Sunday, March 8, 2009
Fantastic Farces: "Almost" the Real Deal
For several weeks now, I have been talking about the serious crime fighters. Now, it is time to venture into the opposite end of the spectrum....the superhero farces. According to dictionary.com (2009), a farce is “A light dramatic work in which highly improbable plot situations, exaggerated characters, and often slapstick elements are used for humorous effect." One movie that pops into my mind is 1999's Mystery Men. With its cheesy storyline and its unconventional "almost super heroes", this movie had me laughing the whole time. This is a MUST SEE superhero comedy with a twist on the legendary battle of good vs. evil; if you haven't seen it I strongly suggest that you do. Another light hearted take on the superhero industry is Superhero Movie released in 2008. This movie is very light hearted, although some of the jokes were repetitive and it was a little predictable. This movie, however, was entertaining, which is an essential quality to the superhero movie genre. The movie that actually gave me the inspiration to write about this very topic this week was My Super Ex-girlfriend. This movie delves deeper into the more "personal" life of the superhero. It almost portrays the hero as the villain until a twist in storyline, allowing G-Girl to redeem herself. These movies can teach us viewers, that even though life is tough and we should be the best people that we can be, we can have a little fun at the same time. These super farces put a twist on the "serious business" of saving the world and defeating the bad guys. We all can learn from this, not saying that everything is a joke, but people are meant to have fun and laugh at the little things in life. If we all took everything seriously, we would all be very sad individuals. This week, try and see the lighter side of life by making others laugh, as Charlie Chaplin once said, “A day without laughter is a day wasted."
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Personally, I am not into the whole farce genre. I think it is a lame and cheap way to remake a movie when directors are running short on ideas. I didn't mind the first Scary Movie, but when it seemed that everything had to become a farce it got to be a little bit to cheesy for me. I do like a good comedy, but to me it just seems that this is ruining, often a very decent movie.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I like the whole "farce movies" idea. I mean, I love comedy, don't get me wrong, but when it makes a mockery of every little detail, it becomes overdone and cheesy. A little farce every now and then throughout a few films can be a good thing, welcomed sometimes even. I don't like when it's the whole movie plot though.
ReplyDeleteMystery men was by far the best Farce of the superhero's to date hands down, The movie when the genre Farce came out it was good, but i believe it has been taken a little far. An example is Not Another Teen Movie, Still funny, but not great, and yes i know its not a superhero movie, but its the same thing, I actually enjoy seeing a movie that has parodies of all the HUGE flicks that came out this past year though. I mean, isnt that why SNL is such a huge hit? Good post
ReplyDeleteA super hero farce movie is not always my favorite thing to watch, but I enjoy watching them. I just don't agree with making fun of super heroes in other movies. It just doesn't seem respectful to the great super heroes. These movies can also take it too far by making fun of everything about the hero. Which just makes it cheesy and boring.
ReplyDeleteI can honestly tell you I have never seen Mystery Man or Superhero Movie but I will take your advice and try to watch them some time. Now My Super Ex-Girlfriend is a movie I have seen. It was funny in its way and now that you mention it, it does lighten up the mood of the serious superhero that comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteThe quote you mentioned from Charlie Chaplin is very true. If a person takes life so seriously that they cannot even laugh, then they are wasting life itself doing something that does not make them happy.
I think you take on superhero movies is quite similar to mine. However Mystery Men was a funny movie, but in my mind when you think of super hero you should think of people with actual powers, not people just trying to do the right thing. For example Batman,a hero? Yes, but super no. Just some rich guy who is bored and wants to go fight crime. Superman, technically not super and not a man. Its all relative, he is super to us because he is an alien. In fact on his home planet he doesn't even have powers. I wont go on, but I could, good article on superheros though, very informative.
ReplyDeleteMystery men and Superhero movie are definately good laugther for superheroe movies. It's cool to see what kind of weird types of super powers they can give people and actually put it together into a story line. Gives the superhero movie genre good balance between action and comedy.
ReplyDeleteMystery Men was a very good superhero farce. However, I think every movie entitled _____ movie (besides Scary Movie 1 and 2) should be thrown into the burning river in Hell. Those parody movies plain suck. Get an original idea, seriously. Now that I have ranted, I liked Mystery Men because they had such crappy "powers" (If I'm not mistaken there was the bowler, a guy with a shovel, a guy who farts, and like a fork thrower) this was genuinely funny because you don't see that. You just see awesome superheroes that have sweet powers. I liked Mystery Men.
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