Comic Book: The Movie
by Thunderdude
Howdy:
I like Mark Hamill. He was my hero when I was a kid. Yeah Han Solo was cool, but
Luke Skywalker had the light saber. That's what sold me on him. Then after the
Star Wars thing, his acting career went somewhere nobody thought it would go:
cartoon voices. His most notable being the Joker on the Batman cartoons in the
nineties. Now he makes his directorial debut in a mockumentary about my favorite
medium: Comic Books!!!. If you are a comic book geek (not aficionado, and people
who call themselves that really need to look inside themselves and acknowledge
the greatness of being a geek), you will love this movie!
Hamill plays high school teacher and comic book shop owner Don Swan. Swan is
asked to be a consultant on the Hollywood treatment of his favorite comic
book character, Commander Courage. The WWII era Commander Courage character is a
made up for the movie and is a cross between Captain America and Batman. Much
fun is made at the whole little boy sidekick issue of Liberty Lad. Swan is
followed to interviews with such heroes of fellow geeks like Stan Lee, Kevin
Smith and Hugh Hefner. All interviews are great, especially Smith who hams it up
quite nicely. Swan also sits down with Bruce Campbell to talk to him about
playing the title character in the film.
Swans biggest problem with Commander Courage is that the movie producers want to
make a movie about the 90's badass version of the character called Codename:
Courage. The newer version is basically a badass gun toting government agent who
loves to let the bullets fly. His sidekick is not a little boy in shorts, but
rather the scantily clad Liberty Lass. Donna D'Errico is set to play the part in
the documentary, and she's pretty funny with it too.
The film follows Swan throughout all these interviews with some fun insider
jokes. They even end up at a comic book convention for some reason. How the hell
Mark Hamill was able to get any filming done with his fan base at a comic book
convention, I don't know. Each person he interviews he tries to convince that
the studio should go with the older version. Much laughs come from his stoner
cameraman, I might add.
Many of the characters among Swan in the movie are played by voice actors that
professionally lend their craft to cartoons. The DVD is a two disc set. On the
second DVD it shows a gathering at the comic book convention of all of these
voice actors on a panel answering questions for the crowd and showing off their
talents.
This mockumentary is for comic books what This is Spinal Tap was for hair
bands. It's got plenty of laughs and is definitely worth the price. However,
where Spinal Tap was something most people could laugh at, Comic Book:
The Movie is likely to only really be appreciated by my fellow geeks. And
being a proud comic book geek, I give this one a solid A.