{2jtab: Movie Review}
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Well, at least it tries to do something different with the whole superhero genre. Imagine if DC’s Justice League or Marvel’s The Avengers were fractured and driven apart by one of their villains for all eternity. Imagine if that villain was Jigsaw from the SAW series. That’s what you get with writer/director Jason Trost’s low-budget All Superheroes Must Die. The result is a mild rumbling in the whole universe of the caped crusading genre but that doesn’t exactly mean it’s worthy of too much praise.
Rickshaw (James Remar from Showtime’s Dexter) is a bowtie-wearing career criminal fed up with dorks in tights that always arrive just in the nick of time to save the day. In fact, he’s pretty pissed about it. The dysfunctional superheroes he’s managed to capture – Charge (Trost), Cutthroat (Lucas Till), Shadow (Sophie Merkley), and The Wall (Lee Valmassy) – must somehow work together in order to survive his violent hostage-lined games.
Written and directed by Trost, All Superheroes Must Die is very capable as an action film. The villains our “heroes” encounter are forceful and all pack a meaty punch that tears more than the silk of their costumes. Wounds are opened and bullets are fired. Blood splatters everywhere. The problem is that you won’t care anything about these uniformed superheroes. They are as unlikable as any of the SAW characters ever were. There is no way these selfish and inexplicably trapped buffoons save innocent people and that, for dramatic purposes, is a big problem in watching the film. Go ahead, Rickshaw, kill them all. What do we care?
In fact, only Remar seems excited about the film. He’s animated in the role he’s playing. His toothy grin and manic energy – even if he never leaves the desk he’s sitting behind – is palpable and is certainly a joy to have him interrupt the droll via television screen from time to time in order to taunt the superheroes. It just doesn’t add up to anything more than a made-for-television movie.
Spending the movie’s $20,000 budget wisely, there’s a black-and-white flashback section that attempts to add flesh to the superheroes. Unfortunately, the flat cast can’t quite build the necessary momentum to make these scenes work. They are interruptions to the flow of Rickshaw’s demented games only. Surely, not the intended outcome Trost had in mind. Blame the inexperience of the mostly groggy cast.
All Superheroes Must Die is as ugly as its title suggests.
{2jtab: Film Details}
MPAA Rating: This title has not been rated by the MPAA.
Runtime: 78 mins.
Director: Jason Trost
Writer: Jason Trost
Cast: Jason Trost; Lucas Till; James Remar; Sophie Merkley; Nick Principe
Genre: Thriller
Tagline: All superheroes must die
Memorable Movie Quote: "How about a game. I call it role reversal, where you get to lose and I get to win."
Distributor: Image Entertainment
Official Site:
Release Date: No wide theatrical release
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: January 29, 2013
Synopsis: Four masked avengers find themselves stripped of their powers by a cruel arch-nemesis they defeated years earlier... or so they thought. When the sinister mastermind puts the heroes through a series of brutal challenges that are virtually impossible to overcome, they must battle the clock – and even each other – in a race to stop a deadly countdown that could mean total destruction.
{2jtab: Blu-ray Review}
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Blu-ray Details:
Available on Blu-ray - January 29, 2013
Screen Formats: 2.35:1
Subtitles: English SDH
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Discs: 25GB Blu-ray Disc; Single disc (1 BD)
Region Encoding: A
What can I say? Close-ups hold the detail and that’s about it. The 1080p AVC-encoded transfer provides few moments of clarity and detail, but overall, the image never amounts to much. It’s shot to look loose and rough and, taking place over one night, there’s a lot of darkness to the image. Blacks are solid. Shadows thick. Still, there’s a level of paleness to the flesh that is a pit noticeable. Probably not the artist’s intentions. The sound is presented in a relatively weak DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. You’ll have to crank the volume to hear the dialogue and then drop it when the action hits the speakers. Unfortunately, it’s that uneven of a mix.
Supplements:
Commentary:
- None
Special Features:
Image Entertainment gives you nothing.
{2jtab: Trailer}
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