The Specials (2000)

exquisite pain

After watching this film, i have a new appreciation for maxi-pads, scurvy, and doughnuts.

If you enjoy seeing others in awkward uncomfortable social situations with minimal plot drama (think Napolean Dynamite), i think you'll like this movie too. I love this movie for it's dry documentary humor about a dysfunctional, family-ish super hero group. My sister who prefers intellectual humor & doesn't really like toilet jokes couldn't stop laughing in that shocked "oh my god, did they just say/do that?" kind of way. Plus, the commentary version added a whole new layer of perspective that enhanced my appreciation for the end result. I don't want to spoil anything but it is definately worth a rental to see. (one drawback though was a lack of subtitle options on my version)



July 22, 2008

Pathetically worthless, not worth $1.00

I bought this on the recommendation of a friend. He said it was a funny, if off-beat "Super Hero" movie. He compared it to "Mystery Men". It even has several decent actors in it.

It's not even good enough to be called "garbage". Its *NOT* funny - not at all. Worse, its a pointless tale that goes nowhere - nowhere at all. Its obvious that its in "Plan 9 from Outer Space" low-budget territory - without even the redeeming features of "being so bad its good." Its just bad.

At the very tail end of the film, they do a scene where the characters appear outside their "headquarters" (which is just an ordinary house in the suburbs). They use the absolute cheapest special effects possible for a brief moment as the character stands or poses. Other than talking, that is the ONLY display of any kind.

Save your money - its not even worth a $1 rental. June 20, 2008

not even remotely funny

oh lord the only funny part was the green character that goes "BLEEECK!" and doesnt speak. April 4, 2008

Even For Three Bucks, This Wasn't That Special...

Have you ever wanted to see a movie like Ben Stiller's
Mystery Men, but not as funny or as entertaining?

I've got the movie for you!

Wow, this is The Specials. The story of the sixth most famous
superhero fighting group in the world. Only though in this world,
there's no Supermen, Spider-Men, or any credible hero really.
What gets me about this flix is that even with a pretty decent
cast, featuring Rob Lowe, pre-Spider-Man 3 Thomas Haden Church, and Jamie Kennedy, along with other recognizable faces, everyone really seems to know on screen just what a disaster they're actually in.

Anyway, the group's main desire is to have the ultimate award,
their own action figures. But when the action figures turn out to
be cheesy recycled-parts of other less-than-heroic toys, the group falls into dismay. Should I really go on? Maybe I shouldn't but okay, I'll give a spoiler alert here:While you get to see the "human" side of superheroes in this flix, you never, I repeat NEVER see the hero side. NO POWERS SHOWN! They don't do anything! They talk alot, but if it wasn't for Kennedy's decent Nightcrawler rip-off make-up, you couldn't tell this was a hero flix in the first place. A lot of whining, alot of moaning, but even if this was supposed to be satire on films like this, they completely missed the point. Hard to believe that this film was written by the same guy that wrote 2004's Dawn Of The Dead, produced by the team that gave us the excellent Clerks-like Free Enterprise, and how interesting, the director of '08's Superhero Movie, yet another attempt at paroding this genre. Hope he gets it right this time.

To sum up, I blind-bought this at a Dollar General, new mind you, for $3 and it's worth that much. Mostly a boring disaster, but has a couple of saving graces, like it's commentary with star/screenwriter Gunn telling how everyone but himself turned his dream movie into such a mess (did he read what he wrote?). Hopefully next time, like with Superhero Movie, they'll understand funny costumes just aren't super enough to carry a film alone. April 1, 2008

Feels like a really weak TV pilot...

Wow, what an embarrassment this is. I don't care if the movie was shot over 18 days for barely $1 million, watching this movie is about as pleasant as licking scrotum sweat off a cadaver. This script should never have been greenlit in the first place, writer James Gunn should have approached Dark Horse or some other indie comic publisher and done a black-and-white graphic novel. It could have been halfway decent in that format and it is a lot easier to sell the superhero stuff in comics than it is in a film without money for special effects.

My feeling is you can't make a superhero movie for a mil, I don't care how you're doing it. Never for an instant does anybody believe any of the guys in this movie have any powers. I think it would've made a huge difference if they had shown one or two shots of members of the Specials using their powers early on to establish their cred as heroes, but they don't and it's impossible for the cast to simulate superpowers, no matter how good they are as actors.

The annoying thing about this is that you give $1 million bucks and 18 days to a number of directors, they could turn out something pretty special. Kevin Smith made Clerks for $20K for crissakes, and even considering inflation that would've been maybe $60K in 2000, when this was made.

Instead, director Craig Mazin and writer Gunn have given us another bottom-of-the-barrel superhero movie, as if we needed another one of those.

It just goes to show how bass ackwards Hollywood can be--if these guys worked in any other business and this was the work they produced, they would be abruptly fired and unable to ever work again in that industry. But the movie business doesn't seem to care whether their products are any good, hence Mazin is directing the upcoming "Superhero!" and Gunn is writing other gems like Scooby Doo 2. And there are still people out there that wonder why movies suck. December 26, 2007

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