I enjoy a good parody flick every now and then, and this would have been better if they kept the dopey juvenile stuff out of it. Paul Reubens in the cast with his gimmick was just asking for trouble; I was waiting for the zits on his face to move around like Marty Feldman's hump in "Young Frankenstein" and that didn't happen, so there was an opportunity missed. Hank Azaria as The Blue Raja and William H. Macy as the Shoveler were about the best the picture had to offer as they played their parts both ways, serious and funny.
For old time TV and movie fans, let me pose a question - didn't the man under the Sphinx mask look like it might have been an aged Jay Silverheels? I know, he was long gone by the time this film came out, but that's the reaction I had. So I checked out Wes Studi's photo gallery here on IMDb and one can notice the resemblance.
The thing that really surprised me in the story was how the evil Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush) rigged up that vaporizer to reduce Captain Amazing (Greg Kinnear) to ashes, and he stayed dead! What!!?? That's not supposed to happen! Super-hero deaths are never supposed to be as certain as death and taxes, so I was shocked that no one thought of a way to reanimate his remains. Maybe in a sequel?
Well, I don't know. I thought this would be a little better than it turned out to be, but I do appreciate some of the more clever gimmicks like Raja's silverware dexterity and the super-hero tryout routine. Seeing Louise Lasser as Raja's Mom once again was kind of neat too, doing a senior citizen rendition of Her Mary Hartman character. I guess if you're on the fence about watching this one, I'd have to say, 'What the fork, just do it'.
For old time TV and movie fans, let me pose a question - didn't the man under the Sphinx mask look like it might have been an aged Jay Silverheels? I know, he was long gone by the time this film came out, but that's the reaction I had. So I checked out Wes Studi's photo gallery here on IMDb and one can notice the resemblance.
The thing that really surprised me in the story was how the evil Casanova Frankenstein (Geoffrey Rush) rigged up that vaporizer to reduce Captain Amazing (Greg Kinnear) to ashes, and he stayed dead! What!!?? That's not supposed to happen! Super-hero deaths are never supposed to be as certain as death and taxes, so I was shocked that no one thought of a way to reanimate his remains. Maybe in a sequel?
Well, I don't know. I thought this would be a little better than it turned out to be, but I do appreciate some of the more clever gimmicks like Raja's silverware dexterity and the super-hero tryout routine. Seeing Louise Lasser as Raja's Mom once again was kind of neat too, doing a senior citizen rendition of Her Mary Hartman character. I guess if you're on the fence about watching this one, I'd have to say, 'What the fork, just do it'.