Because I definitely needed something funny to clear my pallets from existentialist crime films and I had just seen Captain America: Civil War (which I’m bound to comment on soon) I decided to do Superhero Comedy for this week’s theme.
The first film on my list, The Specials tells the adventures of the sixth or seventh greatest superhero team in the world… well not actually the adventures, it’s a slow week and nothing is actually happening beyond the newest member of the team starting her first day, a dinner in honor of the team’s new toy line and all other sorts of mundane things that normally happens during all of those boring hours while waiting for something to happen.
This is a wonderfully done slice of life ensemble piece done on a shoestring written by James Gunn who would move on to superhero films with larger budgets like Supers and Guardians of the Galaxy.
My Super Ex Girlfriend addresses the question what happens if you find yourself dating the world’s greatest superhero and more
importantly what happens what does she do when you’re dumb enough to dump her.
I had really mixed feelings about this one. Sure it was funny but a lot of the message seemed mildly offensive to me with a lot of the plot involving pickup artists (sure a bar might be considered fair game but to do that #$@& on the subway?) then it briefly seemed to imply that all women were either militant or crazy (with the climactic battle being pretty much a superpowered catfight) and in the end it seemed to turn that into a message of empowerment and gender roles with the guys left holding the purses as the moment go save the world again.
Despite this the film had it’s moments having fun making fun of the genre with fairly good effects and solid performances from Uma Thurman, Luke Wilson and Eddie Izzard.
