All Superheroes Must Die Review

The credits roll, and I turn the television off. So many thoughts dancing through my head, and all of them are negative.

Take a second and think about the experience. Really think about it.

So many thoughts dancing through my head, and most of them are negative. 

Wait a little bit longer. Don't start writing a review yet. It would just end up being an off-putting, angry rant about everything the film did wrong. The type of write-up that I would end up regretting a bit later because I failed to give at least a bit of credit where credit was due.

So many thoughts. Still mostly negative. 

Fuck it, let's write.

So here is the thing with the film All Superheroes Must Die. It's clearly made on a very small budget and to be fair, it tried so hard to be interesting. Essentially it's the result of putting Watchmen, Saw and Kick-Ass in a blender, except you would have to extract all of the talent that was involved in the production of those films in order to truly get the flavor right. 

James Remar is cool and he did his best, but his best almost felt like a flaw here. It's like watching an impressive enough magic show directly next to a school bus on fire. Sure you figured out my card, it was the six of diamonds, but I am a bit distracted by the window I need to break in order to save that kid. Why do the magic show here and now? Why not save it for a set of circumstances more fitting for the admiration of slight of hand and the wonder of possibilities? 

The performances of these other actors in the film, my goodness. One time I made a short little movie with my friends on a camcorder when I was in middle school, and there was a scene in which I was supposed to dive behind a counter. I did it, a beautiful epic flight through the air, soaring like the majestic creature that I am. The problem was when I landed and a bunch of folded up chairs leaning against the wall fell on top of my head. That's sort of what the non-James Remar performances in All Superheroes Must Die are like: they are giving it their all and for a split second it seems like they can fly, but then the chairs fall on their heads. 

The dialogue is terrible but the delivery of it is worse, and the real problem with this is the fact that these are the characters that are supposed to be superheroes. It's really hard to take someone seriously as being both "super" and a "hero" when they have the screen presence of an old pair of shoes. I never bought these people as anything more than dipshits in silly costumes, because in order for me to give a flipping poop about the fate of the main characters, I can't be put in a situation where I roll my eyes every time they open their mouths and speak. 

All Superheroes Must Die isn't an awful train wreck picture because it tries really hard to be something cool while working with such limited resources. It's a rad idea gone wrong, but at least it's a rad idea. The last act has some really cool music and it is filmed with some confidence that I admired.

Those damn chairs though. They just kept falling on their heads.

2/5