Comic Book: The Movie

Today, I'm reviewing a rare gem. it's a direct-to-video mockumentary starring voice actors about comics and comic book movies and their fans. But, I believe it should have been released theatrically, despite it's small budget, because of the quality of the writing and characters themselves.

Comic Book: The Movie:
The plot follows Don Swan, a school teacher and nice guy, who owns a comic shop and large comic collection. His favorite hero, Commander Courage (a combination of Batman, Superman, and Captain America), is his childhood idol. He was a Native American hero who was given magical powers by a shaman, who became a wholesome, clean-cut superhero. Don, who is the official expert of Courage, is called by a big movie company to be a technical consultant on the movie and to make a documentary for the DVD special features about Comic-Con, the origin of Commander Courage, and the making of the film. Unfortunately, this adaptation is to be based on Codename: Courage, the "gritty" reboot of Courage. Now he's a cold, brutal mercenary who isn't a hero, but more of a vigilante killer. His Robin-like sidekick, Liberty Lad, is now the sexy, Black Widow-like character Liberty Lass. Don respects the creators of this version, but hates the re-design. While he makes the documentary he attempts to sabotage the production, from false advertising, to convincing Bruce Campbell (the actor being hired to play Courage) to demand re-writes, to finding the only living descendant of Jack Whitney (Courage's creator) to help him out. Antics ensue, and everything in the promotion campaign goes to hell. The director and star Mark Hamill (who played Luke Skywalker in Star Wars and voiced The Joker in Batman: TAS and the Batman: Arkham games) plays Don. The rest of the cast inludes voice actors like Billy West, Arleen Sorkin (voice of Harley Quinn), Jim Cummings (a very famous voice actor), Tara Strong (a famous voice actress who voiced Harley in Arkham City), Gary Owens, Tom Kenny (voice of Spongebob, and Skids and Wheelie of Transformers 2), etc. There are also numerous cameos, including: Bruce Campbell, Kevin Smith, Hugh Hefner, Stan Lee, Paul Dini (comic book writer, TAS writer, creator of Harley Quinn), Bruce Timm (comic book and TAS writer), Lloyd Kaufman (president of Troma Films, a B-movie company), Peter David (a comics writer), David Prowse (who played Darth Vader, James Earl Jones voiced the character, and who played The Monster in the British horror film Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell), Peter Mayhew (who played Chewbacca), Jeremy Bulloch (who played the original Boba Fett), Edd Hall (a voice actor and actor), Greg Nicotero (special effects artist, whose works include Frank Herbert's Dune, The Walking Dead Spiderman 3, Chronicles of Narnia, From Dusk Till Dawn, Transformers, and Grindhouse), and Matt Greoning (cartoonist and creator of Life in Hell, The Simpsons, and Futurama) There is little-to-no music. The humour is subtle, and mostly is referring to comic book history, making fun of the abismal 50's comics, the McCarthy-era comic book investigation, the terrible 60's cartoon shows, the 70's grittiness, the dark 80's reboots of comics, and the modern day movie adaptations. In the style of This Is Spinal Tap, the end credits let you know the film was fictitous, and that it had producers, writers, and that the film's "real people" were just actors. If you're a comic book fan, go on Netflix or Amazon.com, and buy or watch Comic Book: The Movie!! 3.5/5 stars.