|
|
 |
Superman is well-known for his super strength, super speed, ability to fly, and x-ray vision. Due to his home planet’s red sun, he had no such abilities on his native Krypton, but the more powerful, yellow rays of Sol made him a super-human hero on the planet Earth.
Of course, Superman was unwavering – sometimes to the point of nausea – in his commitment to helping mankind. If he had instead been like the protagonist of this film, I doubt his merchandising would have been quite as successful.
Bum Man (Anthony Hinch) is an alien who, because he wants nothing but to be lazy and get drunk, was banished to Earth. Due to the molecular structure of his home planet, Bum Man is able to run at super-human speeds, fly, and use his extremely poor personal hygiene as a weapon. But, he is entirely unmotivated to do anything but lie around in an alley with a bottle of booze. But all that changes when he meets up-and-coming reporter Diane Zane (Sharley), a reporter doing a story on the so-called “Bum Alley,” which sits next to a building scheduled to be torn down by the town’s token rich guy, Manley Rich (Robin Brecker).
Content
While this film falls into the category of comedies that I term “stupid-funny,” and as such am more than a little skeptical at what I am about to watch, I will admit that this film made me laugh on a couple occasions. First off, there’s an early homage to Ed Wood’s infamous opus Plan Nine From Outer Space, as Diane’s boyfriend happens to be watching it when she returns from work – coincidentally at a scene that involves the aliens. Also, Manley Rich’s henchmen – who are only seen once at the end of the film – are depicted wearing Mexican wrestler masks, which I thought was a very creative and unique touch. Although, I would’ve liked to have seen these guys a bit more often than just at the last scene.
By far my favorite part of this movie, however, was the completely random inclusion of a puppet. Well, more like a muppet. In a scene at Mr. Rich’s house, he is sitting on the couch next to a little blue creature that looks just like a Jim Henson creation. At first I wondered why on earth the filmmakers had included something so random, but even in such a short scene the puppet sort of grew on me, mostly by virtue of it being so cute. And, as with the Mexican wrestler henchmen, I wished that this little blue critter could’ve made a couple more appearances.
There were, however, quite a few issues in the rest of the film. Given the Plan 9 homage – and Ed Wood’s reigning status as the master of bad movies - I had to assume that some of these were made on purpose. First off, the acting wasn’t all that great. A lot of it was over-the-top (typical of Wood-esque movies), and some was just, well, bad. I’m guessing this choice was made (mostly) on purpose, but it didn’t make watching the movie very easy.
One thing that worried me a bit was the character of “Gutter Girl” – one of Bum Man’s compatriots. She spoke a language of gibberish that could only be understood by the other bums who had hung around her for a long time (although there were subtitles included to “translate” for the audience.) There were a couple references to her as being “mentally ill,” but while she acted oddly, she didn’t appear have any sort of actual mental illness. (My guess would be that, since there was some reference to her living a normal life and then having a “breakdown” of some sort, the filmmakers were making an allusion to schizophrenia, but a schizophrenic off medication would not have behaved in the otherwise well-functioning and logical way that this character did. And even if she’d had access to medication, she wouldn’t have been talking gibberish.) To me, this seemed to be a rather heavy-handed way of reinforcing a negative stereotype, and could be extremely offensive to anyone with an actual mental illness.
|
|
|
|
