Big Picture Big Sound

The Film

The cover of the Superhero Movie Blu-ray is deceptive. The artwork would lead one to believe that the film is a spoof of recent comic book derived movies such as X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. Although X-Men, Fantastic Four and even Tim Burton's first Batman movie are briefly hinted at, Superhero Movie falls short of spoofing the entire genre and does nothing more than retread the first Spider-Man film, adding puerile gags, fart jokes and the obligatory pubescent sexual innuendos for what essentially is a ninety-minute snoozefest.

Perhaps, as the cover proudly proclaims, "the guys who brought you Scary Movie and The Naked Gun," (the latter being the far superior of these so-called spoofs), thought that by adding Leslie Nielsen (Uncle Albert) to the cast it would give the movie some legitimacy and guaranteed laughs. It is true, Nielsen is the consummate "straight man" and he performs here as one would expect, but even Nielsen can't rescue the awful dialogue he's given to recite -- "your thighs look like cottage cheese someone threw up on a hot sidewalk." In fact, the character with the funniest lines in this film is one who appears the least and that is Jeffrey Tambor's Dr. Whitbey, who should have been on screen more often, but alas…

Making fun of the superhero genre is not in and of itself a bad idea. There certainly have been an overabundance of these films in theatres in recent years and some of them have been so awful they might as well have been comedies of their own accord. Craig Mazin's Superhero Movie, however, is so painfully unoriginal and devoid of humor, one has to ask why executives continue to throw money at awful films like this. In fact, one has to ask why films like this keep being released to Blu-ray when many are clamoring for honest-to-goodness guaranteed big sellers like The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Lawrence of Arabia and more that would give the format a much-needed shot in the arm.

Perhaps it is because the superhero genre is inherently so silly to begin with that it makes it that much more difficult to turn it into something whimsical that will provide honest moments of laughter. Superhero Movie fails on all counts. Its producers should be apologizing to everyone who has had to suffer through watching this awful production.

The Picture

Superhero Movie appears on Blu-ray Disc in a 1080p/24 high definition VC-1 transfer of its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.78:1 averaging ~26Mbps. The picture quality of Superhero Movie won't be moving to the top of anyone's reference quality list anytime soon. The transfer does have strong, vibrant colors that pop, like the bright green of Dragonfly's costume and the crimson trimmings on Hourglass' metallic suit, but the film grain is a little inconsistent. At times it is clean, at other times, the picture looks a bit grungy. Contrast is just a little hot, but not enough to bleach out details.  There's just an intangible, low-budget look to the whole production that keeps Superhero Movie from reaching the level of some of the better new release Blu-ray transfers available today.

The Sound

Superhero Movie comes with Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless, English and French Dolby Digital 5.1 audio options with English SDH, German, and Spanish subtitles. Listening to the TrueHD soundtrack, the mix doesn't suffer from any mastering problems. There are no distortions, dialogue is clean, high frequencies are relatively smooth, and low frequency extension is solid, especially in the opening sequence as the Superhero Movie score is playing.

One major flaw with the mix is that it is unevenly balanced between the front and surround channels. There are some jarring choices of directional use of the surround channels throughout the movie. Most of the time, much of the sound remains pretty evenly balanced across the front three channels with a moderate amount of ambient information mixed into the surround channels. There are, however, occasionally instances of unexpected sound effects being panned from the rear to the front or front to rear.

Despite the off-putting use of the surrounds, the mix has good dynamic range, is easy on the ears and the sound effects all sound natural, though not absolutely full-range. There could have been a bit more use of the LFE for a fuller overall sound.

The Extras

One benefit to this Blu-ray release of Superhero Movie are the slew of deleted scenes offering extra gags cut from the movie -- that is if you enjoy that sort of humor to begin with. This disc is also BD-Live enabled with a few more movie related supplements available via Weinstein's BD-Live network. In all, Superhero Movie is not loaded with compelling extras, but it probably has more than a release like this deserves.

The extras available on this release are:

• Feature Commentary by Writer/Director Craig Mazin and Producers David Zucker and Robert K. Weiss -- For a comedy film one might expect an audio commentary to provide some laughs as well. Perhaps fittingly for this sub par film, the commentary from the director and producers is just as stale.
• Alternate Ending (1.78:1/standard definition)
• Deleted Scenes (1.78:1/standard definition) -- This collection of twenty-one brief deleted and extended scenes offers some more absurd gags that offer few laughs and only serve as more evidence of exactly how uninspired Superhero Movie actually was on the whole:
  • Rick Changes in Alley
  • Wall Situps
  • Non-stick Toilet Seat
  • Can You Fix a Prostate?
  • Sick Rick (Extended Sequence)
  • CEO Chinese Food
  • Landers Leg Restraints
  • Collateral
  • Around the Horn
  • Shithead's Guide to Superhero Costumes
  • Crazy Editor (Extended Sequence)
  • Hourglass Bomb
  • Upside Down Kiss
  • Sticky Kiss
  • Elastic Tongues
  • Automatic Rain
  • Pop-up Porn
  • Nurse Gets Whacked
  • Landers and Rick Backstage (Extended Sequence)
  • Dragonfly's Distraction
  • More Tom Cruise
• Meet the Cast (1.78:1/high definition) -- This self-congratulatory featurette shows the actors in interview segments patting themselves on the back and lavishing praise on their colleagues and the filmmakers.
• The Art of Spoofing (1.78:1/high definition) -- The filmmakers discuss the spoof genre and the challenges of doing a superhero spoof.
• Theatrical Trailer (1.78:1/standard definition)
• BD-Live:
  • Cast & Crew
  • Photo Gallery
  • More Superhero Movie Clips
  • The Superhero Movie Blu-ray Community
  • Weinstein Company Online Survey
  • More Weinstein Company Titles
  • Coming Soon
  • Now Playing

Final Thoughts

I cannot in good conscience recommend this release to anyone even as just a rental. The movie itself is horrendous, the video transfer is average and the sound mix is middling at best. My advice would be to skip this one entirely or buy it as a gag gift... for someone you don't particularly like.

Where to Buy

• Superhero Movie: Extended Edition on Blu-ray Disc (Amazon.com)

Product Details

• Actors: Drake Bell, Sara Paxton, Christopher McDonald, Leslie Nielsen, Pamela Anderson
• Director: Craig Mazin
• Audio/Languages: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1, English & French Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, German, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: Weinstein Company
• Blu-ray Disc Release Date: January 13, 2009
• Run Time: 82 minutes
• List Price: $29.95
• Extras:
  • Feature Commentary by Writer/Director Craig Mazin and Producers David Zucker and Robert K. Weiss
  • Alternate Ending
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Meet the Cast
  • The Art of Spoofing
  • Theatrical Trailer
  • BD-Live