Review of The Specials (2000) by Paul C — 07 Dec 2009

Found this one on Netflix Instant View and I figured I'd give it a chance. I remember around 1999 when The Specials and Mystery Men were both in production, the two movies looked practically identical in concept. But The Specials had a certain kind of underdog spirit to them because they clearly had no money. Then when Mystery Men actually came out and it was a bit of an unfocused mess and was a bit disappointing, I thought, well maybe The Specials can do it better. But I never saw a theatrical release of the Specials, and now that I've seen it on Instant View, I know that's because it's a piece of shit.

The one thing that The Specials has going for it is an awful lot of really good B-level on camera talent. Judy Greer, Rob Lowe, Thomas Haden Church, Melissa Joan Hart, Jamie Kennedy, and so on, and they're all talented and charming in their own way, but none of them is a headliner, and that was even MORE true back in 1999. But they are all mostly talented. You wouldn't know it from this movie, but they are.

Probably the biggest problem here is the director Craig Mazin, who went on to write and direct and produce for the Zuckers after the Zuckers stopped being funny. The biggest problem is just that the movie isn't funny. And that's mostly due to timing and execution. James Gunn (who would later write the remake for Dawn of the Dead and then write and direct Slither), put together some vaguely amusing concepts, and the cast is talented enough to run with it, but the timing is way off pretty much throughout. Sure the production shows its budget, but it's not because it looks cheap that it's boring. It's because it's boring that we notice it looks so cheap.

This is an opposite approach to the same concept that Mystery Men took. Mystery Men was big and over-blown and unfocussed with too many directions and too many stories. The Specials is small and ridiculously unambitious and doesn't even achieve it's own compromised, meager goals.