This is a good little movie. The beginning is a little slow, and the ending is lacking a big emotional impact, but the middle part of the movie is a lot of fun, very enjoyable.
The film follows our hero, Don Swan (Mark Hamill), a high-school teacher who also owns and operates a comic book store in Wisconsin. Swan is an expert on the fictitious Golden-Age comic book hero Commander Courage. (Is "fictitious comic book hero" an oxymoron? Oh well, you know what I mean.) A movie studio wants to make a movie about Commander Courage, but they want to use the darker, more modern version, Codename: Courage, and they've hired Swan to go to ComicCon where the studio plans to make their big announcement and film some footage which they can use on the DVD version to jack up the price of the DVD. Swan has a different idea, though, to drum up support and convince the studio to use the kindler, gentler Golden-Age version of Commander Courage.
The movie is shot in the mock-documentary style most recently and successfully used by Christopher Guest in Best In Show, A Mighty Wind, and Waiting For Guffman. The actors only had a rough outline for a script, so most of the movie is improvised. One thought that occurred to me watching the movie is that this might have been better if it had been scripted a little more. While the cast is great and very funny, I don't think improvisation is their strongest skill.
The beginning of the movie is hurt by an unnecessary interview with Hugh Hefner. Why Hamill thought this was necessary, I'm not sure. Hefner apparently wanted to be a comic book artist at one point. But this doesn't really advance our plot, and we don't really do anything with Hefner. The beginning is also slowed down with an interview with Kevin Smith, who (in the movie) worked on the Commander Courage screenplay at one point. This interview is too long, really, and in the end, again, seems pointless. Other comic book and cartoon writers and artists are interviewed for the movie, but their bits are short and to the point; Smith's interview really should have been along the same lines.
The movie begins to pick up, though, when Leo (Billy West) enters the movie and our gang arrives in San Diego at ComicCon. Leo is the great-grandson of Jackson Whitney, who created the Commander Courage character. Leo has no idea about comic books or movies, he's a metal worker from the mid-west. Swan brings Leo along to convince him to side with him and pressure the studio to use the original Commander Courage; a humorous power struggle ensues over Leo, with the studio trying to keep Leo ignorant of things like "residuals". In the meantime, Ricky (Jess Harnell), Swan's cameraman, tries to get Leo to break out of his shell and meet girls at the convention.
There's also a very funny interview between Swan and Bruce Campbell, who is being considered for the role of Codename: Courage in the movie. Swan is trying to win Campbell over to his side. Campbell is great, and plays the scene completely convincingly. Contrasted with the Kevin Smith interview earlier in the movie, Campbell's scene is integral to the plot and moves the story along.
There are a whole host of star cameos at the convention which only comic book or cartoon enthusiasts will recognize. But even more entertaining are the scenes with real, ordinary people at the convention. This movie would have succeeded just as well, I think, if it had just been a straight-forward documentary of the ComicCon. Unlike the somewhat mean-spirited "Trekkies" documentary from some years ago, "Comic Book: The Movie" respects and affectionately admires the subjects of these scenes, and that's nice to see.
The big ending, with Swan confronting the studio execs, is somewhat anti-climactic. After a humorous scene of Swan running through the convention floor in a Commander Courage costume, and picking up a few random costumed convention-goers like Flash and Aquaman along the way, Swan makes an impassioned plea to the convention audience to reject the movie's version of Commander Courage. But the speech just falls flat, to me. This is an example of what I said earlier: I wonder if the movie would have been better if this speech had been better scripted? Even a soundtrack might have helped.
Overall, the movie is enjoyable because of all the little things in it: Don Swan explaining in excruciating detail the differences between Golden Age and Silver Age comics to a polite but indifferent Leo; Ricky's obsession with The Hulk; Derek's (a friend of Swan) son being dragged because he's just too tired to walk; Derek's son not wanting to open his new "collectible" figure; Jonathan Winters and Sid Ceasar improvising a scene; stuff like that.
The bonus features though are also wonderful, and are worth the price of the DVD alone! The making-of feature, and a "Behind The Voices" feature filming a question-and-answer session at the convention with famous voice-over actors from your favorite cartoons, are priceless. Interviews and footage of convention sessions with Stan Lee are fun and informative, as usual. And in the deleted scenes, there is a wonderful scene of a real independent comic book creator hawking his book, "Robots R Cool, Zombies R Jerks".
Overall, this gentle, good-humored, comedic look at comic books, Hollywood and cartoon voice-over actors is a nice movie, and I highly recommend it.
The film follows our hero, Don Swan (Mark Hamill), a high-school teacher who also owns and operates a comic book store in Wisconsin. Swan is an expert on the fictitious Golden-Age comic book hero Commander Courage. (Is "fictitious comic book hero" an oxymoron? Oh well, you know what I mean.) A movie studio wants to make a movie about Commander Courage, but they want to use the darker, more modern version, Codename: Courage, and they've hired Swan to go to ComicCon where the studio plans to make their big announcement and film some footage which they can use on the DVD version to jack up the price of the DVD. Swan has a different idea, though, to drum up support and convince the studio to use the kindler, gentler Golden-Age version of Commander Courage.
The movie is shot in the mock-documentary style most recently and successfully used by Christopher Guest in Best In Show, A Mighty Wind, and Waiting For Guffman. The actors only had a rough outline for a script, so most of the movie is improvised. One thought that occurred to me watching the movie is that this might have been better if it had been scripted a little more. While the cast is great and very funny, I don't think improvisation is their strongest skill.
The beginning of the movie is hurt by an unnecessary interview with Hugh Hefner. Why Hamill thought this was necessary, I'm not sure. Hefner apparently wanted to be a comic book artist at one point. But this doesn't really advance our plot, and we don't really do anything with Hefner. The beginning is also slowed down with an interview with Kevin Smith, who (in the movie) worked on the Commander Courage screenplay at one point. This interview is too long, really, and in the end, again, seems pointless. Other comic book and cartoon writers and artists are interviewed for the movie, but their bits are short and to the point; Smith's interview really should have been along the same lines.
The movie begins to pick up, though, when Leo (Billy West) enters the movie and our gang arrives in San Diego at ComicCon. Leo is the great-grandson of Jackson Whitney, who created the Commander Courage character. Leo has no idea about comic books or movies, he's a metal worker from the mid-west. Swan brings Leo along to convince him to side with him and pressure the studio to use the original Commander Courage; a humorous power struggle ensues over Leo, with the studio trying to keep Leo ignorant of things like "residuals". In the meantime, Ricky (Jess Harnell), Swan's cameraman, tries to get Leo to break out of his shell and meet girls at the convention.
There's also a very funny interview between Swan and Bruce Campbell, who is being considered for the role of Codename: Courage in the movie. Swan is trying to win Campbell over to his side. Campbell is great, and plays the scene completely convincingly. Contrasted with the Kevin Smith interview earlier in the movie, Campbell's scene is integral to the plot and moves the story along.
There are a whole host of star cameos at the convention which only comic book or cartoon enthusiasts will recognize. But even more entertaining are the scenes with real, ordinary people at the convention. This movie would have succeeded just as well, I think, if it had just been a straight-forward documentary of the ComicCon. Unlike the somewhat mean-spirited "Trekkies" documentary from some years ago, "Comic Book: The Movie" respects and affectionately admires the subjects of these scenes, and that's nice to see.
The big ending, with Swan confronting the studio execs, is somewhat anti-climactic. After a humorous scene of Swan running through the convention floor in a Commander Courage costume, and picking up a few random costumed convention-goers like Flash and Aquaman along the way, Swan makes an impassioned plea to the convention audience to reject the movie's version of Commander Courage. But the speech just falls flat, to me. This is an example of what I said earlier: I wonder if the movie would have been better if this speech had been better scripted? Even a soundtrack might have helped.
Overall, the movie is enjoyable because of all the little things in it: Don Swan explaining in excruciating detail the differences between Golden Age and Silver Age comics to a polite but indifferent Leo; Ricky's obsession with The Hulk; Derek's (a friend of Swan) son being dragged because he's just too tired to walk; Derek's son not wanting to open his new "collectible" figure; Jonathan Winters and Sid Ceasar improvising a scene; stuff like that.
The bonus features though are also wonderful, and are worth the price of the DVD alone! The making-of feature, and a "Behind The Voices" feature filming a question-and-answer session at the convention with famous voice-over actors from your favorite cartoons, are priceless. Interviews and footage of convention sessions with Stan Lee are fun and informative, as usual. And in the deleted scenes, there is a wonderful scene of a real independent comic book creator hawking his book, "Robots R Cool, Zombies R Jerks".
Overall, this gentle, good-humored, comedic look at comic books, Hollywood and cartoon voice-over actors is a nice movie, and I highly recommend it.
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