themselves into hits or misses skews things, turning virtually every gimmick release into a game of Russian roulette. Perhaps everyone is sick of stinky cash-ins. Perhaps the superhero movie genre is dying and will take comics with it. Perhaps over analysis is taking place. Perhaps I’m really grumpy this morning.

by: Jason Green

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:42:59 +0000

Plus, didn’t the same people already parody superhero movies somewhat in “Epic Movie”? I honestly don’t know, as I gave up on these “___ Movie” parodies after “Scary Movie 2″ but I thought I remembered seeing “Superman Returns” parody stuff in the ads…

by: R. Maheras

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:38:41 +0000

Compared to “Meet the Spartans,” “Superhero Movie” was like “Citizen Kane.”

by: The Beat

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:00:54 +0000

As the industry commentary shows, it wasn’t just that SUPERHERO MOVIE failed as lame satire, but that so many lame satires has done well before. Why THIS lame satire, why NOW?

by: A-rod

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:55:37 +0000

I think the point Steven is making is that some lousy parodies make huge box office hauls while others flop. Being a stinky cash-in has never stood in the way of success before. I honestly can’t see any difference between this movie and the dozen or so spoofs that came before it but those other films had much better opening weekends.
I do not think Steven is making a case for the artistic merits of the film or the genre. In Hollywood success is measured in $$$. The rest is irrelevant.

by: Matt Maxwell

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:41:08 +0000

Huh.

Maybe it was just a stinky cash-in and everyone knew it?

by: Kitty

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:00:03 +0000

Echoing Rich - it helps if the movie actually brings some humor to the table. A lot of these “parodies” I’ve seen rely on “this guy is dressed up just like that other guy in that movie OMG!” instead of actual jokes.

I wish I could remember who said this, but someone made the great distinction between “aha” humor based on recognizing the reference versus “haha” humor based on real jokes and comedy.