Jan 31 2008'Superhero Movie' To Be The Marginally Better Spoof of 2008?

So beaten down the Meet the Spartans of the world destroying the spoof with its army of questionable lookalikes, I was actually half-heartedly hoping that Superhero Movie might revitalize the parody genre I loved as a kid. Despite the title's dreary reference to its awful parody brethren, Superhero was produced by Naked Gun founder David Zucker, and written by the guy who penned Scary Movie 3 (I didn't see Scary Movie 4, but 3 had at least a few memorable gags in comparison to its Wayans-based predecessors), so it seemed like it had some potential.

Unfortunately, after bemoaning the scattershot laziness of Epic/Date/Whatever Movie's any-reference-as-a-joke "humor", I fear Superhero Movie may be at the opposite end of the laziness spectrum: specific and focused to the point of near-plagiarism. Spider-Man's shots and beats are reproduced with such attention to detail that, with its obvious observations and lack of any truly winning humor, the film appears to be more on the level of immature kids recreating their favorite movie with a camcorder.

It's nice to see pop culture references being used as building points, rather than punchlines, however, I ask you, when was the last time the break-dancing-in-an-unfamiliar-situation-to-prove-how-comfortable-you've-become-in-said-situation gag was funny, and was Jaime Kennedy involved? I'm pretty sure the joke was old before dancing even broke.

Thanks to Meg, my favorite human, for the link.