Trailer:
“Some dragonfly! You can’t even fly!”
From the makers that brought us stellar films like Scary Movie comes yet another parody, this time focusing its efforts on “superheroes”. However the film is really more just a parody of just Spider-Man with other heroes, pop culture references, and films sporadically thrown in.
Parody movies have been around for a long time, they can be traced back to early slapstick, such as in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, or they can be more refined and still have a story of their own. Such as in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Yet just from the trailer it’s obvious that director Craig Mazin is no Edgar Wright. His main goal is to directly steal scenes from Spider-Man and attempt to put a funny spin on it.
This rarely works and what we end up with is a large collection of potty humor and fart jokes. No really. These guys must have been going for some sort of record because they have a seven minute long fart joke in the middle of this film.
I’d give you a plot synopsis but I think it’s pointless considering the fact this is just a straight up remake of Spider-Man with bad jokes tossed in. The only real laugh out loud funny moment in the film comes from a piece of viral marketing where a great Tom Cruise impersonator parodies his leaked scientology video. Besides that I find it hard to remember any legitimately amusing part, which wasn’t some cheap shot.
Drake Bell (ironically the current voice of Ultimate Spider-Man) plays the main character and is atrocious, but on the bright side, so is everyone else thanks to the near nonexistent script. Still, usually when casting for a comedy you try to find someone actually funny. Not a Disney Channel heartthrob. His acting pretty much consisted of opening his mouth and raising his eyebrows every time something weird or bizarre happens. Which in this case is every fifteen seconds. It had me practically wishing someone would step foreword, take him out of the film, and put him back in acting class.
It’s a waste of my time to pick out every individual actor and evaluate them because just about everyone is downright horrible and the only one who walks away from this thing not looking awful is the no-name actor who replaces Harry Osborn as Peter’s black buddy. His jokes are rarely funny but at least he doesn’t look like an idiot after delivering them.
The movie really only has two redeemable qualities. First is the music. When it’s not playing the latest hit pop song it actually sounds pretty decent. Sure it might be similar to the Raimi film score but that’s not much of a complaint. The second thing is that girl playing the rip off of Mary Jane is way hotter than Kirsten Dunst (and her performance not much worse). But that’s about it.
The movie suffers from a tiny budget but it would have benefited from no budget at all. That way this atrocity would have never made it on screen. With a grand total of maybe five funny scenes in the entire film and a lack of any other kind of emotional force, villain, or plot. There is nothing here to keep me from using it as a nap time.
In the end the only thing that saves this film from getting my bottom grade is that I’ve seen these parody movies done a LOT worse. Sure that’s like arguing who is the tallest of the seven dwarves, but when compared to film made by Jason Friedburg and Aaron Selter (Date Movie, Disaster Movie), it doesn’t seem quite as rotten as it could have been. Things could have gone a whole lot worse. This film at least didn’t make my eyes bleed.
FINAL RATING: 1/10- (10%)
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