The Specials
Tags: cult, satire

Plot synopsis:
The superhero team the Specials has never achieved great popularity or prestige, partially because unlike other super teams it is not corporation-friendly and has been unable to secure merchandising deals. Without the corporate or private financial resources of more well-established teams, the Specials often get underrated villains, small disasters, and the occasional alien invasion to repel — all of which are deemed too low-priority for other superhero teams. Even the members with formidable powers have shortcomings that prevented a transition for the team as a whole. Because team-members such as the Strobe, Ms. Indestructible, The Weevil, Deadly Girl, Power Chick, Amok, Alien Orphan, and Eight all possess various social dysfunctions, they've never quite broken through the superhero glass ceiling.
The team welcomes Nightbird (Jordan Ladd), the group's newest member, a teenage girl with "bird powers." Nightbird, who idolizes the Specials, soon realizes that her heroes do not function as a harmonious team but like a dysfunctional family. One of the two greatest points of stress in the team is the slowly fracturing relationship between the Strobe (Thomas Haden Church) and Ms. Indestructible (Paget Brewster), a married couple at the core of the team. Also problematic is that the Weevil is trying to negotiate an exit into a more high-profile superhero team, playing both on his own popularity and his legacy status from following in his father's footsteps.
The cracks begin to show as they prepare to attend a dinner in their honor thrown by Kosgrov Toys, which is releasing a line of action figures based upon the group. The event is a travesty. It becomes quickly apparent that Kosgrov did little research on the Specials, and low-balled the production by utilizing cheap accessories and recycled parts. Worse yet, the leader of the Specials, the Strobe, discovers that his wife, Ms. Indestructible, is cheating on him with the most popular member of the group, The Weevil (Rob Lowe). In a fit of anger, the Strobe disbands the group, and the members go their own ways.
The Strobe goes to Zip Boy's (Barry Del Sherman) house and asks for a job at New Standards Inc., a plastics company in Detroit, denying there's a problem by saying that he's great, now that he has "a great new job as a welding asshole." Ms. Indestructible spends the night watching her old wedding video and crying over a glass of wine. The Strobe's brother, Minute Man (James Gunn), who had had a crush on the new girl, Nightbird, ultimately falls into the arms of Deadly Girl (Judy Greer), who was hurt to learn about Weevil and Ms. Indestructible. Meanwhile, Amok (Jamie Kennedy), Power Chick (Kelly Coffield), Alien Orphan (Sean Gunn), and Mr. Smart (Jim Zulevic) indulge in a night of drinking and dancing.
During the disbandment, the Weevil finalizes his transfer to another superhero team, only to find that his negative press from the Specials still follows him. Reporters focus more on his controversy than his ability to apprehend villains, and the Weevil finds he has gone from being the top dog in a small team to the team runt in the larger one. The Strobe and Ms. Indestructible reconcile, and the Strobe renews his passion for justice instead of image. The team are immediately called back into action and the heroes resolve to do the right thing not because it will bring popularity or glory, but because as misfits, they've become the champions of society's underdogs. They exit to face down another crisis.

Review: Nifty low-budget variant on MYSTERY MEN, with a script that's about four times as good.
And there is a lovely scene--not really funny, but you can feel the audience beaming at it--in which a mongoloid "space orphan," dandled like a pinhead mascot through most of the movie, takes the stage at a techno nightclub and breakdances to "Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me).".
The conceit of this film is pure genius: make a superhero movie in which there are no battles, and nobody uses their powers; just focus on their personal lives and interpersonal conflicts, and play it mostly for laughs.
Those of you who are able to see the potential in the concept are in for a treat.Going in, I'd only heard of Rob Lowe and Thomas Haden Church, both of whom are excellent.
This Film is a great example of the fact that you don't need a budget to be a great movie.
while the film leans more towards the fans of the comic book genre with humor more in tune with that vein, which is why it was so good, it wasn't trying to be a movie for everyone...
mystery men is the closest comparison i can think of, but mystery men tried to hard and lacked the small charm and witty profanity ridden dialogue of the specials, and while mystery men had its moments, it just seemed to rely on visual humor which i found works more for kids like it says in the Specials...
This is a movie for people who want to see interesting characters and personal interactions.
And a can of beer).A mockumentary on a mediocre superhero team, the Specials is great 'cause the fight scenes are verbal.
It's absolutely cheeky and self-deprecatory, and shows that superheros are like ordinary people.
Follow Nightbird, the newest member of The Specials as she fulfils a lifelong dream to become a superhero.Don't expect a lot of battles in this movie.
The Strobe and Ms. Indestructable are having marriage problems, Mr. Smart has some equipment malfunction, Kosgrove Toys really messes up the new Action Figure line, and poor Stretchy Boy, well let's just say, he's not grinning anymore.I found myself really liking this movie.
The Specials are listed as the sixth greatest superhero team in America and when they are not battling bad guys, recruiting new members, or trying to work on their public image, they are one big happy family or so it would seem.
The Specials are lead by The Strobe (Thomas Haden Church) as he strives to set a good example in the community and fight crime on all levels.
There is The Weevil (Rob Lowe) Deadly Girl (Judy Greer), Minute Man (James Gunn), and Amok (Jamie Kennedy).
Attempting to improve what looks to be a sinking ship, The Strobe announces that he has come to terms with a toy manufacturer for a line of action figures based on the Specials.
I for one would liked to have seen more and hope that the film will find an audience on DVD and we may yet hear more from `The Specials' as there is still more of their story to tell.
It's a funny superhero movie with a dance number and no displays of superpowers.
This low-budget improvement on Mystery Men is about real people with slightly unreal abilities that don't save them from personal problems you'll recognize.
(The trailer on the DVD lists Melissa Joan Hart 4th, despite the fact that she appears in exactly one scene.) On top of the cast issues, the plot sounds similar to Mystery Men, which had bombed a year earlier.Now, Lowe is respected again, Kennedy is an above the title star (nevermind the quality of the titles), and Hayden-Church is an Oscar nominee.
Unlike Mystery Men, which depended too much on special effects, this film has virtually NO action.
Few movies on T.V. are so bad that they make the commercials look good, but The Specials wins this prize.
Rob Lowe, on the other hand, saw through this invisible script from the first line and managed to avoid acting for the entire film.
Lowe, along with the rest of the cast, recognize that the lack of subtext and emotion and meaning and point to their lines of dialog mean the writer did less work than the guy who makes the coffee.
Rob Lowe, Jamie Kennedy, and Thomas Hayden Church lead us through a fun ride as the 7th or 8th greatest super hero team in the world.
The fact that the movie is focused on the personal life of the group and not about fighting evil just adds to the great story!.
I really like the satirical "grounded" superhero style found in movies like The Specials and Mystery Men.
Many people compare this to "Mystery Men" but say that the script was better...
I think it was worse - I actually liked mystery men - I though it was more polished than this one...
The Specials, the sixth or seventh greatest superhero group in the world, count the geeks and the oddballs among their fans.
There's the Weevil (Rob Lowe), the most popular member and the one pursued by other teams; the blue-skinned, foul-mouthed Amok; Minute (My-noot) Man, who is sensitive about his oft-mispronounced name; the ever-sneering Deadly Girl; the naive and boyish U.S. Bill; the Strobe, the leader of the team; the Strobe's wife, Ms. Indestructible, who is having an affair with the Weevil; the irritatingly perky Power Chick; the green-skinned weirdo, Alien Orphan; the fat and pompous Mr. Smart; and Eight, who has eight different bodies.
The company's disastrous press conference could mean the end to this cut-rate super-group."The Specials" is a comedy about superheroes that, thanks to a tiny budget, has no special effects and no scenes where the heroes demonstrate their powers (until the very end).
The gags are paramount, and the gags aren't even funny.The movie earns a certain perverse admiration from us for studiously avoiding the inevitable; and then it ruins even that with a brief, godawful special effects scene at the end that isn't even enjoyably cheesy; it's just bad.
While I'm not familiar with the X-statix comics,I have a feeling I'd probably derive more satisfaction out of those than this movie,which had some very neat things going for it,but was so laid-back and low-energy that it was difficult to keep an active interest in the movie.It's tempting to really beat up this flick because of its lack kineticism,but the characters are fairly engaging.In fact,I think this might be,in earnest,the REAL problem with this film.
Great comic book/geek movie!.
"MAKE HIM STOP!")If you are looking for a movie with great action scenes, lots o' sfx..
The fact that this and Mystery Men failed so miserably with basically the same premise/conflict set up makes me want to write the same movie only MAKE IT FUNNY THIS TIME.
With a good script I think it would have been possible to make a really low-budget movie that could entertain.
It amazes me that so many people equate a good movie with the amount of money in the action and special effects budget.
(But then again...Men In Black made a lot of money, and that's all it had going for it.)  I think it's a funny thing that the characters' makeup was poorly and inconsistently applied and that most of the movie takes place in an average house.
The whole idea of them is ridiculous, but the characters take them seriously.)  The fact that the superheroes take everything so seriously is the source of a lot of the movie's humor.I think the writing and the acting in this movie are both superb.
Thomas Haden Church, Jamie Kennedy, and James Gunn (the latter of which also wrote the movie) all played their roles perfectly.
Fight scenes get boring when you try to watch them more than once, but The Specials is interesting from start to finish.I apologize if I offended any fans of The Cutting Edge, Men In Black, and Mystery Men.
I was hoping for something funny and maybe in a different direction than "Mystery Men" (which I liked).
If "The Specials" would have been a big studio picture it may have been as good or better than 1999's "Mystery Men"  The movie is very well written comedy about a group of has-been super heroes trying to cope with everyday superhero life.
THE SPECIALS is one of those films that, if you're a creative person, inspires you...the way mediocrity inspires creativity.
The idea of a bunch of lesser-powered superheroes on their downtime is a good one, and one can see that writer James Gunn is a comic book reader, but the movie just doesn't pull off the concept.The script just isn't funny.
I was wondering when I would ever get to see these special powers the characters kept going on about, well you do see them for about 2 seconds at the very end of the film.
James Gunn's brilliant and witty script was not written for the beautiful people of the world, it was created for "the oddball, the rebel, the outcast, and the geek." This is the kind of fresh, outlandish script you find yourself quoting to your friends days later.Director Crain Mazin, working on a remarkably small shoe-string budget (that is revealed on the DVD), delivers an enjoyable film that has the courage to turn the focus away from special effects and back onto character.
Thomas Haden Church delivers an incredible performance as "The Great Strobe" that should be required viewing for any student of acting.I think this fim will develop a cult following like "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."  If it's shown at midnight movies the audience will  begin to dress-up like the characters and dance in the aisles when the song "Life is a Rock" pops up on the soundtrack..
If you like offbeat movies this is a good one..
Now, from me that means something since I can't usually find a way to like comedies because I've got a specialized sense of humor.
On that note, this movie I really liked; it's campy, it strange, but who cares, the actors and the script are great.
This movie works a lot like Mystery Men, but the difference is like Battlefield Earth and American Beauty.
The movie really never stops being funny, and you laugh at how retarded this "superheros" really are.
This is the anti super hero flick - no action, no special effects, no over the top story, lots of dialogue and it is played straight.
It is good because it is very very funny - but it's humour springs directly from satirising super hero comic books and films.
If people don't like it, screw that, I also loved Mars Attacks and Mystery Men. I still do!.
The idea is great: focus on a team of superheroes, completely throwing out battle scenes and action scenes, and look instead on their interactions.
Many of the allegedly witty one liners are predictable and stale, and the little bits with the characters talking directly to the camera are distracting and never explained in context.On the other hand, the action figure commercial is dead-on hilarious, *sometimes* the attempted cleverness of the dialogue works, and if you find stupid humor funny, you'll enjoy both US Bill and Alien Orphan Doug.I'd wait to rent this after it's moved off the "new release" shelf.
It could have been halfway decent in that format and it is a lot easier to sell the superhero stuff in comics than it is in a film without money for special effects.My feeling is you can't make a superhero movie for a mil, I don't care how you're doing it.
I think it would've made a huge difference if they had shown one or two shots of members of the Specials using their powers early on to establish their cred as heroes, but they don't and it's impossible for the cast to simulate superpowers, no matter how good they are as actors.The annoying thing about this is that you give $1 million bucks and 18 days to a number of directors, they could turn out something pretty special.
Kevin Smith made Clerks for $20K for crissakes, and even considering inflation that would've been maybe $60K in 2000, when this was made.Instead, director Craig Mazin and writer Gunn have given us another bottom-of-the-barrel superhero movie, as if we needed another one of those.It just goes to show how bass ackwards Hollywood can be--if these guys worked in any other business and this was the work they produced, they would be abruptly fired and unable to ever work again in that industry.
But the movie business doesn't seem to care whether their products are any good, hence Mazin is directing the upcoming "Superhero!" and Gunn is writing other gems like Scooby Doo 2.
I like this movie a lot.
You might have to be a comic book geek to really enjoy the movie, but if you do, I really recommend it.
I like Mystery Men and I like the Specials a lot more.Someone compared it to This is Spinal Tap, but for superhero groups - a comparison I agree with, though the Specials is ever so slightly more subtle and I enjoy it more.
You'll want to be a Special too after seeing this movie!.
Not only is the movie itself great fun, the DVD also comes with a good amount of extras - no commentary track, though, which is a bummer.
If you like action, this is not the movie for you.
It reminds me of Kevin Smith's movies, which I love and it's also like a more hardcore version of Mystery Men without the special effects or action but with more human characters whose flaws and foibles are painfully displayed.
Overall a great movie and the fact that they splurged a little to actually show their powers at the end was a nice touch..
Personally, I liked Mystery Men better.
Dialogue is kinda goofily-fun, but the use of profanity (which, generally, I have nothing against) I think was too excessive for this genre of film, to the point where it detracted from the movie.
In fact, it almost gave it a "dark comedy" feel which I don't think works for a superhero movie.
I think moreover, that there were just too many unsympathetic characters in this film, especially the adulterous Ms. Indestructible (I REALLY did not like her).
The costumes and visual effects were very nice -- lots that jumped out at you.Still, this could not make up for the fact that, to me, this movie just wasn't that funny.
Nice try, but nothing "special."My Grade: C-/D+ (See Mystery Men instead).
The movie is basically a spoof on the hero films of yore but add in a lot less actions and a good deal more curse words.
The humor definitely isn't main stream and is more subtle, but if you like that sort of thing or are a fan of any member of the cast then SEE THIS MOVIE!
Mystery Men was based on actual characters from a comic called "The Flaming Carrot" which is in its own right an amazing piece of work.
On the other hand "The Specials" was completely fabricated.Also if you want to see this because you liked "Spiderman" or "X- Men", yet have never read any comics, you probably won't get it.The entire premise of the movie is to show what the members of a team of superheroes do on their day off.
It tries to say "Superheroes are people too", and it does this beautifully.I loved both Mystery Men and The Specials, but would never try to compare the two.
This movie was way ahead of it's time, even though it was released around the same time as the similar Mystery Men. Why was it was ahead of it's time is that everything that Mystery Men did wrong The Specials did right.My only complaint is that the DVD doesn't come with the TV cut on it.
I could see the irony the makers of this film were trying to get across, but it could have done with having just a little bit more super-hero action injected into the proceedings.As a biting satire on the super-hero/comic book industry, the "Mystery Men" movie was far more entertaining, and had far more action.
Very good.Just dont go looking for a lot of action, this movie is built more around personal drama and comedy.
Again hollywood makes a movie out of superheroes, when are these guys gonna learn.
What makes it so funny: superheroes that aren't too super and the way it shows how difficult it is to be a little different.
Alien Orphan alone is a reason to watch the film, but all of the "superheroes" are great in this.
The specials, like Mystery Men, could have been a truly great cult classic.
Definitely what to expect from a Rob Lowe Superhero.
If you have watched "Superhero Movie" and "The Specials" side by side, "Superhero Movie" would look like a blockbuster movie.
James Gunn gave us a purposely bad movie to show us how not to do a superhero movie, such as not getting Rob Lowe, but it might as well of been Kevin Smith directing the movie.
Had it been a little more serious than it was we could have probably had the superhero craze at least 5 years earlier and may of had a better script for such movies like "Daredevil", the first "X- Men" and "Superman Returns" just to list a few.
But the movies' existence may have stopped some writers in writing these better scripts for fear of "This is what the masses will expect." We may never know but its just my theory.
But what really makes this movie so funny and enjoyable are the spirited and engaging performances from the uniformly excellent cast.