CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Review of My Super Ex-Girlfriend

Sunday, July 23, 2006

this entry brought to you by foo fighters, "come back"





Although existing for next to 30 years, the superhero genre hasn't had a good satire that skews towards adults. My Super Ex-Girlfriend is pretty unique in that it doesn't present the superhero genre as tongue-in-cheek; rather, it takes what we know about superheroes (powers, an origin, a villain) and tells a romantic comedy around that. And really, the premise is unbeatable: how would you break up with a superheroine that's got, uhm, issues?

The end result makes this a romantic comedy that will delight the boys in the audience more than will their dates, with some pretty funny guy-centric dialogue (although I will admit that jerky/clueless sidekicks giving advice on women has officially gotten played out), beautiful women, and plentiful simulated PG-13 sex and sex jokes-- in fact, so much of the latter that one wishes they threw in a couple more F-bombs just to give it a solid R rating, because the "adult situations" make this feel a little bit more adult than PG-13. The movie catering a bit more to the male audience brings up a low point, though; director Ivan Reitman has a knack for everyman stories, and he has a knack for being as appealing to nerds as much as he is more mainstream audiences. Unfortunately, in going for the date audience-- in fact, the marketing almost entirely ignored its superhero origins and instead focused 100% on the romantic comedy aspects (see the above poster), Super Ex-Girlfriend, despite the superhero subject matter, never lets its nerd flag wave, and this makes the movie lack a bit in opportunities for both comedy and personality. For example, G-Girl, Uma Thurman's titular superheroine, doesn't even have anything approaching a proper superhero costume. Instead she dresses like she's going out on the town and has a "G" emblem. This might not seem like a big deal but it waters down otherwise great satire, and the comedic punch of a few scenes fall flat because of it, especially when G-Girl reveals herself to the main character. I don't really doubt that Eddie Izzard is capable of playing a hilarious, pompous villain with Professor Bedlam, who is repeatedly mentioned as being a supervillain but doesn't do anything to warrant it, in fact, other characters don't even seem suitably fearful of him. It's as if Reitman held back in fear that the audience wouldn't "get it", yet this is curious considering that it is indeed a satire of a superhero movie, and several scenes are direct parodies. That Reitman would hilariously dive into the superhero genre full force in one scene where the city is threatened by an errant nuclear missile yet G-Girl stubbornly won't leave a restaurant because she's afraid to leave her boyfriend alone with his coworker she's seethingly jealous of, yet didn't even bother giving her an iconic costume brings questions like, what's happened to Ivan Reitman over the years? What happened to the guy that once destroyed New York with the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?

Despite a general washed out feeling and an unshakable sensation that this movie would've been funnier had it been directed by Reitman two decades ago, Super Ex-Girlfriend is funny in all the ways that matter, mostly because there is a solid story and a great cast. Luke Wilson has got the hapless everyman thing down pat, and here you can't help but to feel sorry for this guy who gets caught up in a relationship with a psychotic superhero, and even when he does something genuinely jerky in the last act to save his butt, you really can't blame him. Uma Thurman is absolutely perfect as the hideously insecure Jenny, the secret identity of G-Girl, never playing her role for less than comedic appeal, but never leaving the realm of "Jesus, I used to know a girl just like that." There were a couple critics who called this movie sexist, and I don't agree with that-- while it is pretty guy-centric for a movie with so much pink on its poster you’d swear it starred Lindsay Lohan, what makes Super Ex-Girlfriend work is that we've all known girls who have flown so far off the handle they would throw a Great White Shark at you or burn swear words in your forehead with eyeball lasers if they had the power to do so over something as silly as a break-up. The "psycho ex-girlfriend" character may be a stereotype in a world 20 years past Fatal Attraction, but Glenn Close didn't rocket Michael Douglas' car into orbit.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend isn't the biggest laugh you'll have all year, and when you realize this is from the guy who brought you Ghostbusters it might even be a touch on the disappointing. But there's plenty of solid, often hilarious fun here (she throws a shark at him!!) that makes it all worthwhile, even if it's not the most memorable comedy and was marketed wrong.
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on this day last year review of the white stripes, get behind me satan. worth a read.
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with love from CRS @ 11:46 PM 

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