The recent spate of spoof / parody movies have been financially profitable for the studios and producers behind them, but, quality wise, they haven’t exactly been, well, good.. Or even all that funny.. The days of Airplane! and The Naked Gun and “Hot Shots! are long gone.. Instead, the movie world is given Date Movie, Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, The Comebacks, among others.. The Scary Movie franchise, helmed by the great Keenan Ivory Wayans twice, then by the equally great ( not to mention legendary ) David Zucker twice, has been the only one worth watching ( sure, they’re not classics, but they hit more than they miss ).. Superhero Movie, produced by Zucker and written and directed by Craig Mazin, falls into the Scary Movie category in that it’s not great, or all that good, but watchable..

Rated: [ M ] Moderate sexual references, Infrequent moderate coarse language

Cinema release: 10th April 2008

Running time: 85 minutes

Stars: Sara Paxton, Drake Bell, Leslie Nielsen

There really isn’t much of a point in reviewing a spoof flick like Superhero Movie, which is probably why studios don’t offer advance screenings to critics most of the time.. At one time parodies were well crafted and pointed out the flaws and foibles of a genre.. Now screenwriters are content to take the entire story from one movie, add in a bunch of body humor jokes, and call it a day.. If you’ve liked the spoof movies that came before, you’ll probably get your yuks from Superhero Movie, otherwise it’s best to just steer clear..

Ninety percent of Superhero Movie comes from the Spider - Man movie.. Seriously, almost the whole focus is a five - year old superhero flick? The spoof doesn’t even touch on the two sequels, which is a shame; the third chapter seems ripe for the spoofing.. Instead this is pure Spider - Man, with one brief scene giving the main character, Rick Riker, the background of Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, and another brief sequence in an X - Men mansion setting.. Towards the end of the picture, when the climax of Spider - Man didn’t work for Superhero Movie ( I’m betting it was too costly to reproduce ), the story shifts to something almost move for move like producer David Zucker’s The Naked Gun, right down to sending a handicapped figure barreling over a ledge.. I don’t understand why writer / director Craig Mazin approached this with such a limited focus, when there are tons of superhero movies out there, many of which deserve this kind of treatment..

In the spoof, Drake Bell plays Rick Riker.. It didn’t surprise me to see that Bell spent time working with Amanda Bynes, since his similarly overdone reactions provide many of the movie’s punchlines.. Like Peter Parker, Rick is the school geek, a photographer for the paper, and in love with an unattainable beauty, here played by Sara Paxton who does one hell of a Kirsten Dunst impersonation.. Instead of a spider, Rick is bitten by a genetically enhanced dragonfly, turning him into a superhero and forcing him to learn that with great power comes a lot of jokes about bodily functions, but that’s fine because one day he’ll learn to embrace his power and fly.. If you’ve seen Spider - Man, you know how that works out for him..

Based on the ad campaign I could tell going in that there would be a great deal of scatological humor, so I figured I’d give a count of how many jokes the movie crammed into its merciful short running time that dealt with body waste, sex organs, or the other staples of “ dick and fart joke ” movies.. I lost count when, five minutes in, Riker interacts with a compound that makes all the nearby animals ( in a science lab ) horny for him.. Needless to say, that set the tempo for the rest of the movie.. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not completely against dick and fart jokes, when they’re part of something bigger, like the way Kevin Smith or Judd Apatow use them.. When they provide the sole intent of the movie, I have to wonder if there’s something better that can be done with that time..

Special mention should be made to the flick’s opening theme.. I think it’s sad that a superhero spoof movie has a better opening theme than most serious superhero movies.. Listen to that opening music.. It’s inspiring..

So, how could one improve this movie, or really any, of the recent parody movies? I don’t really know.. It seems as though the makers of these movies just try to fit in as many references to other recent movies as possible, without thinking why ahead of time.. Maybe they should make the parody aspects less obvious, less on the nose, and just focus more on the general goofiness of the proposed story.. Again, I really don’t know..

Superhero Movie isn’t as bad it could have been.. It’s worth a look, probably more worth a look on DVD than in the theatre.. But, yeah, it has its moments.. It’s funny sometimes..

So what do we have here? A cool soundtrack, a costumed herp checking himself out with a flashlight, running into a school bus stop sign, rear view mirror, and door, gratuitous black guy with multiple communication gadgets, a nose hair trimmer, gratuitous school cliques, a flaming bird, flash photography, hacking up blood, being pushed into dung, gratuitous horny animals including a snail, gratuitous Marion Ross, gratuitous Leslie Nielson, vomiting into a fish tank, drinking a beer, gratuitous Brent Spiner, gratuitous Dan Castellaneta, dead old people, gratuitous Leslie Nielson farting, gratuitous Google, gratuitous Ted Striker as a KKK member, hot chick wearing two bras, gratutious fat guy man boob fondling, ripping a drinking fountain out of the wall, ripping a fat guy’s clothes off, boob touching, gratuitous Stephen Hawking parody, break dancing on a wall, old woman in a wood chipper, nail catching, gratuitous Batman Begins parody, a dog drinking booze, a mugging, an electrified fence, more flaming birds, a ” 1983 Nissan shitbox,” ” 2 girls, 1 cup,” gratuitous Tracy Morgan, gratuitous Kurt Fuller, a dancing monkey, gratuitous Jeffrey Tambor, Wolverine shaving his legs, decapitation via sneezing, riding a motorized toilet, gratuitous Pam Anderson, costume designing, beating a man with a fire extinguisher, gratuitous Tom Cruise on youtube parody, gratuitous John Getz, gratuitous Keith David, arm breaking, multiple head smashings, the ” upside down ” kiss, erect nipples, ” Death Machine Maker: Home Version,” stuffing a turkey, urinating after drinking a Big Gulp, urinating from the ceiling, giant fork through the top of the hand, banging a dead body, wacky waving inflatable tube man sex, putting vanilla icing in a bong, smelling a dinner roll, ” Douchebag of the Year ” ( one of the greatest songs of all time ), Nelson Mandela attacking Desmond Tutu, gratuitous comic book convention, a dick bomb, and being pushed off the top of a building..