I saw the screening for Hero Tomorrow at a theater in Chicago September 13, 2006 in Chicago. My friends in the Good Year Pimps have a song in it and asked me to meet me at the screening, but then they couldn't make it and I ended up in the having to watch it with just the theater crowd. I was disappointed at first that my pals didn't make it, but I ended up enjoying the movie and talking to Ted Sikora and Milo Miller afterwords and really had a good experience.
Hero Tomorrow is about a young man who's soul has been captured by the comic book character he is writing about. David soon finds out that you cannot trick the muse that inspires you by living a double life. The "stable" life he pretends to live- guy with a job, girlfriend, pals- this is the world that is really the illusionary one and falls apart. His comic superhero APAMA is his chi- this life force. It is a mystical creature that the native Americans created centuries ago. David has found it and has a message to give to the world. At the same time, Apama is the one who has found David and will use him to carry out it's will.
Apama opens David's third eye. He still likes his brilliantly played vociferous girlfriend Robyn, but his mission in life is crime prevention. An instinct overtakes him to thwart the actions of evil doers, some of whom are even his friends. The twists in this movie are super clever!
Hero Tomorrow has the feel to it that you are watching a movie made from a comic book series set in the atmosphere of the ever famous "Clerks" ambiance. It also brings up some of the scarier topics that many people have as life crises such as recreational and medical drug dependence, schizophrenia, the true instances of bullies in the work place, and being abandoned by parents when one is in their most formidable years. It fearlessly puts the camera on these hideous demons that so many of us have hidden in our personal closets. But it's subtle, so the movie still has the feel of a comedy.
Hero Tomorrow has the material of like 10 comic books in it. And I am critical as to why it was shortened to a 90 minute flick when the standard 120 might be just enough to do such things as adequately explain and highlight the exciting events. Also, the extra time could aid in smoother transition from scene to scene, give more room to the vast array of music used (and I really liked the music played here), and explain if Hero Tomorrow is more of a comic book movie or a everyday people Clerks type of movie. Because as I saw it, it seemed to lean on imitating the genius of Clerks but really didn't have to because it could hold its own as a comic book movie classic.
Still a movie that most young people could relate to. Not for the faint of heart or the fundamentalist. I recommend it, and maybe most people will argue that we simply like it as it is- the fastest 90 minutes of a movie you will ever see. But I say clean it up some more or you will be like Apama when he finds himself lost in the creek.
