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(About Our Ads) "SUPERHERO MOVIE" (2008) (Drake Bell, Sara Paxton) (PG-13) If you've come from our parental review of this film and wish to return to it, simply click on your browser's BACK button. Otherwise, use the following link to read our complete Parental Review of this film. QUICK TAKE: Comedy: A young man attains super powers and must deal with a villain while trying to win over the girl of his dreams in this spoof of superhero films. PLOT: Rick Ricker (DRAKE BELL) is an average high school student who's been raised by his Aunt Lucille (MARION ROSS) and Uncle Albert (LESLIE NIELSEN) since his parents were killed years ago. He happens to be secretly in love with his next-door neighbor and fellow classmate, Jill Johnson (SARA PAXTON), but she's dating Lance Landers (RYAN HANSEN) who doesn't waste any opportunity to make fun of Rick. While on a field trip visiting a company specializing in genetics research, Rick is bitten by a dragonfly, an act that changes his DNA and gives him superhuman powers, a point not lost on his best friend, Trey (KEVIN HART). With some advice from mutant benefactor Dr. Xavier (TRACY MORGAN), Rick starts battling crime under his superhero alter ego of The Dragonfly, all while trying to impress Jill who's unaware of his secret life. But the young man has bigger concerns as terminally ill corporate CEO Lou Landers (CHRISTOPHER McDONALD) -- uncle to Lance -- has his lead scientist, Dr. Strom (BRENT SPINER), perform an unproven experiment on him. Not only does that save his life, but it also gives him the ability to drain the same from anyone he happens to grab. As he becomes more powerful, he similarly adopts an alter ego persona, but his is the arch-villain, Hourglass. From that point on, Rick does what he can to stop the bad guy. OUR TAKE: 3 out of 10 Our new reviewing policy for films that aren't shown in advance to critics is that we'll only provide a paragraph or two about the film's artistic merits or, more accurately, lack thereof. After all, life is too short to spend any more effort than that on a movie that even the releasing studio knows isn't any good (which is why they hid it from reviewers before its release). Alas, this is nothing more than yet another lame comedy spoof. While some may see a glimmer of hope with David Zucker, Leslie Nielsen and Robert Hays being reunited here (they were all directly involved with the "Airplane!" flicks), the former is just in producer mode, the middle one doesn't have the script to support his talent, and the latter only appears in a brief, flashback cameo. While it occasionally strives for the rapid fire wit found in Zucker's spoofy masterpiece, it rarely elicits more than a chuckle, proving once more that they don't make parodies like they used to. Mostly following the original "Spider-Man" film as its plot source (with a few nods to the "X-Men" and "Fantastic Four" films as well as various Internet sites and a certain Scientologist's over-emotive behavior), the film simply lacks the smarts, creativity and overall funny stuff that fueled its far superior (and now nearly ancient) predecessors. "Superhero Movie" rates as a 3 out of 10. Reviewed March 28, 2008 / Posted March 28, 2008