Comic Book Villains

source: Comic Book Villains

a strange premise about stealing a mile high collection of pristine comic books, with a strong underrated cast and some brilliant witty lines, great references, the film is quite strange and a bit slow at times but it still makes for enjoyable watching. the characters turn in a good performance and some of the set pieces are thoughrally entertaining, especially Cary Elwes who is a genius!!!! the film is definetly worth seeing at least the once and you may end up going back for more, aimed more towards the comic book fans which seems to be expanding rapidly with the release of such box office hits as Spider Man and X Men.

Here's a great cast, with a good concept for a plot, how can it go wrong? It can, if there's no writing! OK, that's not fair, if there's CONSISTENT writing. Like so many SNL skits, the first half is well developed, then, well, they have to end it somehow. I had the same problem with this movie that I had with Monster's Ball. Now how could I mention those two movies together? One is the great academy award winning darling, one is a straight to video farce. But both suffer from the fatal flaw: failing to convince me of the characters' motivations, and changes. In Comic Book Villains, we get a basic greed motive, but I didn't care what happened to any of the characters except Archie. That may have been intentional, so we wouldn't feel horrified by their bad behavior, but that just goes to show how de-sensitized we are to violence. It's a plot device to end a movie, not a logical or understandable part of the plot. I guess if you feel you have to see all movies with references to comic books, go for it. But otherwise, use your 90minutes for something else.

***SPOILERS*** This one was recommended to me by a fellow comic book fan. [For the record, I collect Silver Age comics- JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY and THE MIGHTY THOR, in particular- and paperback reprints of old pulp magazines like CONAN, THE SHADOW, DOC SAVAGE, etc.] I went in with high hopes, but those hopes were quickly dashed when it became evident that the writer/director understands next to NOTHING about drama or comedy or even a juxtaposition of the two. The premise was promising (see the synopsis), but the movie lost momentum and began to spiral down the tube the moment it went from being a semi-sympathetic look at the highs and lows of comic collecting to a shoot-'em-up. (This is the same kind of thing that makes BARTON FINK -among MANY other American films- much less interesting than they might have been. WHY American filmmakers tend to turn to gunplay when storytelling would suffice is beyond me. I suggest young moviemakers spend some time checking out the foreign film section of their favorite video rental joint: maybe that way, they'll learn to tell a story that doesn't depend in the end on a friggin' shoot out.) [An old complaint of mine was that Stephen King's books always seemed to end with an explosion and/or a fire; same difference here, different medium.] While this one may appeal to kids who spend too much time in front of their televisions (watching bad movies or playing video games that are tantamount to chasing one's tail), adults- or anyone with an attention span longer than that of a hyperactive fruit fly- will perforce be disappointed. A missed opportunity.

For a little bit, I thought this was just a bad movie. After about half an hour though, it really revealed itself as an utterly horrible movie. The most glaring of its many problems was its incredibly weak screenplay, which falls victim to every cliche, pratfall, and cheesy coincidence that you can imagine. To be fair, there was maybe one good performance out of the bunch (of course its hard to act well when the lines you're supposed to say are so God-awful) and the direction is somewhat competent. But usually, when I see a film that has been written and directed by the same person, I assume it's something that the writer/director really cares about and that it is going to escape the formulaic nonsense. Unfortunately, James Robinson seemed to have no such noble intentions with this film. Imagine someone taking your typical everyday comic book geeks who live at home with their mothers (and are not interesting people in the least) and trying to give them motivation to go on psychotic killing sprees and act like they're all suddenly trapped in a bad TV remake of Pulp Fiction -- And all to uncover the film's great theme of not getting too crazy over comic books. Are you serious? Please, for the love of God and all that is holy, skip this one and save your money and 90 minutes of your life.

Comic Book Villains is a satirical black comedy about, you guessed it, comic books and the sometimes strange people that collect them. The movie is a little darker than expected so perhaps I would have enjoyed it more had I known what I was about to see. Still, it was a fun movie that pokes fun at the world of comic book collecting/collectors. DJ Qualls plays Archie, an all around good guy and the narrator of the story as well. Qualls is perfect as the comic book geek type. His favorite place to hang out and buy/read comics is at Raymond McGillicudy's (Donal Logue) comic shop (the names of the shops escapes me). Raymond is into the comic book scene and has the shop because he loves dealing with comic books. Across town is Norman and Judy Link's (Michael Rapaport & Natasha Lyonne) comic shop. Norman and Judy are there strictly for the money. Archie loves Raymond's shop and his knowledge in comics plus he finds everything he likes there so he has never found a reason to visit the other shop. On the other hand, there is "Conan", played by Danny Masterson from That 70's Show. Conan claims he is a descendant of the creator of Conan The Barbarian comic books and is the instigator for the whole movie because he visits both shops regularly and provides information to both. The movie takes it's dark turn after both shop owners discover there is a pristine collection of comic books that belonged to a deceased comic book collector who had a great collection. After that, the backstabbing, double-crossing, dirty tricks and much more begins the dark tone of the movie. My favorite characters were Norman and Judy Link. Rapaport usually plays a tougher character and it was different to see him in more of a submissive position here, especially to his wife. Lyonne also did a great job as a "comic book villain" and certainly looked her best here as well. Also, Danny Masterson played a subtle instigator well, not unlike his character Hyde from That 70's Show. Overall, worth a look. 6.5/10

Sadly, this movie started with some catchy stuff. I didn't know what it was about since I found it on cable TV, but as the movie went on I spotted some good actors and a spice of fun. So I thought that Donal Logue and DJ Qualls (two guys that to me are famous because of the funny as hell characters they play in movies like "Roadtrip" and shows like "Grounded For Life") would make a good movie. Again, sadly I was soon to be disappointed. The plot seemed interesting. Geeky guys that love comic books, I expected to see some wannabe stuff and that, but there was nothing like this. All there is in this movie are crimes, stupid fights and a predictable ending. Let's skip the rest and head to the finale, because nothing really happens during the whole movie but 3 parties fighting for some really valuable comic books. So at the end, the obvious, Raymond and July have committed murders. Why? I don't know, I consider their killings to have been really stupid and senseless, but well, the movie is senseless. So, they gather at Judy's store and then the police arrives. What could have happened? Yes, Raymond goes out and pulls his pistol so that he gets shot to death. Hasn't this already been used like a million times? Yes. Was it needed in the movie? No. The old woman, owner of the books, becomes friends with Archie, the good boy of the movie. And she says when she is dying (she is killed by another bad guy whose presence is almost unnoticeable and really forced) "go to my (defunct) son's closet, he did not only collected comics". I guess at this part of the movie everyone realizes that he had something more valuable. Maybe gold, maybe kryptonite, whatever. Of course it'll be expensive stuff that will change the boy's life. At the very end we see Archie in Europe, the continent he most longed for - more precisely in Barcelona. And then he says the other thing the dead guy collected were baseball cards which costed a lot more than the comics. So finally he finds a girl there and they start talking. I am sure the writers thought "Hey, this movie is about anything but comics. Shouldn't Archie hang her in his arms and go out flying?". Yeah, that would've been fun. Final note: this movie is labeled as "Comedy". Well I found nothing to laugh at in it, I'd say it was a "drama" more than a "comedy".

"Comic Book Villains" tells of an old lady who's sitting on her late son's valuable comic book collection and two competing comic book store owners who want it at any cost. Among its many deficits this shabby film has a handful of second rate actors, an amateurish screen play, obvious low budgetness, awful music, and a generally lame execution. Cinematic junk food. (C-)

I found this to be one of the funniest dark comedies I have seen in a long time. To me the plot and the characters all rolled naturally and convincingly. It is an inevitable facet of black comedy that it tends to work off caricatures, movies like any of David Lynch's or things like Barton Fink, etc. The dynamic depends on showing up the subtle madness that we see around us every day. What made this movie work especially well for me was that the characters were all convincing, all in their way sympathetic. I could relate to all of them, which made the final descent into madness that much more fun. They didn't have to quite be caricatures to make the completely insane decisions they made convincing.

The first hour of this movie is absolutely priceless and will have you giddy. All the performances without exception are perfect. Donal Logue really stands out as McGillicudy, the pipe smoking comic store owner. Just watching him on screen will have you laughing. Pretty much everyone in the film is down on their luck and looking for some success to make their lives a little better. When they finally see the chance for greatness, they all go too far. The only false note is between the teenaged orphan and the old woman. Their friendship seems to come together a little too quickly, but really if they spent more time on this relationship it would not be an improvement since it's the most boring part of the story. It's a lose-lose situation. Later, when something bad happens to her the tears are a little too much considering they really hardly know each other. I also thought the film got perhaps a little too dark. At first some of the confrontations between the competing parties were hysterical, such as when McGillicudy smashes one of his rivals garden gnomes and then runs away. But pretty soon we have a body count and it just seems like it doesn't fit with the rest of the movie. Still, it's a pretty good ending. Well worth seeing if you've ever visited a comic book shop.