I recently rented a movie called Comic Book Villains in the hopes of having a couple of laughs; unfortunately I was sadly disappointed.
The movie is set in a small town in the USA in which there are two competing comic book stores. One store is owned by Raymond (Donal Logue), who is a hard-core comics fanatic. He's single, knows an inordinate amount of information about every comic book ever written, and smokes a pipe. His store is cosy, comfortable, and full of time-wasters who stand around having philosophical discussions about various comic book characters. On the other side of the town is the competition: the clean and functional shop run by Norman (Michael Rapaport) and Judy (Natasha Lyonne). The worst slander Raymond says of the couple is that they sell action figures, trading cards, and are mere dabblers in the art of selling comics. There is enough fertile ground here for a lot of laughs, especially if you are familiar with the comic book world, which has a lot of cross-over with geeks and nerds - yeah, soft targets for comedy.
Unfortunately, nearly all the characters in the film are either unredeemably irritating - such as all the comic store owners - or boring like Archie (DJ Qualls). The conflict comes from the death of a serious comics collector who has left the motherlode of comics behind in the care of his mother. Archie is the character the audience is supposed to identify with. He's nominally on Raymond's side, but he's more interested in hanging out and talking to Mrs. Cresswell (Eileen Brennan) about her life, rather than trying to persuade her to sell the collection. The rivalry between the two groups gets worked up to fever pitch, and Raymond turns to an ex-con he once knew in High School. Carter (Cary Elwes) is fixing up his house when he's not watching his stripper girlfriend Kiki (Monet Mazur). Hi-jinks then ensue.
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Article comments
1 - Chris Puzak
If helps soothes your nerves at all, James Robinson's work in comic books, such as the Starman series, has been truly excellent. While I'm not expecting much from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, there's been so many problems with it other than the script that I don't Robinson will be the one to blame if it fails.
2 - Maura
Hi Chris,
Yes, James has a good reputation as a writer for comics, but unfortunately Comic Book Villains proves he's not quite up to scratch as a writer, and director, for movies. He might do better in the future, having learned from CBV, but it did seem to me that the movie was made by a comics book fan, to appeal to comic book fans, rather than trying to appeal to people. It also dealt too much with the negative side of comic book collecting. The story might have worked in a comic book format, but not on the screen.
But, as you say, he's only the writer for The League and everyone knows that in Hollywood no one listens to the writer. ;)
3 - Chris Puzak
Yeah, I've seen the movie, and it was pretty disappointing. Hopefully, if Robinson writes and directs another movie, he'll have learned from his mistakes.