I promised a review to this to somebody, so here it is!



This movie is the latest effort from the director who brought us such perennial favorites as "Senseless" and "Rocket Man" and is written by the scribe who is bringing us the live action Scooby Doo movie. How could we ever go wrong with this combo? The Specials are described as the 6th or 7th best superhero team in the world, and the trailer is alive with tid bits of action and disfunction, making this movie seem like another "Mystery Men." Another "Mystery Men" this movie is not. While I know that sounds like GOOD NEWS to some of you, believe me, it ain't all that!

Before I go any further, I want to go on record to say that I genuinely loved Mystery Men. I saw it at the theater, and have since then watched it several times on DVD. While I know this movie isn't everybody's favorite, it has a cult like appeal to it that I think will keep this movie alive for years to come. The Specials, however, hasn't seemed to find that cult status.

I won't waste alot of space here and I will cut to the chase of why I hate the Specials. The movie spends quite a bit of time descrbing to you what you are NOT seeing. The movie basically details a day or two in the life of the group that is not their best period (they break up) and the last half of the movie is spent with the Specials APART whining and crying into their beer. Heck, who wants to see that crap? When they aren't complaining about their problems, they are remembering the great times they had fighting all these strange and wonderful villians. The problem with this is you never get to see ANY of these strange and wonderful villians! And what is a superhero movie without a villian? You also never get to see the great and wonderful battles they describe. It's like being teased all along and never getting to touch the goods.

Another thing I loathed about this movie...THESE ARE AWESOME SUPERHEROES! The wide majority of them have kick ***** powers that make you WANT to see them in action! But you NEVER get to see anything for the entire movie, and it really is a shame. They are constantly setting you up making you think you are going to get to see either a demostration of their powers or even a flash back to a great battle where you will see their powers in work, but the movie never delivers the promised goods. In one key scene, the Strobe (who can fire powerful lasers from his hands) finds out that his wife is cheating on him with another member of the group (sorry about the spoiler, but it shouldn't be a problem, because I don't recommend this movie to anyone). The Strobe is rightfully PISSED, right? And he is standing by the car where his wife and this guy are in THE ACT, right? And what does the Strobe do? Use his powers to kick that guy's *****? No. Use his powers to hurl the car across the parking lot? No. He just stands there! HE JUST STANDS THERE! That is just WRONG!

If they had taken a bunch of losers who wanted to be heroes and didn't have any powers and they were this lame, I could buy it, but all thru this movie, you listen to them tell the greatest stories and you hear them talk about their great powers. Well, if this movie is going to tell us all these things, SHOW US. Instead, we get a group of superheroes that splits up and basically goes out and hangs out in their split factions. Big whoop.

Stan Lee said on Turn Ben Stein On that people don't want to see issues of Spider Man where Peter Parker is paying his rent or taxes or going to the DMV (I am paraphrasing here, of course). People buy Spider Man to see Spider Man in action. And I purchased the Specials expecting to see them action!

How did I arrive to the conclusion that this is what I would see? Because of the misleading trailer. In the trailer, you get to see a demostration of the all the member's powers in glorious fashion. At the end of the movie, the group is all back together and they get a call that the Pentagon is being over run by giant ants and you get to see each member gear up for action, giving us the same demo of powers you can see in the trailer. THEN THE MOVIE IS OVER! I was getting excited, thinking we finally get to see the pay off of what they've been telling us all thru the movie, but the next thing I see are the credits! The trailer is also misleading as it lists Melissa Joan Hart as a main actress in this movie. The spot you see of her in the trailer is about the extent of her appearance in the movie. The trailer for this movie is the most misleading of any movie I have ever seen.

If you want to see people whining about their problems, rent Clerks again and save yourself the pain of having to watch this moive. Unfortunatlely, I got the DVD, and my only remaining quesiton is which was a bigger waste of money? The Specials or Matthew Broderick's Godzilla? It's quite a toss up.