Comic Book Villains (2002)

Brilliant and touching

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Kind of a unique idea for a dark comedy. Competing comic book store owners trying to outwit each other for a prize collection. Unfortunately the crazed collectors are all, except one, unlikable, unsympathetic, and greedy. The movie is very uneven, with characters morphing from just scheming crazies, to murderers. It is at this point, when almost everyone has transformed into killers, that "Comic Book Villains" seems to have run out of ideas, and rapidly spirals downhill. If after the confrontation in the old ladies home, the script had been fully developed, the movie might have worked better on several levels. As it stands, it is at best, a very mediocre black comedy. - MERK

Sadly, this movie started with some catchy stuff. I didn't know what it was about since I found it on cable TV, but as the movie went on I spotted some good actors and a spice of fun. So I thought that Donal Logue and DJ Qualls (two guys that to me are famous because of the funny as hell characters they play in movies like "Roadtrip" and shows like "Grounded For Life") would make a good movie. Again, sadly I was soon to be disappointed.The plot seemed interesting. Geeky guys that love comic books, I expected to see some wannabe stuff and that, but there was nothing like this. All there is in this movie are crimes, stupid fights and a predictable ending. Let's skip the rest and head to the finale, because nothing really happens during the whole movie but 3 parties fighting for some really valuable comic books. So at the end, the obvious, Raymond and July have committed murders. Why? I don't know, I consider their killings to have been really stupid and senseless, but well, the movie is senseless. So, they gather at Judy's store and then the police arrives. What could have happened? Yes, Raymond goes out and pulls his pistol so that he gets shot to death. Hasn't this already been used like a million times? Yes. Was it needed in the movie? No.The old woman, owner of the books, becomes friends with Archie, the good boy of the movie. And she says when she is dying (she is killed by another bad guy whose presence is almost unnoticeable and really forced) "go to my (defunct) son's closet, he did not only collected comics". I guess at this part of the movie everyone realizes that he had something more valuable. Maybe gold, maybe kryptonite, whatever. Of course it'll be expensive stuff that will change the boy's life.At the very end we see Archie in Europe, the continent he most longed for - more precisely in Barcelona. And then he says the other thing the dead guy collected were baseball cards which costed a lot more than the comics. So finally he finds a girl there and they start talking. I am sure the writers thought "Hey, this movie is about anything but comics. Shouldn't Archie hang her in his arms and go out flying?". Yeah, that would've been fun.Final note: this movie is labeled as "Comedy". Well I found nothing to laugh at in it, I'd say it was a "drama" more than a "comedy".

Comic Book Villains tells the story of Archie (DJ Qualls) who works at his best friends comic book store. His best friend is Raymond McGillcuddy (Donal Logue) who's enemy's are rival comic book store owner's Norman and Judy Link(Micheal Rapaport & Natasha Lyonne). When both parties here of a recently deceased comic book fan's large collection of priceless comic book's both parties declare all out war. While the two parties are plotting against each other Archie Befriends the dead comic collector's Mum Mrs Cresswell (Eileen Brennan). When Mrs Cresswell refuses to budge about not selling the comics Raymond hires his old school bully Carter (Cary Elwes) to steal the comics. If you like low budget movies you'll love this. If you hate anything to do with comic book's you will surely hate this I will give an 8 for different to Hollywood dross.

Another sub-par bastard child of "Pulp Fiction" - a dark comedy/thriller ensemble piece where everything eventually comes together blah blah blah - only this time the writer/director replaces the usual suitcase of money with a stack of expensive comic books. Pure genius!It's a shame that somewhere along cinema's evolution writers forgot how to write black comedy (and for those of you who know black comedy only from the Tarantino school of scriptwriting, there's more to it than mere violence and swearing), it seems these days only Todd Solondz and Daniel Waters have any real idea. Another strike against it is the casting of the annoying Logue in the lead - okay so he displays a greater range than one may have thought but he's still annoying - and the rest of the cast seem to have fun watching their careers go down the crapper (Rapaport vies for Most Annoying Supporting Actor award while the usually decent Elwes has one of the most overstated "look I'm a bad ass" performances committed to film). The film's only saving graces are, as expected, a very funny performance from the always-wonderful Lyonne as Rapaport's scheming wife while it's also nice to see Brennan in a supporting role again.All in all, a showcase for the writer/director's knowledge of comic books rather than his talent as a filmmaker. But if you sat watching "Pulp Fiction" and thought to yourself: "I wish this movie was less clever, less stylish, had less interesting characters and was chock full of pointless comic book trivia", then this one's for you.