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Two out of Five stars
Running time: 85 mins

Much better than the recent likes of Date Movie and Epic Movie, Superhero Movie benefits from a relatively coherent storyline, some amusing performances and a handful of decent laughs, though it's still not as funny or as clever as it should have been.

What's it all about?
Drake Bell stars as teenager Rick Riker, who gains superpowers after a freak accident and uses his new-found abilities to fight crime as The Dragonfly, while pining after Jill Johnson (Sara Paxton), the girl of his dreams. Meanwhile, Evil Scientist Dr Lou Landers (Christopher McDonald) also gains superpowers and embarks on a life of crime as costumed criminal The Hourglass. Can The Dragonfly defeat his nemesis, win the girl and save the day?

The Good
Unlike recent disasters such as Epic Movie and Meet the Spartans, the makers of Superhero Movie (including Airplane's David Zucker) clearly have a lot of love for the films they're spoofing and are interested in actually engaging with the genre rather than just chucking in celebrity lookalikes and making references to TV shows. As a result, the script closely follows the structure of Spider-Man (the key Spider-Man scenes are spoofed really well), but there are some good gags at the expense of Fantastic Four, Batman and X-Men, among others.

The film also benefits from a decent comic cast that includes Tracy Morgan (as Professor X) and cameos from Regina Hall and Pamela Anderson. However, the film is completely stolen by Leslie Nielsen as Rick's kindly Uncle Albert – indeed, the film's biggest laugh isn't really superhero-related and could have come directly from the Naked Gun movies.

The Bad
That said, the film is lazily written in places and a good number of the gags don't work at all. Stick around after the end, though, because the film has several mid-credits gags that are actually funny and shouldn't have been taken out.

Worth seeing?
Basically, Superhero Movie is funnier than Scary Movie 4 but not as funny as Scary Movie 3. Still, there are some good laughs and as spoof movies go, this is definitely worth seeing.