Comic Book Villains

"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-)

Was this supposed to be comedy? It could hardly be called funny. A serious movie? Let's not even ask.

This movie transitions from lighthearted, mediocre but sweet/harmless farce to some sort of dark thriller in a way that is simply bizarre. The characters went from benign to murderous without any evolution... they just went from good to evil, plain and simple (I apologize for using that phrase). Both halves of the movie were vaguely interesting, and watchable. Neither was amazing. If the writers had chosen one tone to stick with throughout the movie, it would've been a regular old two-star, maybe two-and-a-half. But this... this was like if halfway through You've Got Mail, Meg Ryan went insane for some reason and started murdering people. It just fundamentally doesn't make any sense.

As for the acting, Logue was actually fun to watch, Cary Elwes (of whom I'm a fan) made me cringe, Eileen Brennan was actually quite likable, and DJ Qualls was hardly ever on screen despite being the narrator. He went through the first half of the movie mildly, and the second half with a sense of unease. Just like me.

"Comic Book Villains" requires a familiarity for the themes of comic books, rather than the comics themselves. There are three types of comic book 'geeks' in the movie: the hardcore collector, represented by Logue's character; the famous book reader, who knows everything about popular comics, but nothing about less-known ones; and the casual reader, represented by DJ Quall's character of Archie. His role is where the problems begin. Every moment that Logue, Rappaport, or Cary Elwes is on screen, the movie shines of brilliant observation and attention to dialogue. However, Archie was written as the ideal reader, a guy who understands that comics are entertainment, not reality. He epitomizes everything i dislike about this movie. Every scene he is in is either hinting at a message, or explaining a message. The theme Archie brings to the story is furthered by ridiculously pathetic acts of violence and obsession, which ruin the film's last 4th. If one were to watch the ending of the movie and then the beginning, he would not have any idea they belonged to the same picture. Take Natasha Lyonne's character for instance. At the opening of the movie, she is a bright woman who runs a comic book store very casually. A slow change and character ark would have been brilliant for her character. However, after one stupid plot-hole-filled scene, she becomes a vengeful warrior obsessed with getting the mcguffin of the piece, the dead man's comics.

This film deserves more attention than it gets; it's more enjoyable than a lot of the comedies out there even if one has no interest in the comic book aspect shown in the film. That can be looked at as a frame for the characters and an incidental device to move the plot along. The actors bring the characters to life in a believable fashion. The real surprise for me was Cary Elwes, who I generally think of in stick-up-his-wazoo, pretty-boy roles like in "Twister" or his turn on "The X-Files". Here, he manages to play a nasty two-bit, low-life punk with some edge, and I almost didn't recognize him. It's a low-budget, independent film, but a cast of names we recognize from other films give it some prestige. Robinson also makes a statement on the comic industry as it has gotten into through the 90's and into the new millennium. It is held together quite well by the narration of one of the main characters, and in spite of its title manages to hit more than one emotional note throughout. It deserves a much wider audience because of the fine character acting of the entire cast.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

These types of stories, by which i mean, a group of people who's true natures are exposed by greed and obsession, will either work for you or not, and by default the climax will seem over the top and take away half the audience.. but no matter the ending, the ride there is very well executed, and went way past the expectations i got from just watching the trailer.

The great cast of guys who steal scenes in other films, was one i was very interested in, but i sceptical about the actual film, i thought past the interesting plotline,it would be poorly written and directed by a moron.. but it so wasn't!

It's one of those movies that through good storytelling just makes you watch, and not want to get up, and the 90 minute runtime just flies by! not one scene is wasted, not one performance is perfunctonary, it's just completely well made all round, and very well written/directed. I think the negative comments are from people who are expecting way too much from the film, and maybe movies in general.. if you're someone who just goes along with the ride, so long as it's all relatively credible, and you like the cast, then i think you'll have a great time, no doubt! this film went way past my expectations!

my only quibble, and it's so minor, plus it seems unavoidable with films about greed, HOW THE HECK DO YOU END IT!! if the film was being completely realistic, then the film's ending probably wouldn't happen, but in real life the ending would be pretty dull, and lose the whole comic book feel to the film.. comic books also use violence as a device, comic books are visually over the top representations of everyday things.. many characters in comic books are 2-dimensional simple folk.. hence the title to this movie, and in general the whole feel and look to the movie (which btw looks VERY good for such low budget!).. so the ending in after thought may seem to be slightly over the top, and doesn't seem to fit the characters, but while watching i was hooked! and so will you! :)

definately worth the rental!! maybe even a buy. It's hard to recommend as a film for comic book fans, because that's like saying every girl is going to like a chick flick, but there are comic book references aplenty, and comic book collectors for fellow guys to relate with.. so i think a comic book fan might get more out of it than others, but not necersarily enjoy it more.. but what's great about this movie, is that you don't need to know ANYTHING about comics to enjoy it, you can even watch it in mute! it's really well made!

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