Superhero Movie (2008)

Superhero Movie arrives in 2008 as a spoof of the superhero genre, primarily targeting Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. Craig Mazin writes and directs, and the film follows a socially awkward teenager bitten by a radioactive dragonfly who becomes the masked vigilante known as the Dragonfly. The plot is scaffolding for gags, and the gags are mostly tired. Luke Y. Thompson of L.A. Weekly found it tragically unhip. That assessment holds.

The film's cultural footprint is remarkably light. Its women exist to be rescued or romanced. Its minority performers fill standard comedic slots without comment. The villain is an evil businessman whose scheming carries no systemic critique of wealth or capital. There is no environmental anxiety, no examination of race or identity, and no engagement with neurodivergence beyond a protagonist who is merely clumsy. The comedy aims at celebrities, Scientology videos, and the alleged steroid use of a baseball player. Nobody is lectured. Nobody is meant to leave the theater improved.

What remains is a brisk, disposable parody that made $73 million against a $35 million budget and has since gathered a modest cult following among devotees of the form. Its ambitions extend no further than the next pratfall. It is not the worst of its genre, the critics conceded, which is faint praise delivered through gritted teeth. For the purposes of classification, the film registers as a superhero spoof with no discernible social program. It wants only to make an audience laugh, and it succeeds intermittently. The rest is silence, and a helicopter.