The Specials
(2000)
Director: Craig
Mazin
Cast: Rob Lowe, Jamie Kennedy, Thomas Haden Church
As I have said several times in my movie reviews, I am a
firm non-conformist, and I was that way even when I was a child. All
those years ago, there were a number of so-called entertaining things
that, while they pleased people my age, these same things had little to
no effect on me. One of those things that simply didn't attract me was
hockey. I never expressed my dislike for it out loud, because I knew it
would attract unwanted (and bad) attention to myself since I was living
in a land where hockey was king. I never understood the attraction of
slapping a puck around, and while the game had the positive attraction
of provoking its players to get into fistfights, these fights were few
and far between, and never seemed to be happening when I would flip the
channel and come to a broadcast hockey game. I especially didn't like
the fact that hockey games would often mean I couldn't watch a favorite
TV show that had originally been scheduled to be broadcast at the same
time, but had been yanked so that the hockey game could play on... and
on... and on... for what seemed to be a painfully long time. Another
thing that I wasn't into was stickers. Let me explain: When I was in
elementary school, there was not only a craze of trading hockey cards,
but trading stickers, stickers of cartoon characters, of real stuff
like cars and airplanes, stickers of every shape and color you can
think of. Kids would bring albums full of stickers to school to trade
and better their collection. I never understood the attraction of
stickers. Why would you want to muck something up by slapping a sticker
on it?
Another thing I wasn't into was with fictional
superheroes, the kind that you find in comic books. For some reason,
following the adventures of these fictional people never really
appealed to me, no matter the way that they were presented. I never
collected comic books, except for about a five minute period when I was
a teen (I abruptly stopped when I realized with all the copies being
sold, the chance of my comic books going up in price was unlikely). The
last comic book I bought was when I bought The Punisher Kills The
Marvel Universe as a gag Christmas present for my brother. (I was
satisfied when he told me he found the book "disturbing", and also when
my sister-in-law called it "awful but interesting".) I admit that I did
read the special Spider-Man comics in the magazine adaptation of the
children's TV show The Electric Company, though its
watered-down approach (Uncle Ben never existed when it showed the story
of Peter Parker's transformation) sort of annoyed me even as a young
boy. I also admit that I did read the Spider-Man comic strip that
appeared in the local newspaper, though even as a kid I found that the
stories were stretched out considerably, and when the local newspaper
folded and Spider-Man was cut off, I found I didn't miss it that much.
Outside of comics, I still haven't been that attracted to superheroes.
I never watched Saturday morning shows like Superfriends,
I only watched one episode of the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman,
and only a few episodes of The Incredible Hulk. Superhero
movies? Well, I admit that I have watched several of them, but I have
found most to be overblown and not promising that future superhero
movies will be entertaining.
Some of you are probably wondering now, after all I have
said about superheroes, just why I have decided to review The
Specials, which is all about superheroes. Well, there are a
couple of reasons why. The first reason is that The Specials
happens to be a comedy, a spoof of the whole idea of people with
extraordinary abilities in a real world. The idea of spoofing a certain
corner of fiction that hasn't given me much appeal over the years
appealed to me. Then there is the second reason. While absorbing
fictional superheroes in various media over the years hasn't been
terribly appealing to me, the idea of real-life superheroes in
our real world has been an idea that has intrigued me. I imagine that
in our world, a superhero would have a terrible time. Superman wouldn't
be able to get away with masking his identity with glasses and a
changed hair style. Even Batman's true identity would now have been
uncovered, by either the police or government agents. And I imagine
that if there were as many superheroes in our world as in the comics,
there would be a lot of conflict between them. They may be super, but
they are human as well. Here's the plot description from the DVD box:
"They are the sixth (okay, maybe seventh) greatest superhero team in
the entire world. At their modest suburban headquarters, The Strobe (Sideway’s
Thomas Haden Church), The Weevil (Rob Lowe), foulmouthed Amok (Son
of the Mask’s Jamie Kennedy), Ms. Indestructible (Paget
Brewster), Deadly Girl (13 Going On 30’s Judy Greer), new
member Nightbird (Cabin Fever’s Jordan Ladd) and the rest
all spend their time bickering, having extramarital affairs, and
preparing for the grand unveiling of their own action figure line. But
when a furious Strobe suddenly disbands the group, who will be there
for the oddballs, rebels, outcasts and geeks? Before they save the
world, can they save themselves?"
Based on that plot description, there are probably a
significant number of readers at this point who will think that I'll
start off by labeling this movie as a rip-off of Mystery Men,
which was released a year earlier. But I can't do that, because the end
credits of The Specials reveal that the movie was
actually made the same year as Mystery Men - it just
took a little time to actually get released. Knowing that the movie was
made around the same time as its big budget cousin gave me some hope,
since the makers of the movie most likely thought they were doing
something original and not copying anything. Another hopeful sign was
that the screenplay was written by James Gunn, who had entertained me
in the past with screenplays for movies like Slither,
the remake of Dawn Of The Dead, and Troma's last funny
movie, Tromeo And Juliet. Watching The Specials,
it is clear that Gunn was trying hard to break expectations the
audience may have. The movie does not try for comedy 100% of the time.
Surprisingly, there are a number of serious scenes. In fact, I found
these serious scenes the best parts of the movie. In an early scene
with new member Nightbird, there is a sweetness with her interaction
with fellow member Minute Man (played by Gunn), who obviously is
attracted to her but is a little shy to come right out and say it.
Later, when she turns in her uniform after Strobe has broken up the
group, the attempts at humor stop for this scene to show her genuinely
upset, and you feel her pain. There is also an equally effective scene
near the end where she confesses her secrets to Weevil. Although there
is some humor in this scene, it's not forced - it feels natural.
Though there are several other serious scenes like these
in the movie, most of the time the movie goes for the laughs. Is any of
the attempted humor in the movie funny? Well, I will admit that I
laughed a few times. There's the scene where one superhero tells the
story of another superhero who could stretch a certain part of his body
(think of the movie Welcome Home Brother Charles) that
was amusing to hear. When the superhero team makes a deal with a toy
company to make action figurines of themselves, there's subsequently a
funny parody of commercials for similar products (though the commercial
goes on a bit too long.) The character of "U.S. Bill" (Mike Schwartz,
Scrubs) is a dimwitted figure whose stupidity made me chuckle.
There are some other moments I could mention, but as a whole,
The Specials did not work as the superhero comedy it was
intended to be. Let me start with the working conditions the cast and
crew were working with. A little on-line research revealed to me that
the movie was made in 18 days on a budget of $1 million. To be fair,
parts of the movie managed to use this in their favor. Would a real
sixth-rate superhero team have a gigantic and high-tech lair to work
out of? No, they would work out of a house, like how many neighborhood
community centers work out of. The movie also manages to look fairly
slick despite the budget. But even then, the movie is clearly missing
something: showing the powers of these superheroes. Except
(very) briefly at the end, we don't see the heroes showing their powers
at any time. How can you satirize the idea of superheroes if they never
act in a super manner, at home or out of it?
These folks come across more or less as regular people.
Maybe the idea was to show superheroes would be regular people inside,
but not showing their superhero side seems misguided. The movie could
possibly still have been funny, but aside from scattered laughs like I
gave examples of above, the movie isn't very funny for several other
reasons. For one thing, there are too many characters (12) in this
superhero team, meaning that several of them don't get that much time
to really be characters and generate laughs, and that the other
characters don't get as much time to try and get laughs as I would have
liked. (Had the script cut the team members number in, say, half, I
think the movie would have worked a lot better.) There are also some
unlikable characters in the team. "Alien Orphan" (Sean Gunn, Gilmore
Girls) nauseated me with his babbling, drooling talk and his
sickening green makeup. While Jamie Kennedy's blue makeup didn't turn
my stomach, his Amok character still managed to displease me with his
foul-mouthed dialogue. Hey, I'm no prude - but all his filthy dialogue
seemed forced and an attempt to be "edgy", instead of coming across as
the honest tongue of a cynical person. The other members of the team
commit some other unlikable things, like cheating on their spouse for
reasons never properly explained. But the main reason why The
Specials is not funny is that, for the most part, it is not
imaginative. It seems to have no idea what satire is, and its look at
human behavior will be tired and familiar to anyone who has ever had
some form of conflict with another human before.
Check
for availability on Amazon (DVD)
See also: Abraxas, Guardian
Of The Universe, The Indian Superman, Star Kid
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