Tag: Lee Valmassy

Honestly, I don’t know the real name of this movie. Sure, All Superheroes Must Die is the title on the cover. But IMDB really, really, really wants it to be called Vs. Who knows why. Maybe IMDB doesn’t want to let the title go. Maybe it has special value in that title, and just can’t see it drift off into the night.

Whatever the reason, I am going with the better and sexier looking title. I also am only watching this because of seeing The FP. Same guy wrote and directed both, so I am hoping it is a big subtle parody on the whole genre. You know, because director/writers never change genres in film. Right?

Oh, here are all the superheroes, that must die.

Our story begins with four heroes, waking up in a strange place, feeling woozy. They are weak! Stripped of their powers!

We have The Wall (Lee Valmassy), Shadow (Sophie Merkley), Cutthroat (Lucas Till), and Charge (Jason Trost), who still found a way to sport an eye patch in this movie.

They have lost their powers! They are all in some strange abandoned town, with a creepy vibe. Finally, the television pops on and of course it is their Arch Nemesis Rickshaw (James Remar) who wants to play a game with them. Yes, very Saw-esque. Even better if you recognize James Remar as the dad on Dexter.

Either way, he has joined these superheroes together, who have a history, to play a series of games. There are over a hundred townsfolk tied up around the town, with explosives. So if they refuse to play, he will explode and kill everyone. Their only chance is to try and work together, to attempt to pass his tests and save the lives of the innocent.

Unfortunately, sometimes the only way to win, is to die.

Insert nefarious cackle here.

The FP was a strange movie, but I allowed it, given the context, and clearly they were doing a parody. All Superheroes Must Die, however, was not a parody, and it seems they were going for a legitimate, serious movie.

The concept is a good one. No boring back story to lead up to the moment, just drops you right in the games. In fact, it is less than 80 minutes long, so they can literally just tell this one story, make it awesome, and not worry about the consequences.

Unfortunately, despite the short time? We still get a lot of back story in the form of flashbacks. Ugh. Far too much of this movie is bullshit back story, that the rest feels like a waste. Speaking of waste, the villain makes the games seem like such a big deal, with all these mini challenges. Well, it is just three rounds. And they are boring. Bah.

Yeah. A good concept, but unfortunately the entire movie is boring. It could have had a lot more action, much better acting, and just some level of entertaining. Thankfully it didn’t waste too much of my day to get through it.

1 out of 4.

The FP was the third movie added to my Apocalypse Week, after the This Is The End and Rapture-Palooza. Before I describe it, you will want to know how I found out existed.

The main character from this movie, JTRO, was actually in This Is The End, as a cannibal near the end. Same costume, random as fuck cameo that most people won’t get from this vague vague movie. Yep.

But here is how I was introduced to the movie, through the IMDB description.

In a post apocalyptic future, two rival gangs fight for control of Frazier Park by playing “Beat Beat Revelation”, a deadly version of Dance, Dance, Revolution(TM).

“What? Don’t be a playa’ hata’, we just want to dance!” Right now you are probably thinking “Nope. No Way. No way at all. This is fake.” Too bad. This is 100% real and happening. And also a parody. Need more proof. Look below.

No words needed. Yep, they are dancing alright. But what makes it deadly? Nothing. From what I could tell. I thought the loser would get killed or something, but no, they just dance for street cred.

Well, when the two gangs are fighting, BTRO (Brandon Barrera, who looks a lot like Josh Radnor in that first picture.) is going against the other teams leader L Dubba E (Lee Valmassey). Unfortunately, during an extremely challenging song, BTRO finds himself losing and eventually dies.

How? I dunno. Heart attack or something. But his younger brother, JTRO (Jason Trost) is completely miserable after this battle, so he swears off the gang and runs off on his own, never to dance again. OH NO!

Well, years later, Frazier Park is in ruin. The other gang has won and it sucks. After a series of big speeches from KCDC (Art Hsu), he comes back to the fray, earns some more street cred, and challenges L Dubba E for the title again.

Also he has an eyepatch. For some reason. I feel like I should mention more names of people in this movie. Like Stacy. Okay. That isn’t weird. How bout Beat Box Busta Bill, Sugga Nigga, and Stacy’s Dad. Damn that last one is weird.

Either way, this movie is completely ridiculous, as expected. But it wasn’t ridiculous enough. It is clearly a parody, everything is over the top, the dialogue is ridiculous, it cannot be meant to be taken seriously, so I won’t.

But seriously, where is my deadly DDR game? They only danced a few times in this game, and it all looked tame as shit. I wanted more extreme.

Maybe that was the parody part. Making me wish it was better? Either way, I can’t give it an amazing review. Just because the movie was a lot tamer than I would have hoped.

2 out of 4.