My Super Ex-Girlfriend is one of the worst films of the year. And it isn’t bad because the jokes aren’t funny. Well, it’s partly that. It certainly isn’t bad because of the actors – Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson both do justice to their parts as written, and then some. No, this film took a dive because it was written from the point of the view of the male figure when it should have been from the female’s. What could have been the ultimate revenge fantasy for dumped women everywhere is instead a shallow, hateful, pointless in exercise the typical adolescent male in our culture.
Written by Don Payne and directed by the great Ivan Reitman, My Super Ex-Girlfriend manages to be both insulting to women, to superheroes and to super-villains all at the same time. Finally, it insults the intelligence of the audience by being so insipid, even with the one or two genuine performances. Ms. Thurman, despite her obvious good looks, isn’t exactly a big box office draw anymore, if she ever was in the first place, so the film’s only hope of making a dime was good word of mouth. And that will be hard to come by.
This is one of those movies that might have been a good idea once upon a couch, as inspiration hit – what if a guy dates a psycho-bitch superhero? How does he dump her when he realizes she’s crazy without having superhero powers unleashed upon him? From that, they developed G-Girl, a.k.a. Jenny Johnson (Thurman), a mild-mannered (what else?) superhero who works in a gallery but also saves Manhattan from a host of evils. She can do everything Superman can do and she can do it in heels!
One day, she happens upon Matt (Wilson), an architect (what else?) who isn’t so lucky with the ladies. He saves her purse from a purse snatcher and suddenly, he’s her hero. She awkwardly begins the dating process but isn’t supposed to have the experience to carry it off. She obsessively goes to the “bathroom” (meaning she dashes off to save the world from destruction in hopes of dashing back before the appetizers arrive) and turns out to be one knock-out in bed. Okay, you following it so far? Here’s a recap. Blah blah blah superhero Uma Thurman blah blah blah, romances Luke Wilson, blah blah blah superhero sex. Though you might think it sounds exciting, superhero sex was never more boring or predictable.
Meanwhile, Matt is secretly in love with his blonde office mate, Hannah (Anna Faris) and wants to dump Jenny, whom he’s dubbed as having the worst possible qualities any female can have: needy, jealous, controlling. But how do you dump a superhero? Very carefully. What you expect might happen does happen. Only your imagination is probably more thrilling.
What a disappointment this film is. We finally get a female superhero movie and she turns out to be a horrid cliché. How much more funny and satisfying it would have been if Matt hadn’t been so sweet but had been a true cad. It would have been delightful watching him be brought down by a woman with super-human strength. Especially Thurman, who is so good here it’s a crying shame she wasn’t given more to do.
Not even Eddie Izzard, woefully miscast as a super-villain, could bring this film back from the dead. It was a mistake from start to finish. And sadly, not worth the time it takes to watch it. Do something else instead. Anything else.
