*Sigh*. So by now most of you know the drill. The At Odds with Wrestling podcast hosts assign each other something wrestling related to watch almost every week. I’m a loyal day one listener so I jump in with my own thoughts. Over the course of this series I’ve watched some fun stuff. I’ve also watched some awful things. And this. This is really bad. 

Now let it be known that I enjoy bad movies. I’ll watch Svengoolie. Sharktopus was loads of fun. I knew this would be bad going in, but it’s really bad. As someone who has been writing online to varying degrees of success since 2007 I have the usual goals of a book deal or selling a script. That is what drove me nuts with this movie. I truly believed if I took the time to sit down and write a movie – even if I was given the same premise as this flick – I could do better. Most of the time I will give most anything a pass and decide that it’s just not for me but that doesn’t mean that other people can’t enjoy what the writer created. No. Not today. I have zero doubt I could do better. But I’ve set the stage enough. Let’s dive into this 2018 film and see how many times I had to pause and walk away from a movie that is only an hour and 27 minutes long. 

“Pretty recently in a galaxy really really close.” The plot is set up with a Star Wars crawl. As soon as I read “Super recession” I wrote “oh, what the fuck”. This took a minute. 

Emperor Purple Guy wakes up the Dark Jokester and sets Jokester on his mission. Purple Guy is Darkseid, Thanos, Dr Doom and a bit of Lord Zedd from Power Rangers rolled into one. Dark Jokester is Jared Leto’s Joker doing a Loki impression. Very little of the plot actually matters. Most of this is quick deus ex machina set up for the next scene. I would say don’t think too hard about it but I can’t imagine anyone would. As I have previously done with homework, I’m about to write more on this movie than anyone else in the world ever has. 

SuperBat and Jean Wonder’s twin children turn 17 today. What in the fuck is it with being 17? I watched Transformers: Age of Extinction recently and there is more screen time devoted to justifying a 17 year old dating a 20 something year old guy than there is explanation given for giant transforming robots from space. I feel like here we are again. Thankfully the kids aren’t overly sexualized in the movie so they’re 17 to tell a coming of age story, not to play to an audience that vacations on remote private islands. Allegedly. 

SuperBat who is played by Stephen Rannazzisi, and who you may remember from The League, is at a convenience store when it gets robbed. He does not give a shit at all. Puts down a couple bucks and leaves. He yells at some kids who are too close to his classic car. He ignores any and every thing going wrong around him which could use some sort of heroic intervention. He is a super asshole. Which is not far from the truth. Hey, remember when he said he was working in the Towers during 9/11 and then it came out that that was a huge lie? Let’s see he got exposed in 2015 and this movie was in 2018 and let’s bring up the IMDB… Big drop off in jobs after 2015. Can’t imagine why. 

Anyways, he’s a horrible asshole towards everyone. He gets home and finds a letter from a place of employment oh but its a rejection letter. I’m pretty sure no one mails rejections for a job. Maybe a phone call or email saying thanks for interviewing but we’re going with someone else. Or just no contact at all. But not an envelope. But here comes the bright shining light of this movie and should also be for his life – Jean Wonder. As played by Amy Smart and let’s get to the light grease portion of this write up. She is barely in the movie and might also be the best part of it. Age appropriate for the character, for a wife, for a mom. And I don’t know how else to put it but she “looks real”. Unlike so many sitcoms where the fat dumb guy has the hot wife, I could believe SuperBat landed her before life got him down and turned him into a jerk. If there’s any dating app that has women like that, someone send me a link. 

SuperBat however just doesn’t give a shit and retreats to his “Man Cave of Solitude”, which I admit made me laugh. Here come the twins. Raya the daughter who has new powers manifesting all the time and I swear she’s supposed to look a bit like a teenage Harley Quinn; and the son Lucas who is a technology genius but so far has shown no powers. He’s tinkering with the house robot C.R.E.P.O. I know the ‘bot is supposed to be a C-3PO joke and that’s about it but if you’re going to call it a creep then I would have expected some sort of pervert anime inspired shenanigans from the robot. The robot sets up a joke with no pay off, but that happens a lot in this movie. 

We learn that powers fade as super beings get older. Super powers are used as a barely veiled joke about lowered sex drive. Which I suppose I should be thankful that this comparison is only used for the adults and there’s not some plot about the twins going out and superheroing every night with anything that moves. 

Lisp Luthor pulls up in his limo and teams with Dark Jokester. Superbat’s mom’s urn shatters and the pearls are in the urn. Alright, I got a second laugh. 

Time to walk away for a moment. The first time I hit pause is 15 minutes in. 

This “I’m not a cool dude” song is so bad I’m enjoying it. The Super-Wonder family are having a backyard cookout for the twins birthday and have invited all of their super friends. Including the Ironing Man – Tony Starch! He’s oozing money and sex appeal and the only one who isn’t happy to see him is SuperBat. The bad guys are hiding in the bushes, plotting their next move. Raya and Lucas get in a fight and have a lightsaber baseball bat battle in front of everyone. It doesn’t come across as ruining the party, instead it just looks like they’re having fun. The fight is broken up and SuperBat accidentally spills beer on Tony Starch which causes him to blow up! Everyone just gets mad about it. There’s no mourning, or calling police, or any reaction either. It has all the gravitas of forgetting to take out the trash. 

Lucas feels unloved and this is when Lisp Luthor slides into the car to play older Biff Tannen and get Lucas to join the dark side. I’m sorry, the naughty side of the farce. Lucas steals his dad’s precious car. Jokester attacks the rest of the family. I called this other hero Captain Sombrero but it turns out he’s called El Captain South America. He also talks like I’m watching a Micro Machines commercial on a Mexican TV station. Oh hey, there are two sides of the Farce – Naughty or Nice. Shockingly Santa does not make an appearance in this movie. 

SuperBat has to get his shit together and Wonder suggests he visits Master Yoga. SB has a pretty valid rant about his life sucks. Wonder meets with “Lando Fury”. They all want to get Lucas back but he is now acting as Jokester’s protege. The bad guys are going to create Clown Troopers to take over the world or something. I’m really checked out at this point. 

SB meets up with Master Yoga and holy shit this body paint is bad. Although, it’s not the first time a member of D-X has been covered in green paint for a movie role. When are we watching that one, Adam? 

I was hoping for bloopers during the end credits, because there has to be bloopers from this movie, but alas no. 

Master Yoga has SB clean toilets, so I guess we’re doing this Karate Kid style. Yoga falls asleep. That’s not a bad idea. Second pause – 34 minutes in. 

Jean meets with Lando. He isn’t a private eye, but he has a private eye. I might need to pause this movie again. Yoga and SB are training. Yoga pushes SB off of a building. Shawn Michaels looks like he’s having a blast playing Yoga and trying to keep a straight face. God bless him that makes one person enjoying this. 

Raya spies on the villains but Lando is spying on her. I wouldn’t call this movie family friendly but I’ll say they definitely kept it safe for the direct to Walmart DVD buyers. Raya gets knocked out and wakes up in the evil lab. 

Meanwhile, Beaverine arrives to help Jean get her kids back. Beaver and SB fight over their feelings for Jean. I did get a kick out of the mock weights getting thrown around. Beaver has adamantium teeth I guess. Hey we get a belly to back suplex and Shawn Michaels isn’t in the scene. 

Lisp has some sort of ridiculous cheap world takeover device thing which overheats and causes him to lose his hair. 

Back to the family home where SB and Wonder are just sitting having coffee wondering if their kids are okay. Are these the worst parents ever? Unless they’re aware that their kids have both manifested the power known as Plot Armor, they do not do shit for the twins. “I think we should call the police.” Or get off your ass and go find them. Beaver shows up at the house, and at least he’s doing something. 

Lando is now working with Lisp. Lando busts out some Steiner math for us. 

SB is training again with Yoga. 

At this point I’m multi tasking. I had all of these books in storage that I wanted to sort through “some day”. Well some day is now here and I have 6 bags of books to donate thanks to the second half of this movie. 

SB thinks Beaver and Wonder are having some sort of affair. Guys, give your wife some attention. Don’t end up like SuperBat. 

I’m wondering if this is supposed to be our low point for the hero. The end of Act 2. But SB barely counts as a hero. He’s still an asshole and honestly I would be fine with him fucking off so Jean Wonder and the twins can live happily without him. SB realizes he has to embrace the Farce so now he’s training and taking things seriously. How much time passes in this movie? There’s not that many definite nights into mornings but I’m going to guess all of this takes place within 5-7 days. SB has a training montage until he’s hit by a truck. I’m guessing this was a dummy and not CGI. Dummy? Yeah! 

Beaver is knocked out after eating “sleeping wood”. There’s an inappropriate joke in here somewhere. Jokester and Lando kidnap Wonder. Yoga gives SB some new super boots. Jokester shows up. Jokester and Yoga battle and Yoga runs at Jokester then poof disappears. I haven’t seen HBK oversell like this since his match against Hogan. 

Lisp betrays Lando and won’t give him a new eye. SB destroys things at his home and this helps him to realize he loves his family. Oh good, violence leading to ‘I love you baby’ is always a sign of a healthy relationship. SB calls Lucas. Wait. He calls Lucas? Which means a smart phone which could be tracked is just sitting there?! SuperBat is an asshole and stupid. Raya comes back home after escaping the bad guys base only to realize with Lucas and her mom there they have to go right back. Maybe you should have used your phone too Raya! SB reveals his mom died of natural causes and I must be delirious by now because that was funny. SB, Raya, and Beaver team up to rescue the family. They battle Clown Troopers. The other heroes who are just more jokes show up to join the battle. Lando says this was all part of the plan but now Lando is the Furious Panther. When there’s only one black guy in the parody film he has to play all the black characters I guess. Everyone fights. Raya takes a Rock Bottom. The second wrestling move in the movie and again HBK is no where near this scene. All the heroes team up to destroy Lisp’s machine. They now face even stronger clown troopers. That’s a sentence. The whole family is reunited but Dark Jokester is here too. My notes are getting less and less detailed. I just want this to be over. The family is attached to some sort of popcorn machine laugh sucker. I am putting words together that have never been put together in this order in human history. The family has a psychic moment because Wonder lets us know, “I’m a woman, I can read any man’s mind.” SB says he’ll embrace the Farce and then looks dead, but nope that’s the Farce flowing through him to save the day. The family is free and reunited. SB and Wonder talk about flying as if it was sex. How SuperBat got his groove back. Jokester explodes when Raya hits him in the nuts. SB throws his cherished car and it not only crushes Lisp but also destroys his machine. Purple Guy watches all of this. Oh, I hope to set up a sequel! (Please no.)

The family has a victory party with everyone there including the spirits of Starch and Yoga. SB and Beaver high five with Wonder in between them and I would bet anything this is a thinly veiled Eiffel Tower sex joke. 

In what I guess was meant to be a post credit, but before the credits, it turns out Lisp is still alive in a hospital and Jokester is also alive using the healing powers of tickling. 

Well, I survived the movie. I’ll never pay attention to it again. But if some of my friends who like wrestling and/or bad movies are looking for a suggestion I’ll be in the room for this one and do other things on my phone most of the time.