Meteor Man
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DVD details
Actor: Eddie Griffin, Robert TownsendBrand: Sony
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-02-18
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Meteor Man
DVD Review: Good ideas. poor execution. Meteor Man is very very rocky.
Summary: 2 Stars
Robert Townsend's the Meteor Man was supposed to be a satire of Comic books and Superheroes. Unfortunately, it's a poor copy of the Batman TV show of the 60's without any of the humor. Townsend makes a ton of mistakes here and all of them make the movie one of the worst you'll ever see.Meteor Man could have been a lot of fun to watch; a black superhero satire film is really an interesting premise. While Townsend is very good at satire he doesn't know that the method of acting in this type of satire is actually "Camp." In order to make fun of Comic books and Superheroes you must understand the mechanics of comedy and what style works best to tell the jokes in. Superheroes are already farfetched and the only way to poke fun at them in their world is for the characters to take themselves seriously. Unfortunately, Townsend tells to cast to take their roles for a joke and that's a big mistake. "Camp" only works when the actors play their roles seriously. The serious performances working in tandem with the satiric jokes pokes fun at the ridiculousness of the situations the hero involves himself in as opposed to how it's seen in the real world and that's what makes it funny. When the actors are aware of the joke we can't laugh with them or at them. Contrast MM to the Batman TV show, Wild Wild West, or Sam Raimi's Hercules, Xena, or even the Tick TV series. In each of these shows the actors take their roles so seriously that we laugh at how absurd the situations are as opposed to the real world. We know about the jokes that the characters don't.
Townsend's second mistake was casting big name stars in the film. To make Camp work you need to cast unknown actors in the roles so they blend into the characters. People Like Bill Cosby, Luther Vandross and James Earl Jones stand out like sore thumbs in this film and look so ridiculous that we can't laugh at the jokes they tell. The use of then rapper Big Daddy Kane, commedian Sinbad and the group Another Bad creation wearing bad blond fades just look cartoonish. Smaller actors taking their roles seriously would have made this work.
Townsend's third and final mistake in this film was the script. It's not serious. It makes comic books look cartoonish. On top of that it's preachy and shallow; it's clear that he didn't research comic books or superheroes at all before writing it. The origin and the powers of the meteor man come together so poorly that we can't suspend our disbelief at his superhuman abilities. A meteor slamming into a man would kill him, not give him powers. Him toching a meteor rock and getting powers would make sense. On top of that his powers are inconsistent. Flight and Super Strength make sense but the ability to read any book by touching it had me scratching my head.
I don't see this film as a creative failure for Robert Townsend. I'm glad he tried to do something different and original with a Black film. Meteor Man had the potential to be something great, however, Townsend didn't do the necessary research to make this type of comedy work. He might have watched the old Batman show for reference, but didn't take the time to dissect the jokes to understand what made them funny like he did in his great first film Hollywood Shuffle. I'm hoping someone tries another film like this because I think someone who understands the style of humor that camp is could make a truly great film.
Description of Meteor Man
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