RogerBW's Blog

Electra Woman & Dyna Girl 26 July 2016

2016 superhero comedy (miniseries re-presented as film), dir. Chris Marrs Piliero, Grace Helbig, Hannah Hart: IMDb

Low-level superheroes Electra Woman and Dyna Girl move to Los Angeles to make the big time. But can they be true to themselves?

"I promise that we will not go on two diverging character journeys, if that's what you're afraid of." ← This woman is lying.

Yeah, it's a thoroughly hackneyed story: the Big Record Company, I mean superhero management agency, turns out not to have the heroes' best interests at heart. Gosh, I hadn't expected that. Electra Woman dives head-first into fame; Dyna Girl is more dubious. And then the Empress of Evil turns up and starts killing people.

But where the script, perhaps deliberately, lacks anything like an original plot, it does have good moment-to-moment fizz; this was made as a series of eleven-minute mini-episodes, which leaves it feeling much more like a double-episode of a TV series, which has to keep people coming back after the commercial breaks, than like a feature film which can afford to slow down from time to time. Some of the breaks are more obvious than others, but within each segment the energy stays up and the jokes don't overstay their welcome.

That's also thanks to the cast, and it's because of Helbig and Hart that I watched this at all. They've clearly put effort into their performances, and while the acting they're called on to do isn't particularly subtle they still get the job done better than quite a lot of the talent in Hollywood. They work well as a double act too. Other cast members are less impressive, generally being one-note stereotypes and/or walk-ons, and even Christopher Coutts as Frank (the tech guy who turns up repeatedly) can't do much with "flattened affect" and "I like food", which seem to be the only bits of character briefing he got. Graeme Duffy as commercial director Jack Hurley does a surprisingly nuanced job of his completely unsubtle role.

Budget is clearly minimal, and there's more talking than doing, but with leads this entertaining (and cheap CGI) that's not as much of a problem as it might be. The film never tries to get Terribly Serious the way many superhero properties do, which given the inherently ridiculous premise I can only regard as a good thing.

Definitely not a classic, but an enjoyable 80 minutes nonetheless. Oh, and female superhero costumes that aren't just an excuse to show off their breasts.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 essen 2024 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1