BEFORE: Had dinner over at my sister's place, spent some time with my niece + nephew, and learned that "Cookie Starts With C" (and that's good enough for me, apparently) and that one has to "Put Down the Ducky" if one wants to play the saxophone. Then I went out bowling so I was out in a sports-oriented crowd when the Celtics lost Game 7 of the NBA Finals. Tonight it's another movie about an urban superhero combating crime at the street level.
THE PLOT: One night Jefferson Reed gets hit in the chest by a souped-up chunk of meteor. Now his friends and family want him to protect their community from the dreaded Golden Lords.
AFTER: In terms of tone, this one mostly plays it straight. Not much camp, unless you count Meteor Man's ridiculous costume, or the strange superpower of being able to read an entire book just by touching it - it just seems like a way to give Meteor Man any superpower the writers want, just by getting him to touch a particular book.
Jefferson Reed (Robert Townsend) sets out to protect his neighborhood in Washington DC (or is it Baltimore? Philly?) from a drug gang called the Golden Lords, who all have blond hair and indoctrinate children like they're the Hitler Youth or something. I know it's a movie, but I doubt that in real life that organized crime is this....well, organized. I just don't think that every criminal happens to know every OTHER criminal as part of some international conglomerate.
This movie does expose a strange dichotomy of superheroes - who preach a message of truth and justice, but mostly end up resorting to more violence to take down criminals. Usually it's the hero with the strongest fists that wins, which doesn't seem to jibe very well with a message of fair play and non-violence. This ties in with the strange ending of this film, in which Meteor Man is saved from one gang by two gangs he helped before, with more guns. So...guns are good? Gangs are helpful? Police are ineffectual? It's a strange message for the kids. I understand him getting help from the downtrodden citizens and the dogs, but getting help from gangs seems a bit off-message.
Also starring Eddie Griffin, Robert Guillaume, James Earl Jones, Marla Gibbs, Don Cheadle (as a gang leader), Sinbad, Frank Gorshin, Luther Vandross (as another gang leader!), Tiny Lister, John Witherspoon, Wallace Shawn and Bill Cosby.
RATING: 5 out of 10 bad hairpieces
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