Luke Wilson as Matt Saunders and Uma Thurman as Jenny Johnson/G-Girl star in 20th Century Fox’s My Super Ex-Girlfriend, ©2006.
I haven’t seen any well made movie staring a superheroin, and to be truthful I still haven’t. What’s interesting about My Super Ex-Girlfriend is that it is in a way, Superman with the roles reversed. The role of the damsel in distress is now a gentlemen, and the superman character is replaced with a tacky G-Girl who is an insecure control freak.
Something else that sort of stuck out about the film was that Luke Wilson, a fairly good actor who is so used to playing side characters, it was odd to actually watch him play the lead. To actually clarify, he was actually much better for side-characters and supporting roles, Luke Wilson is only good in small doses.
While Matt Saunders (Luke Wilson), a lonely single guy who works in architecture who we should believe deserves the best, takes the subway with his best friend, Vaughn Haige (The Office’s Rainn Wilson), a sex obsessed geek, and encourages to ask a strange woman on the train out. She’s looks like the quiet library type with brown glasses and thick brown hair. When a man on the subway steals her purse, and he tries to retrieve it, she, Jenny Johnson (Uma Thurman) decides to go out with him.
When the relationship starts to get serious, he finds out she’s really the famous superhero G-Girl, and is being pursued by an old friend turned villain from high school, Bedlam (Eddie Izzard). As she becomes more controlling and upset with a Matt’s relationship with a co-worker (Anna Faris), he dumps her and she uses her powers to torture him.
When I first saw the trailer for this film, I was actually a little excited to see it. Why? A. A superhero comedy. B. Funny characters, especially Raiin Wilson, and C. Uma Thurman throwing a Great White Shark through an apartment window.
The largest problem for this film was the screenplay, Don Payne, who has only written a few episodes of The Simpsons and is writing the Fantastic Four sequel. From what I can tell from this film, that is a very bad sign for that upcoming film. The written humor is especially weak, and the only kick out of this film we can really get is Uma using her powers to torture Wilson (Luke) and when Wanda Sikes (his boss) is busting him for possible sexual harassment.
The relationship between Matt and Vaughn is actually a little entertaining and reminded me a lot of the Clerks. If you haven’t seen Clerks , it’s basically just a few guys standing around talking about meaningless things with a serious attitude for an extended period of time. Except, they are just focused on Matt’s relationship and occasionally sex related issues.
Luke Wilson is suprisingly weak, the loveable actor of so many supporting roles has achieved the lead we’ve expected him in for so long, but does so poorly. Fortunately, it’s not entirely his fault, for his character is not written the way we’ve wanted to see him, and I think in a way he was also disappointed with the role he received.
Uma Thurman and Anna Faris put on fair performances, but I think Anna really needs to get a role where she can prove what she is capable of. Uma has done plenty of roles and has even gotten herself nominated for an Oscar for her role in Pulp Fiction back in 1994. Faris has appeared in a few good roles, but has been the lead in those pathetic Scary Movie films, unfortunately the films most people can only recall her from. And yet, this is another pathetic film people will be able to recall her from. She needs to put herself farther out there, so not to let anyone have her in movies, but to be open to be willing to wait for better films. Does that make her an “easy” actress? I guess.
Rated PG-13 for sexual content, crude humor, language and brief nudity.
Running time 95 minutes.