Movie: My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006)

[seraphcelene]

Sadly enough, it was largely unfunny and uninteresting. I love Uma Thurman and I love Luke Wilson, but apparently they are two great tastes that do not taste great together. I am curious as to what it was about the script that attracted them.



Uma Thurman plays Jenny Johnson, a single, lonely artist, and her alter ego -- the super hero G-Girl. Jenny begins dating Matt (Luke Wilson), revealing her alter ego over the course of their relationship, and after her insane, neurotic, girl-jealousy prods him to break up with her, she uses her super powers to make him really, really regret dumping her. There was nothing at all interesting about either character.

Luke Wilson's Matt was stereotypical Luke Wilson. An adorable, average sort of guy totally lacking the gentle likability of Legally Blonde's Emmett or the naughty charm of The Family Stone's Ben. Thurman's G-Girl/Jenny was uncharmingly neurotic. She was that girl who wants to be in a relationship, but who really doesn't know how until she meets the guy who shows her how much fun and how easy it is. Only in those kinds of movies they hit a snag and get back together and live happily ever after, she after having been rescued by this pseudo knight in shining armor. In My Super Ex-Girlfriend, the girl turns out to be a crazy super hero with a taste for vengeance.

I didn't like that G-Girl was really such a bad guy. Sure she does good deeds and saves lives and all that, but she's incredibly petty. I know that, in part, that's the point -- she's an average person who just happens to have super powers (unlike the ideal caricatured super hero who fights for truth, justice and the American way) -- but what they seem to have done is exchange one caricature (superhero a la Superman) for another (petty, needy and vindictive female).

Eddie Izzard takes a turn as the super villain, only he's in love with G-Girl and plagues her because of some mishmashed desire for her and an old high school inspired grudge against her for ignoring him once she became a super hero. Eddie Izzard is adorable no matter what, and he plays Professor Bedlam with tongue suitably planted in cheek, but even he wasn't enough to save this film.

The super girl smackdown at the end was boring and trite. I don't find girls fighting over guys even remotely interesting, the fact that they had super powers didn't improve the situation at all.

So, yeah, definitely a big fat no. In my defence, I didn't go looking for the film. I only saw it on account of the free Cinemax Preview weekend and my extreme immobility due to stolen car.

I watched a lot of TV that weekend. Consumed much booze and acres of chocolate.

Comments

[darlas-mom.livejournal.com]

Oh, good Lord, this movie. I saw it because my dad and my brother have bad, bad, BAD taste in just about everything, but happen to outnumber me in a fight over the remote.

I found it very flat and not funny at best, at worst an extremely offensive protrayal of women. Also, the whole thing is one great big embarrassment squick.

But then, Anna Farris was in it. She only does bad movies. (She's the heroine of the entire "Scary Movie" franchise, another series of so-called comedies that I find painful to watch)

[seraphcelene]

I can forgive the first two Scary Movies but after that ... wtf. And now it's a whole parody THING that doesn't work. I really wish that they'd stop already.

[diachrony.livejournal.com]

This movie sounds like sexist, antifeminist crap, and totally makes me cringe because I love Uma Thurman, and what an awful followup to the Kill Bill movies!

I'd been hoping this one would be good fun, but obviously it's very much NOT.

[seraphcelene]

Please, DO NOT waste your time with this movie. Seriously!!!!!!!

[lettered.livejournal.com]

I actually sorta wanted to see this, for kinda the same reasons I went to see Hancock (which I thought was horrible, btw). I like super heroes. Not because they fly around and are shiny (in fact I like it when they can't fly and don't shine, like Batman). I like them because they bring up really interesting questions--like Cordy in S1 asking why can't Buffy be exempt from the rules? Everyone looks at her like she's just being Cordy and stupidly immorally self-center, but I thought it was a valid question. What obligations does having super-powers force on you? What does it take away? What is life like when you're so far from normal? That kind of thing.

I'm sad this doesn't explore any of those questions. Very few do. Batman, because of it's actual premise (i.e. he doesn't HAVE superpowers), sometimes brings them up, but they're usually ignored in favor of stuff blowing up. DId you see Iron Man? I'd be interested in your thoughts. It brought up those ethical and moral issues more than most comic book movies do, and partly for that reason I liked it a whole lot. But it didn't go far enough with those issues, which almost makes me feel like...if you're going to bring up the ethics of one man dispensing world justice at all, you need to really examine all the implications of what your hero is doing, whereas if you don't bring it up, you can go on pretending your movie isn't about that...

[seraphcelene]

You know, I kinda feel that way, too. I LOVE comic book and super hero movies and ineveitably want to go see them but don't. Typically, I get really excited leading up to opening but then think of all the ways that the story could get fucked up, and for many reasons. Some of them have to do with what you mention here, there is this really careful negotiation between new fans, old fans, CGI and plot that successful movies manage but that the majority seem to royally screw up. Plus, studios seem to always want to equate comic book with big budget and big budget usually means lots of explosions and that means considerably less plot. I read that Edward Nortion fought furiously with the studios over just that sort of issue and lost. He wanted to do a more nuanced, character driven version of The Incredible Hulk and they wanted lots of things to go Boom! The studio, apparantly won. After the gross failure that I thought the Ang Lee version was, I decided to skip Norton's version altogether.

Hollywood politics, what can you say? I'm holding out some hope for Hellboy II because I like Del Toro and I heard that he came in at budget and managed to do everything that he wanted to do with the movie. He does have some history with uneveness, but the first Hellboy was a really good movie, so I'm open.

In short ... DO NOT bother with My Super Ex-Girlfriend for it sucketh mightily. I guess it does deal to some degree with the issues that you mention. There are some ethical and moral questions about how super heroes should behave but it was covered by so much slapstick that it lost all appeal for me. You could find something in it worth redemption, but ... well ...