The last scene in “All Superheroes Must Die” perfectly sums up this half-baked movie.
After Charge (Jason Thorn) guns down the maniacal Rickshaw (James
Remar), an improvised explosive device consisting of a microwave is
detonated. Charge and his cohort (and love interest) Shadow (Sophie
Merkley) have five minutes to escape the building. As the timer on the
microwave inches down to 1 minute and 30 seconds, the movie fades to
black. I suppose this is the cliffhanger ending to “Do they or don’t
they make it out of the building?”
Then again, microwaves don’t always fully cook food. And this movie,
from the dialogue to the special effects, is as raw and undercooked as
it gets.
The premise is intriguing: Four masked avengers named Charge, Shadow,
Cutthroat (Lucas Till) and The Wall (Lee Valmassy) wake up scattered in
an unnamed town with bandages on their wrists. We learn that their
superpowers (Charge has super strength, Shadow has invisibility,
Cutthroat has hyperspeed and The Wall is indestructible) have been
drained by Rickshaw, a master villain who has been foiled countless
times by the quartet. He’s tired of being the loser all the time, so he
devises impossible scenarios to test the foursome’s moral and ethical
boundaries.
The foursome must try to save 100 civilians rigged to explosive
devices and defeat Rickshaw’s hand-picked cadre of supervillains. If
they don’t decide to play, Rickshaw blows up the whole town. And he has
strategically placed televisions throughout the town.
Big brother is watching the foursome. With technology more than 30 years old.
Here is where the intrigue ends.
The movie ends up being a mish-mash of “Saw” meets “The Dark Knight”
meets “Watchmen.” And it fails miserably on all three ideas.
It devolves into senseless violence, and witless and unnecessarily
profane dialogue as the “heroes” end up sacrificing the victims who are
rigged to bombs. In one silly sequence, Charge ends up shooting dead the
victims rigged because he didn’t want to kill himself.
Senseless. Or should I say nonsensical.
Maybe the biggest mystery is why Remar, a respected and capable
actor, would star in such drivel. Whatever the case, he seems to have
the most fun playing an over-the-top villain while the other four
wearily slog through their scenes and dialogue.
Never did 78 minutes seem like such an eternity.
Extras: None
Bottom line: There have been some exceptional movies
in the superhero genre (the original “Superman,” Christopher Nolan’s
“Batman” movies and “Watchmen” come to mind). This isn’t one of them.
Don’t bother renting or purchasing unless you’re a fan of very bad
acting, cheesy action sequences or if you just like to be cheated.
Editor’s note: If you need another neon indicator, this movie doesn’t even have an entry on Rotten Tomatoes.
