PAYBACK

Payback fell a little flat like Kitchen Crusader thanks to a decent setup being followed by a sit down conversation that had little momentum. The superheros didn't engage with their arch-nemesis at all, and it turned out the arch-nemesis wasn't an enemy anyway, removing any conflict from the situation. Mostly I think this film got stuck between very low stakes and not taking the parody far enough into the absurd. Tough genre!

"made you look" and "I like the way you trim your bush" were the two funniest parts to this superhero film about superheroes (with no actual superpowers) having a coffee break. It seems to have been a real theme this year to not actually have your superheroes doing anything superheroish, however them pretending they did was quite funny - like the guy helping the old lady cross the road unscathed, when she was on a crossing anyway. I felt there was more they wanted to do with this but it never really got there. Still it was a funny film and the audience enjoyed it.

This film falls flat amongst the superhero films - such a lot could have been achieved - especially after watching a lot of other entries over the years within this genre. Comedy is a fine art, a play of perfect timing between actors. Only a couple of good moments highlighted this. The woman super hero was too loud for words. I quite didn't understand where the plot was heading towards, and my interest died somewhere in the middle amongst the bevy of muddled, endless chatter. The 'helping the old lady cross the road' scene, though overdone, was a mite enjoyable, as was the 'bush' quip. That one just came out of the blue and made me guffaw! Sometimes, it's better to stick to a simple story formula and work on the delivery, especially comedy. I had the feeling they were trying to achieve a lot, filmed more than they intended to, and patched a lot of scenes after deleting big chunks.