97. Superhero Movie

Title: Superhero Movie
Genre: Action, Comedy, Sci-Fi
Year: 2008

Summary: Rick Riker is an unpopular student at Empire High School. He lives with his Uncle Albert and Aunt Lucille. He has one friend and confidant, Trey. His crush, Jill Johnson, who hardly notices him, is dating Lance Landers, a bully who torments Rick. During a school field trip at an animal research lab, Rick meets Lou Landers who coughs up blood because he is terminally ill. Dr. Strom, the head researcher at the lab, presents his mutated dragonflies, one of which has escaped and bites Rick, and causes his neck to swell.

By the time Rick returns home he is violently ill. Uncle Albert and Aunt Lucille believe Rick is acting strange, so Albert proceeds to talk to Rick about puberty, but Rick passes out from the bite. He wakes up five days later, tries to look up "dragonfly bite" online but is contacted by a stranger instead who wants to speak to him in person, later adding Rick as a friend on Facebook.

Meanwhile, Lou Landers is involved in an accident during an experiment at the lab, transforming him into Hourglass, a villainous being who can siphon the life energy from others, killing them.

During a science fair at school in which a comically rude and mean-spirited Stephen Hawking is present, Rick begins to experience strange physical traits, such as becoming stuck to objects, which creates a number of mishaps during the fair. Fleeing school, he discovers has developed superhuman abilities, such as the ability to walk on walls and superhuman strength, though he repeatedly laments throughout the film that he cannot fly. After testing his abilities, he pushes an elderly woman and her dog out of the way of an out-of-control truck, colliding with the truck himself. He is congratulated by passers-by, though he notices that the elderly woman he shoved out of the way landed into a woodchipper and crushed, with her dog still on its leash.

Rick reveals his secret to his uncle and Trey and the latter offers to become his sidekick, but Rick refuses. He and Uncle Albert have an argument, which spurs a flashback sequence in which a younger Rick and his parents are mugged in an alley, and die in a spoof of Batman Begins. With his dying words, his father urges him to sell all his shares in Google, but invest heavily in Enron.

Later, after seeing Jill and Lance leave in Lance's Porsche Cayman, Rick, who desires a car of his own, goes to a bank, where he is denied a loan. A bank robber then holds up the bank and after Rick fails to stop him, Uncle Albert is shot and hospitalized. Jill visits Rick at the hospital, and they kiss for the first time. Meanwhile Landers accidentally takes his secretary's life energy, killing her.

Rick is met by Xavier at his school for mutants ala X-Men where he meets Storm, Wolverine, Cyclops, the Invisible Woman and Mrs. Xavier. Rick is told to make a costume by Mrs. Xavier, and adopts the identity of the Dragonfly. He meets the Human Torch but fails to fly. Dragonfly quickly becomes a media sensation, fights and gets badly injured by Hourglass who manages to escape stealing a canister of Cerillium.

Jill is attacked by muggers, but Dragonfly saves her. Just after Dragonfly defeats the last of the thugs, Jill is shown with an admiring look on her face, and it starts to rain heavily, setting the scene for a hot, romantic moment, but Dragonfly disappears up a building. Jill looks for him and when she can't find him, she calls out "Where are you?", and Dragonfly responds "Behind you." A startled Jill turns around and finds Dragonfly hanging upside down hoping Jill will thank him with a kiss. Jill tells Dragonfly he saved her life, and shyly asks Dragonfly if she can thank him with a kiss. This is the moment Dragonfly has been waiting for his whole life, so he agrees, and Jill moves in. Just before she can kiss him, Dragonfly slides down so he has a perfect view down Jill's shirt. Jill lifts him back up, but he goes over the building, leaving Jill alone. Jill thinks her chance to kiss Dragonfly is over,and she desperately searches for him. Dragonfly sneaks up behind Jill and taps her shoulder. Jill turns and sees her savior. The two of them are unsure what to do for a few seconds, but Jill moves toward Dragonfly, and the two of them share an extended kiss, which Dragonfly has been dreaming of his whole life. Dragonfly tries to kiss Jill again, but decides to fight more crime to impress her. Landers plans to construct a machine that will kill 42 thousand people and give him enough life energy to make him immortal. During a Thanksgiving dinner at the Rikers', Landers visits the family, where he nearly catches Rick dressed as the Dragonfly. Though Rick escapes detection, Landers later manages to learn his secret identity. Just as Rick and Jill are about to kiss, the Hourglass appears and murders Aunt Lucille. Uncle Albert recovers, and after a comical funeral, Rick decides to end his superhero career, though Trey and Uncle Albert convince him to find Hourglass, who plans to kill countless innocent people. At an awards ceremony to honor achievements in feminine hygiene, Landers is presented with a Douchebag Of The Year Award. Although Rick goes to the ceremony too, Landers tricks him into thinking that the Dalai Lama is Hourglass, which leads to a brawl in the ceremony hall involving all the attendees, including Buddhist monks, the Pope and Stephen Hawking. During this, Jill discovers that Landers is Hourglass. In a nearby hall there is a superhero convention where a flying machine awaits Hourglass. Landers gets in the convention hall and changes into Hourglass as Rick gets into his Dragonfly costume and fights him. When Hourglass tries to finish off Dragonfly, Jill attempts to intervene and is critically injured. Hourglass flies off with the machine to the rooftop where he activates the machine to steal the lifeforce from all the attendees of the ceremony and the convention.

After Stephen Hawking implores Rick not to give up, using a rationale that Rick points out are the lyrics to Celine Dion's "Taking Chances", he dons the Dragonfly suit, and battles the Hourglass on the rooftop. Dragonfly siphons off some of Hourglass's stolen lifeforce to heal Jill, but the Hourglass throws a bomb at Dragonfly, with the bomb sticking to Dragonfly's crotch. He backflips several times, finally managing to stick the bomb to Hourglass. Stuck to his invention, he shouts "Oh, f**k!" , with the bomb detonating and killing him.

Jill falls off the roof, but Dragonfly jumps off after her. After he grabs her and reveals that he is Rick, Jill tells him that she loves him,and they passionately kiss, and Rick finally grows wings. He flies them away, landing on the rooftop where uncle Albert and Stephen Hawking await them. While they walk away, Hawking's wheelchair gets stuck and hits the ledge sending Hawking to a freefall. Rick and Jill fly once more but they are hit by a helicopter.

As an epilogue, before the end credits roll, several "cut scenes" are shown with even more extreme parody.

Alternate Ending: Instead of the rooftop battle, the Hourglass and Rick battle inside the comic book convention. At one point, several convention attendees tell the Hourglass how to kill people. When the Hourglass is defeated, Landers' nephew realizes that Rick has killed his uncle. Enraged, he lunges for Rick, but is knocked out by Trey with the Douchebag of the Year Award. Instead of Hawking falling off the building, he is blown up by an Hourglass Bomb, and crushed by his falling wheelchair. The helicopter scene is omitted from this version, as Rick and Jill silently share two passionate kisses, which are significant because Rick initiates the kiss with Jill for the first time as the end credits roll.