Italian Spiderman

2007 parody

Rating: n/r

Plot: The evil Captain Maximum is trying to get his hands on an asteroid that has cloning power, and it's up to Italian Spiderman to save the day. Italian Spiderman is chubby.

And then I reached the point in my life where I was watching Italian Spiderman. This sentence will end a chapter in my unauthorized autobiography, and if anybody gets that far in the book (it will be very poorly written, probably with way too many parenthetical asides), they will know that the next chapter will be a major turning point in my life. This is a choppy but really pretty clever parody of foreign films that nab Western superheros or action stars for use in their own movies. Yeah, they're looking at you here, Turkey. Apparently, there were a lot of these types of movies--a few Spidermans, a handful of Supermans. I've seen clips, and those seem like parodies themselves. Some of this, just as you'd expect from a parody of something that is already stupid, gets too stupid. There's a scene where Italian Spiderman and Captain Maximum have a surfing competition, for example. Still, Italian Spiderman is quite a bit of fun and surprisingly clever. The titular superhero doesn't seem to have superpowers. He's overweight, he womanizes, and he smokes, so I'm not sure he's the best role model for the youth of Italy. He does tell you to respect women though. Of course, that is during a scene in which he is punching one, but still. After some cool old-school 70's opening credits featuring women with machine guns, you get a fastly-paced story that in no way takes itself or anything else seriously. Obvious dummies, over-goofed expressions, a fight between the hero and a crocodile (maybe an alligator) man, bad guys in Mexican wrestling masks. It's sleazy psychedelica. It's all very episodic, likely because this was released in installments over the Internet, but that only adds to the charm. And the confusion. I enjoyed the product placement--Il Gallo cigarettes which apparently come from a squeezed chicken. Speaking of chickens, check out this scene:

See? I told you he was chubby. That's right after the fight with the alligator (or crocodile) man. The costume for that villain was probably made by the same guy who made the tiger man costume in Bruce Lee's posthumous Game of Death II. Here's another scene featuring the main villain, the evil surfing Captain Maximum. I'm only showing you this because I want you to see what my life has become. Consider it some kind of warning.

And then there's this:

Italian Spiderman! He's not your dad's Spiderman! He's not friendly, and I don't think you'd want him anywhere near your neighborhood. Unless a crocodile (alligator?) man or thugs in luche libre masks were harrassing you and your neighbors.