8/3/2019 Comic Book Villains movie review

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Comic Book Villains(2002)

Ah, indie cinema raises its head again, and I get ensnared mostly on the strengths

of having Donal Logue in the cast (he’s rarely been in anything great but he’salways reliable as a performer). This movie, told from the point of view of Archie(DJ Qualls), a young comic-book collector, chronicles the story of the feud betweenthe owner of Archie’s favorite comic book store, Ray (Logue), a guy who lovescomics, lives for them, and a couple, Norman and Judy Link (Michael Rappaport andNatasha Lyonne), who run a comic store as an investment. It’s no secret which sideArchie is on, but another customer, Conan (Danny Masterson) stirs up troublebetween the two one day when he lets slip that a major collector in town has diedand left his vast and pristine collection behind. Both Ray and the Links visit theman’s old mother (Eileen Brennan) to try to convince her to sell them the books,which represent a value of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Things get nasty, asthe old woman won’t sell, and the war begins. 

It’s fairly typical indie cinema – everyone is a little bit weird and greedy, and theperson we are supposed to root for, Archie, is a basically good person who rejectsthe values of greed and tries to be nice for its own sake blah blah blah. What startsout as an interesting take on some geeks quickly sinks down into a morality play,and not a very entertaining one; greed is bad, yeah, we get it. You didn’t have to

waste ninety minutes of my life to explain that one.

The performances are for the most part okay. Qualls is fine, if a little mousey, andDanny Masterson’s role, while small, is perfectly handled. Logue goes a little overthe top, but he’s still pretty good, and Brennan is perfect as a mother who can’t get

over the death of her doting son. Cary Elwes has a small role, miscast as a toughguy. Both Rappaport and Lyonne play their characters to the hilt, but they aresaddled with some of the worst writing in the story and are both really unlikable,particularly Lyonne (I usually find watching her perform the visual equivalent of rubbing sandpaper on my thighs). Though not a particularly strong film, thecharacters of the Links are particularly odious and hurt the movie far more thanthey help it.

What really turned me off was the final message of the film, which saturates itself in geek culture for an hour and a half and then does a switcheroo and says thatreally it’s better not to be a geek. I thought indie cinema was about embracing the

oddballs, outcasts, and losers, not ostracizing them. We’ve come a long way in ourtreatment of geeks for the most part – the most successful movie of all time isuber-geekfest Avatar  – but some people will never stop wanting to be cool, I guess.Well, they can go to hell. In the meantime, skip this film; the few entertainingtidbits aren’t worth the rest of the draggy crap. 

November 23, 2010