Posted: 07/26/2006

My Super Ex-Girlfriend

(2006)

by Hank Yuloff

There are some weekends where going to the movies is a necessity. Editor Del has posted a bunch of movies to be seen (at FilmMonthly: “We See Them So You Don’t Have To” is more than a motto - it’s an obligatory obsession.) and it’s too damn hot to go the Dodger game. So this weekend I dragged the wifey to the multiplex to see My Super Ex-Girlfriend and Clerks 2. I had to review one and the other was going to be a guilty pleasure. DOH! That lucky Clint got to do the Clerks review while I have to write about… THIS.

First let me say, I LOOOOOVED the Warning (otherwise known as the Trailer) for this film. It showed action, comedy, a little bit of sex, and a shark flying through the air. What could be better? But in a Phantom of the Opera-like manner, the editors managed to clip all the good stuff into the 2 minute Sales Pitch (the trailer) and I really didn’t have to see this one at all.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend opens with Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson) stopping a would-be purse nabbing. The purse owner is Jenny Johnson (Uma Thurman). What he does not know is that she is also G-Girl, a human turned super hero by an errant asteroid she and boyfriend stumbled upon when they were about to have sex for the first time. She also has intimacy and codependent issues that are evidently part of one’s lot in life when you spend much of your time saving different parts of the city from destruction and want to keep your identity secret. So she puts on a pair of glasses (“Gee Mr. Kent, you missed Superman again) and a wig (“try a toupee, Clark”) and goes about her daily business being an art dealer / city savior without getting into any meaningful relationships.

The fact that Uma (Batman and Robin, Gattica, Kill Bill) is missing her C.O.D.A. meetings is the real jumping off point for the movie. Luke (Family Stone, Alex & Emma) really wants to just get laid, but Uma, who has just delivered bed breaking sex, wants something more. How do you break up with a relationship starved super hero without getting killed? That is where this one-note song of a movie hits its high point as Wilson is subjected to many super-hero ways of having his life messed with that go way past the normal hang ups on your voice mail and black roses being delivered to your office. But after a few minutes of this - and its all documented in the Warning - you are left with a pretty mild relationship story.

There are a lot of obvious gags in this one. The superhero having over the top sex, the almost getting found out that you are a superhero cause you missed a smudge on your face, showing up instantly and unannounced with no one seeing you…. It all gets to be a bit drawn out. Even the happy ending is trite and anti-climactic.

In every super hero movie there has to be a villain. In this flick its Eddie Izzard (Mystery Men, Ocean’s Twelve) playing Professor Bedlam. We quickly find that he may be an evil mastermind, but world domination is not what he is after. He really wants to conquer G-Girl. Why? Remember that coitus-interuptus by an asteroidus earlier? Bedlam was the boyfriend and he missed his chance at Jenny panties and wants revenge. All I could think of was “Jeez, get over it, she was just ONE girl.”

And all I can tell you if you go see this flick and feel you wasted your time is “Jeez, it’s only one movie… Now go see Clerks 2 and laugh your ass off.”

Hank Yuloff is a co-founder and film critic living The Valley.

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