Comic Book: The Movie

I was very excited to see this and sat patiently for two years while it spent months collecting dust on the Miramax shelves, finally being released direct-to-video. I'm in it--kinda. Since I was at the Comic-Con that year--I can see about a fourth of my face in one of the crowd shots--this added to the excitement. And I'm a comic fan, and a Mark Hamill fan and a fan of cartoon voices. So what could go wrong?

So I watched it, finally, and desperately wanted to like it. I mean, it was about comic fans! But...after the first five minutes or so the novelty wore off and I was stuck with a draggy, boring movie. The cast is game, but without much going on it gets a-mighty tedious. Still, it was nice to revisit a great con that I've not been to since two years after it happened.

For a much more entertaining evening, go to the second disk on the DVD package for "Behind the Voices," the hysterical symposium fans sat through to get themselves on film. They cut out most of it, (the guys doing the Animaniacs singing the Country song from memory, Billy West singing "Happy Happy Joy Joy) but it's still great. The movie: C+ The Other Stuff: B+

I was about 20 minutes into this thing when I realized there was no going up for this movie, that the poor production and shotty acting wasn't just something they were trying, that this mockumentary was really just this bad. I actually felt dumber watching it. You literally have Mark Hammil running around the comic con as Mark Hammil, but calling himself Don, what, like he's acting?? Then, whenever they'd improv something in to move the, I can't believe I'm calling it this but, "plot" along, it was so forced and awkward, I mean the acting, anything else was drivel. I'm not even sure what he was trying to say. what, Hollywood doesn't have the passion for films that we had as kids?? Uh, yah, what planet have you been on?? I mean, if they did something more with it, I dunno, made it meaningful or something, but no. He was just concerned with giving us detail after detail of this fictional comic character, who we don't even care for cuz he's made up by Mark Hammil!!

Mark, stick to the voice work and leave the "movie making" to your fighter jet co-star, he's making 20 mil a flick, you're just making an ass atta yourself....

I don't understand -- I like comic books, but I don't love them. I know some of the players in the industry (Stan Lee, Paul Dini, etc.), but not personally and not all of them. But this movie just SUCKED. The female and male studio execs were annoying, the cameraman was lame and even Billy West pulls out some stupid, creepy performance. Mark Hamill is best when he's excited about comics and the rest of it plays out terribly. I paid for this and will be going to the store to return it. Jeers, Hamill, jeers.

Well, not really..........BUT it sounded like a good grabber line.

Actually, it seems as if their creator gave this a "thumbs up", since he allowed them to use that vignette of him. I really didn't realize how much he'd look like "Bob".

Although I was taken aback at how much Luke Skywalker has aged, I did enjoy seeing him still standing up for old-fashioned values. I do enjoy the X-Men, and the Titans, I still have a very warm spot in my memory for Captain Marvel, Aquaman, and The Flash. And I still prefer Robin to Nightshade.

As far as the quality of the movie - it did drag quite a bit in places (Day 1 seemed to take up half the length of the movie) and they skimmed over Leo's realization that the old "hildhood friends" were fake...I'd like to have seen mor of Sid and Johnathan.

I give the movie itself 6 stars and the DVD extras 8 stars. This movie has its heart in the right place and does assemble some of the best voice talent around. It's great to see these people in front of the camera. I only wish that they had added some writers into the mix. This movie is mostly ad-libbed in the style of "Spinal Tap" and other Christopher Guest movies so some of the jokes work, and others don't. Since everyone is trying to be "realistic" almost all of the jokes are subtle so the inattentive viewer is likely to miss them.

I found that the DVD extras are the best part of this DVD. There are two disks, so there are a lot of extras. There are lots of helpful bios in case you missed some of the many cameos of industry insiders and other "masked" performers. The deleted scenes are actually pretty good (for deleted scenes). The best part is the real convention panel with all of the talent on stage telling stories and doing voices.

Bottom line, if you love comics and animation, and even video games, then see this movie just to learn about the talent. Use IMDb to see what some of these people have done and you will be amazed. If you aren't into comics then this movie might be interesting to you just to learn about a different culture.