My Super Ex-Girlfriend - Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson in a Dysfunctional Relationship
Written: Jul 29 '06
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Interesting idea for the plot with some funny moments. Good cast.
Cons: Not funny enough for a comedy. One dimensional characters.
The Bottom Line: My Super Ex-Girlfriend could have been a lot better than it was.
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| dragonfire88's Full Review: My Super Ex-Girlfriend |
Ever since I was a child watching Hulk, Spider-Man and Super Friends cartoons, I have been interested in things dealing with superheroes. Over the years I have seen many movies featuring superheroes, some which were much better than others. I will basically watch any movie with a superhero as a character at least once. I’ve even been known to watch some really bad ones more than once. I thought that My Super Ex-Girlfriend looked like it would be interesting when I first heard about it and I decided to go see it.
G-Girl was a superhero living in New York City who used her powers to help people whenever she could. Her other identity was as Jenny Johnson, a woman who worked at an art gallery and blended in. Jenny met and started dating Matt Saunders. Right from their first date, Matt felt like Jenny had some issues, but he kept dating her. Certain things made more sense when she decided to tell him she was also G-Girl. Matt liked the idea of dating her, but the longer they dated the more he felt like she was just too needy and jealous. Jenny was not pleased when Matt broke up with her and she set out to make his life miserable by using her super powers against him.
The idea of superheroes struggling to have some sort of normal life while also using their powers to help people has been explored in more than one superhero movie in the last several years. It was probably best done in Spider-Man 2. Jenny was a very powerful superhero who was trying to have a normal life, including dating a normal man. She said things in a few scenes that indicated that she was frustrated at least sometimes with the demands of being G-Girl and how they interfered with her having some kind of normal life. Other than those few things, that idea really wasn’t developed or followed through on in My Super Ex-Girlfriend. If that plot idea had been stronger, the movie could have ended up better over all. In a short interview I recently saw, Uma Thurman talked about how Jenny really didn’t like being a superhero and just helped people because she felt it was the right thing to do with her powers. That really wasn’t conveyed in the movie.
G-Girl used her powers several times throughout My Super Ex-Girlfriend. I think special effects were used for most of those scenes. The effects were fine without being anything really great. I’m guessing that for some of the shots that featured G-Girl flying, wires were used. Once scene did share how Jenny had gotten her powers to begin with, and effects were involved. I did wonder why her hair color changed and she became more endowed when she got the powers. I did wonder why Jenny decided on using the name of G-Girl even though it really wasn’t important and that was never explained. Most movies with superheroes in them have several action scenes. There really weren’t that many in this movie since the focus of the movie was the relationship and how Jenny flipped out when Matt ended things. The movie did have a few scenes that had elements that do tend to show up in most superhero movies. Most of the time when Jenny/G-Girl used her powers, it was against Matt after things fell apart.
The relationship between Matt and Jenny/G-Girl was very important to the plot of My Super Ex-Girlfriend. The relationship was really the driving force of the movie and without it there wouldn’t have been a movie. Matt and Jenny’s first meeting was shared as well as a bit of their developing relationship. Even at first Matt had a feeling that Jenny had issues but he kept going out with her for some reason. I’m really not sure why he bothered to go out with her again after he had such a bad vibe from her during the first date. They did get intimate and there were a few sex scenes between them, including one when G-Girl took Matt flying and decided it would be fun to have sex then even though Matt was clearly uncomfortable with that idea. The sex scenes didn’t include any nudity, though they were suggestive. The only nudity happened in another scene when Matt’s bare backside was shown, which had to contribute to the PG-13 rating. There were some discussions about sex that got a bit descriptive as well. Parents should keep that in mind if thinking about letting a child see the movie. It was clear that this wasn’t a loving relationship even though Matt was dazzled by the idea of having sex with G-Girl. I really didn’t think was a romantic movie.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend really wasn’t that funny for a movie that was supposed to be a comedy. It seemed like things related to Jenny and how messed up she was when it came to dealing with a relationship were supposed to be funny. Most of them weren’t. Frankly, most of that stuff was just pathetic, especially once Jenny flipped out and started using her powers against Matt. It wasn’t like Matt had treated her badly or had been abusive in anyway. He wasn’t a bad guy. He just didn’t love her and didn’t want to deal with her issues anymore. As a superhero, G-Girl was supposed to do the right things and use her powers for good. She did do that, but once the relationship ended, she seemed to only be using them to get back at Matt. She even tried to use her heat vision to cook his fish in the aquarium. A few of the things were mildly funny but they mostly just made Jenny look petty and childish. A male character that did that sort of stuff, superhero or not, would have been labeled an abusive stalker. Superman did use a few of his powers when he was checking up on Lois in Superman Returns, but he didn’t go as far as G-Girl did. Since it was a woman flipping out, it was supposed to be hilarious. I just failed to see what was funny about many of the things in the movie.
None of the characters in My Super Ex-Girlfriend were really that developed. The characters were created just for this movie instead of already being established in comics like has happened with most superhero movies. Matt was a nice enough guy struggling to deal with a woman who turned psychotic when the relationship didn’t work out. Luke Wilson was fine in the part. Wilson did end up with more screen time than he had in Legally Blonde and Legally Blonde 2: Red, White and Blonde. I think this part was even bigger than the one he had in The Family Stone.
Hannah was a nice woman that Matt worked with. The two were friends with possibly some stronger feelings. I thought that Anna Faris actually did a good job with the part. She didn’t seem as ditzy as she has in the Scary Movie series or Just Friends. Vaughn was Matt’s friend who gave out all sorts of relationship advice even though he couldn’t manage to get a woman to even talk to him most of the time. Rainn Wilson was fine in the part. The only other movie I’d seen him in was Sahara. Wanda Sykes was completely wasted as Carla, Matt’s boss. She had much more to do in Monster-in-Law and even Over the Hedge. Professor Bedlam turned up in a few scenes as part of a subplot that didn’t receive much attention. He was a villain that G-Girl had been dealing with for years. The two had actually gone to high school together. Eddie Izzard really didn’t have much to work with. I liked his voice performance as Nigel in The Wild a lot more.
Jenny was a huge mess as a character. She was needy and prone to jealous rages. She was also G-Girl and she did use her powers to help people most of the time. There were a few times when she seemed to resent her powers and needing to rush off to help with some new disaster, which would be understandable. She had decided to use her powers for good, but she still wanted to have some semblance of a normal life. Unfortunately that aspect of Jenny really wasn’t explored and instead the movie focused on her rages after the relationship ended. She wasn’t that nice for much of the movie. I saw a short interview with Uma Thurman on television where she talked about the character a bit. She claimed the character had all these qualities that I just didn’t see in the movie, like how she was such a strong woman role model. Maybe the character was more sane in the screenplay, but I certainly didn’t think she was strong - other than her powers - or good role model material. I’ve like Thurman in several other movies, like Be Cool, Jennifer 8, Paycheck, and The Producers (2005).
Main Cast
Anna Faris - Hannah
Eddie Izzard - Professor Bedlam
Wanda Sykes - Carla
Uma Thurman - Jenny/G-Girl
Luke Wilson - Matt
Rainn Wilson - Vaughn
Ivan Reitman - Director
My Super Ex-Girlfriend had the potential to be so much better than it was. There were a few parts of the movie that were all right and even funny, but there just weren’t enough of them. Even with the problems I did manage to be entertained for the most part since it wasn’t all bad. I have seen much worse. The movie will probably end up disappointing most people. This barely qualified as a three star movie for me.
Superhero/Comic Book Related Reviews
Batman ~ Batman Returns ~ Batman Forever ~ Batman Begins ~ Batman: The Ultimate Guide to The Dark Knight ~ Elektra ~ Fantastic Four ~ Flash Gordon ~ The Incredibles ~ The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ~ Lois & Clark: The Complete First Season ~ Sky High ~ Spider-Man ~ Spider-Man 2 ~ Superman Returns ~ Superman: The Ultimate Guide to the Man of Steel ~ X-Men ~ X2: X-Men United ~ X-Men: The Last Stand ~ X-Men: The Legend of Wolverine ~ Ultimate X-Men ~ V for Vendetta ~
Recommended:
No
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