So, if you think producers needed a comic book as an excuse to make a superhero movie, then you’re under-estimating producers. One of the trickiest attempts to market on both the romance comedy, the superhero movie craze, and on Ivan Reitman’s fan base is “My Super Ex-Girlfriend” which really combines all of the aforementioned into a hybrid that’s neither fun nor funny.
And then there’s the recurring “men are evil, women are courageous and powerful” formula which consistently insinuates its way into “My Super Ex-Girlfriend”, and then tries to base itself around a formula of peeking into the personal life of a superhero, and asks questions that fan boys and basic pop culture observers have been asking since the dawn of comics.
Reitman’s “Superman” meets “Cosmopolitan” features a reality in which superheroes and villains are prevalent, yet reality interrupts where Matt (Wilson) gets involved with the local super heroine G-Girl (Thurman) without his knowledge. The problem is Reitman’s film can never decide where logic begins and suspension of disbelief ends. So we shift back and forth in sloppy instances only to view an utterly obnoxious story about two simpletons we’re supposed to care for.
How does Jenny aka G-Girl have a social life? If she has super strength how can she have sex without breaking every bone in her boyfriend’s body? How can she maintain a relationship with the demands of being a superhero? Didn’t we have these questions posed to us in the last fifty superhero movies that have shown in theaters? These aren’t original ideas.
And then there’s where the logic meets our story. How does she perform incredible feats without Matt figuring it out in an instance? Is he so stupid he can’t figure out the girl smashing his bed in the heat of passion isn’t a superhero? How do you cross a woman who happens to be a super powered heroine?
“My Super Ex-Girlfriend” wants us to believe in the logic yet also expects us to delay our disbelief, and it asks too much. In order to read comics you have to believe certain devices. Peter Parker’s voice isn’t recognizable under a mask, Superman can suddenly be Clark with a change of the hair and glasses, but the script wants us to believe in the reality and the fiction; Wilson’s reaction that his girlfriend is laughable, and Jenny and Matt’s relationship is boring, while Jenny’s story of attaining her powers is one big plot device for the pay off involving her resident super-villain.
And if you thought Superman was a glorified stalker in “Superman Returns” then wait until you see Thurman’s incredibly over the top G-Girl who stalks her boyfriend using her superpowers, and let’s the world experience a near catastrophic calamity because she’s trying to spite him. Meanwhile, the writing tries to desperately steer us into sympathizing for G-Girl while really she’s nothing but a haggard shrew, and Matt a moronic prick.
And then every so often Rainn Wilson inserts his “quirky best friend” shtick for padding, while the rest of the supporting cast are either mis-used or under-used. Reitman fails to add a new twist to the superhero genre, and really supplies what adds up to nothing more than another shrill and utterly obnoxious man-hating comedy.
